Why I hate self righteous vegetarians

I believe I know the cause of the drama on sunday. But to explain I need to backtrack a little.

The Story
——–
On saturday I came to the conclusion that my myspace had far too many people on it that I haven’t talked to. In order to remedy this I put out a bulletin asking all vegetarians and vegans to send me a message so I could add them to the list/category. I even made a note that the message could be completely blank cause I would add them to the category and even initiate conversation.

I had lots of replies and added them all and made sure to say hi to everyone.

Sounds all well and good right?

Well it was.

After a VERY long saturday night I ended up sleeping in late on sunday. I woke up, rolled over and grabbed my iphone to check my email. I received an email from a name I didn’t recognize with no subject.

The contents of that email? a simple screenshot:

That’s it… no words, or anything.

Baffled as to what this could mean I looked closely at the email. Well obviously I know the definition of a vegetarian and a vegan so I dismissed that instantly. I noticed that bit about protein so I wrote this as a response:

“Hey Hollie,

I’m not sure if you were just sending me a picture of the definitions or if you were showing me something about Protein.

If it was about Protein then I hope there was more to that article cause it isn’t very accurate. While, yes, Proteins are either complete or incomplete they didn’t explain why. 

Your body breaks food down then assembles Protein from individual amino acids. Protein that contains all essential amino acids is called “complete” protein. Protein that contains some, but not all essential amino acids, is called “incomplete” protein. It used to be believed that all amino acids must be eaten at the same time to form complete proteins. We now know that incomplete proteins can be stored in the body for many days to be combined with other incomplete proteins. As long as all essential amino acids are in the diet, it does not matter if the proteins are complete or incomplete. 

This is why vegans take supplements to make sure we get all of our amino acids.

Also, the amount of protein recorded on food labels only lists the COMPLETE proteins. So when you read a label on say tofu, then you know that is your complete protein. A product may contain much higher amounts of incomplete protein that is not listed. If you are taking supplements as a vegan for your amino acids then you receive even more protein than what is listed. 

I hope that explained things a bit more
Have a great day!
-Trent Nathan Taylor”

See that kids? Even when I have no idea what you’re talking about I’m still a nice/helpful guy!!

The Build up
———
Well after a day with no response I looked at the name again and saw a familiarity in the spelling of her first name. I’m terribly good with names, it’s a curse…

So I typed in the person’s full name on myspace and figured out who it was. So I was going to send her a comment to say “hey I got your email but there was no text =/ you can message me on here or on aim”

However it turns out i’m not her friend anymore… So I think… why would someone who was interested in talking to me one day defriend me the next?

So I thought about it a bit and it all clicked. She must have read something on my profile she didn’t appreciate and sent me that email as a passive aggressive attack.

So what was this heinous piece of literature on my page?

This:
I think vegetarians that eat eggs are just really picky carnivores
I think pescatarians are just idiots
None of those things mean I can’t be your friend though

As a vegetarian she must have been offended that I would call her a carnivore and sent me that screenshot to show me what a “vegetarian” really is…

So now I know that the email was NOT sent with good intentions and with that negativity comes consequences… The consequence of me not being nice.

The Rant
——–
The reason I call vegetarians “really picky carnivores” is a simple one… THEY ARE! One of my biggest pet peeves are people who can claim one thing is wrong and turn a blind eye to another because it suits them.

How so? Well lets go back to the definition that Hollie was so gracious to provide.

“Vegetarian: someone who chooses not to eat any meat or fish but still eats dairy products and eggs”

While that may look correct to some there is an important distinction to make. A vegetarian doesn’t eat meat but will eat an egg… Well what is an egg? Last time I checked… it was a baby chicken… did I miss the miracle process that put NuEgg or EnerG into a single, shelled container??

So that means it is not ok to eat a chicken but it’s offspring are easy pickings?

Now a hot blooded vegetarian would swear up and down that an egg is not meat because it has no flesh and has not been fertilized. Are these things true? Absolutely! But look at things from another perspective…

Eggs->Chicks= Rooster+Time
———
Where do your eggs come from? They come from large farms where hens are raised in cramped cages where they live until they produce no more eggs and are slaughtered… This is to maximize profits… profits you provide them when buying their products.

What’s that? You eat organic free range eggs? well god bless your little heart… but those hens still aren’t allowed to mate. And when those hens stop laying eggs? they become organic free range fillets. To make matters worse these farms are almost always bought by bigger farms to gain a profit from you buying organic.

So what if they DO have rooster? what if they ARE allowed to mate? Well then the eggs you eat only need time to become a chick. Time you deny them by scrambling them for breakfast.

In the end you either eat chickens before they become chickens or you give profits to those that oppress and slaughter them.

I completely understand that my views are different from everyone else. I don’t expect to change the world or to even change one person. These are my personal views and no one elses. I believe supporting a kill is just as good as killing yourself. Eating something that can/will one day be a living breathing animal is the same as eating that animal fully grown. It’s all the same to me.

You can even hold all of the above true to cows and milk. Though I understand that a cows standard of living is actually much much higher than a hen.

You know what would that makes it worse?
If you claim to be an animal rights activist and have pictures of baby chickens on your myspace… HOLLIE

So you, in my eyes, are a Carnivore

Get your reading glasses
————
Let’s look at that screenshot again

Oh look… you can’t even get information from a site that SPELLS vegetarian correctly

So now you’re a Dumb Carnivore

The Icing on the cake
—————
Now let’s look back on the bit that started this all”

“I think vegetarians that eat eggs are just really picky carnivores
I think pescatarians are just idiots
None of those things mean I can’t be your friend though”

So we know what I think about vegetarians by now. My views on pescatarians are based on the same premise. I don’t like how people can say eating on type of flesh is wrong but a certain KIND of flesh is aok. It’s all flesh and if you think eating flesh is wrong then it’s ALL wrong.

The most important line is that last one. I don’t care what your beliefs are. I don’t want to change you and I don’t want you changing me. I have friends who eat meat, I have friends who hunt. I even have friends from different religions and races!

That’s right… If you’re a decent human being then I will be your friend! Crazy concept huh?

So now we know that Hollie will refuse to be my friend because of my views and will then attack me (albeit passively) because of them. Now what do we call a person that is prejudiced against people with different views? oh yeah! a Bigot

So now you’re a Dumb Carnivorous Bigot.

Conclusion
——–
If you have different views than me… I don’t care. As long as you respect me we will be fine. The moment you decide to shun then attack me is the moment my normally sweet and caring demeanor goes out the window.

This leaves a bad taste in my mouth. A certain level of disdain that stings a little more than it should, because it comes someone with like views.

And for those vegetarians and pescatarians reading this I want to make something clear. I realize there is a plethora of reasons on why someone goes on a restrictive diet. You might be lactose intolerant, or unable to process the high protein in flesh, allergies, etc. I have ZERO problems with you. What I have a problem with are those that claim they are doing it from an ethical standpoint. The reason for that is because they end up picking a choosing what is right and what is wrong solely on what benefits them personally.

~ by vegantnt on October 20, 2008.