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Are food allergies another aspect of the culture war? I was reading Reddit and a person was feeding 100 people and someone mentioned to make sure you have all the allergies/food restrictions covered. Being honest I’ve never met anyone with a food restriction I can think of except a lot of brown friends who won’t eat sausage but also have no problem with alcohol.
Ancient religions had a lot of restrictions, now Im borrowing this from elsewhere that the rise of food restrictions is just the same thing as ancients banning certain foods as holy acts. I’ve long argued that the culture wars are less of a culture war and more of a religious war and dietary restrictions are just a modern form of Jews and Muslims banning pork/shellfish etc and Catholics not eating meat on fridays. All religions seem to have focuses on eating and sexual rituals.
I know mental illness has far higher rates amongst lefties. My guess is dietary restrictions and food allergies are much higher in lefties and if your not in that religion it’s something you never think of.
I have to go off on this. The trend (and it very much is a trend) to have a personal, unique set of food “sensitivities” is very annoying to me, and makes hosting guests near impossible
I recently invited an acquaintance and his wife over for a homecooked dinner and was informed he had a gluten “sensitivity”. Not celiac or a deathly allergy mind you, just a vaguely termed sensitivity. It occurred to me how selfish this is, in a way. Because if more than one person has such non-overlapping sensitivities you pretty rapidly reach a point where the intersection of acceptable foods is empty. If one person is gluten free, another vegan, another paleo, another won’t eat seed oils, what exactly are you supposed to cook?
Any meal can only really support one such person before a home cook has to just throw up their hands and say that there won’t be a meal and everyone should just eat on their own. So by making such a claim you are claiming that one spot for yourself and more or less destroying the meal should anyone else dare to do the same
It especially annoys me because these claimed sensitivities usually just cause the person to “feel lethargic” or some such vague nonsense. Can you not suck it up for the sake of a social gathering once in a while? There was a maybe 6 year period where I was vegetarian, but I would eat meat if at someone’s house for Thanksgiving or some such, it just would have been rude to stick to my diet
What's annoying about this is that only some dietary restrictions are honored.
For instance: I often eat a keto diet. This means lots of high fat, usually red meat. But when places with catered food ask me for my dietary restrictions ask, do you really think they'd accept "I eat a new york strip and runny eggs with a side of avacado for breakfast every morning, so please have that ready."?
However, if somebody asks for vegan food, that is always accommodated, even though in my opinion that is far more of a taste thing. Non adherence to my low carb diet will actually have measurable negative effects. A vegan eating a normal diet won't be meaningfully effected other than not being happy about it (at first, until they realize how good it tastes of course! Just kidding).
This is...at least adjacent to autoimmune diseases if not outright autoimmune. Autoimmune disease is fairly poorly understood by medicine, and often gets lumped in with people that are faking or malingering plus people who have something like conversion disorder. And to complicate matters further, there's shit like complex regional pain syndrome...it's a fucking mess, and there is not usually a very good way of telling genuine assholes from people that really need a specific diet.
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The consensus among researchers is that non-celiac gluten sensitivity its a distinct, but closely related disease to celiac. Part of the reason there has been debate is because we didn't have any biomarkers for it, at least until 2020:
https://gut.bmj.com/content/69/11/1966
I would try and be more sympathetic to your friend. While 'feeling lethargic' is vague, the only celiac symptom I had was 'a weird rash', which I had for more than ten years before actually realising what the cause was. For a lot of diagnosed celiacs, symptoms can be as vague as lethargy, anxiety, mild depression, poor sleep, bloating etc. That doesn't mean that they are malingering, it just means that autoimmune diseases manifest in a large number of different ways.
Yeah, I have two family members who are diagnosed celiac (my father very very nearly almost died before they correctly diagnosed it; it wasn't on the radar back then). My blood work came back negative many years ago, but apparently, it can still develop later. My wife and I realized that I was always particularly bloaty/farty for a day or so after having gluten (she seemed farty, too; has never been tested), so we just stopped. Haven't gotten new blood work. I remember when my family was dealing with the doctors, they said that even if you don't have noticeable symptoms, it can still cause damage to the intestines and increase the risk of intestinal cancer.
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My brother has a gluten issue (I don't know if it counts as a "sensitivity", but the doctors aren't 100% sure it's celiac, but is extremely similar so the distinction is moot), which causes him to be lethargic, messes with his digestive system and causes him to break out in red sores all over his body. The latter of which can last for weeks after having eaten nontrivial amounts of gluten in a single meal, and is the most obvious and provable evidence that the condition is real.
It's not like it's going to kill him (though the doctors say that it may increase the risk of colon cancer), but neither will drinking a small amount of bleach. It's basically literal poison for his body.
I understand that it's inconvenient to plan around. And it's especially annoying given that hypochondriacs and trenders and exaggerators exist and are difficult to distinguish from people with real biological conditions. But from the perspective of someone who actually has one of those conditions, if the choice is to be inconvenient to you, or eat literal poison in your food, they'll be inconvenient. And if you don't like it you don't have to invite them for dinner.
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This isn't really vegetarianism.
Just about every thanksgiving dinner has a vegetarian dish, if only mashed potatoes. Obviously what you eat is your business, but why use a label that doesn't apply?
Imo, someone who eats meat when offered at a holiday once a year but otherwise doesn't is a vegetarian. He's just a vegetarian who isn't religious.
Is someone not a cannibal if they only eat human flesh once a year?
You're getting into a pretty ridiculous semantics argument here. There is now way to be "right" in this. You both just disagree with each other.
For what it's worth, to me if somebody eats meat once a year or so, then they can still be a vegetarian. Even the vegans eat bacon at burning man, for instance. They are still vegans though.
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I don't think you're a cannibal unless you're specifically into eating human flesh for whatever weird reason( sex, magic etc) .
E.g. someone who eats it in an emergency situation, or in ignorance, or when offered as a guest isn't a cannibal.
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Yes. If you don't eat meat (or whatever crap) and you insult a loving grandma by not eating her dish that she has prepared with love - you are not moral, you are an asshole.
I'm not disputing the moral judgement, I'm disputing whether they're vegetarians or not.
So if Hannibal Lecter only kills and eats a victim once a year, then it would be misleading to call him the "cannibal serial killer"? Sure, he's a serial killer, but Hannibal's no cannibal!
You could say that eating human flesh is an unusual feature of Hannibal that enables us to distinguish other serial killers, and so it's not analogous to calling someone who eats meat once a year a non-vegetarian. However, eating meat once a year is itself a distinguishing feature among vegetarians.
I just don't think vegetarianism is that strict is it? That's why vegans exist. Besides, there's no taboo against eating meat that has existed since the dawn of man, there is for eating human meat.
The vegetarian/vegan difference is about animal products, not the strictness of vegetarianism.
What you say about the taboo aspect is right, but it doesn't affect the point, which was about whether you can willingly and avoidably eat meat, but still be a vegetarian.
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A better analogy than Hannibal for vegetarians is - participation in group ritualistic cannibalism - like Aztecs or some tribes. When you actually don't do it for sustenance. And large family gatherings are closer to the second case. So if you eat meat in private - you are not really vegetarian. If you eat meat from time to time when in a social gathering with unenlightened rubes trying to blend in - you still are because there are other reasons motivating you.
The desire to be pure 100% is a form of narcissism/fanatism.
I am happy to agree on "ritual carnivores" for people who eat meat just once a year (or so) to fit in. I grant that they are a non-central example of non-vegetarianism.
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What's rubs me the wrong way is how entitled people feel to having any and all preferences/restrictions accommodated. Did you parents not teach you manners ? If you can't eat most things in a random buffet dinner, then bring your own meal. Actually, bring enough for a few people so the host can have some warm potluck vibes.
Now ofc, if a special guest is visiting after a long time, then I will cook to their preferences. But, if it is routine guest with a 100s of landmines or one person in a group of many, then I'd expect them to be reasonable about how much they can be accommodated.
I wonder if I'm shouting at a strawman though. Every vegan, nut-allergic, celiac person I know is polite, and brings their own food.
To be fair, if you are the type to follow fashions blindly, then you probably aren't attending the house party of a bunch of late blooming ex-nerds.
I can chime in a little bit here. I don't think you realize how viscerally disgusting eating non-veg food is to some people (certain Indians).
I remember the day I started eating beef, and my parents were in tears. My mom grew up on a farm and cows were the equivalent of dogs to her. Can you imagine being invited to a thanksgiving diner, and an upside down whole-roasted-dog is served to you on a platter ?
So now my family follows a dont-ask-dont-tell policy on my food eating habits.
It is easy for Americans to swap in and out of veganism, because their disgust response was not tuned to hate meat as a young child. Veganism is an ethnical choice, a moral boundary. It is the difference between refusing to ogle hot women as a committed man vs the disgusted head-turn away from a smelly obese homeless lady. I have a disgust response to bananas, and I get close to violently vomiting every-time I see them mashed up. This stuff is hard to change in adulthood.
At the same time, such a person should not feel entitled to be accommodated towards a rigid center-piece of a culture. (Roast turkey). You don't have to eat it, why do you think we make Green-bean-casserole & Cabbage salad ? (IMO, the sides are tastier anyway.)
I would be shocked, depending on where I was and who was inviting me. I might partake, depending on how I felt about my friends...and the origin of that dog. Dogs aren't any more intelligent than pigs, and we eat them all the time; I don't see much of an ethical problem with dog consumption. I just find it culturally icky as an American. I suppose if it would've been killed anyway by a kill shelter or something I'd be OK with it.
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That sounds odd to me. I spent my childhood in the country with farms around us, and we grew up with the knowledge of animals and that they were also providing food (milk, dairy products, eggs, meat from poultry to beef to pork) for us. So "cows were like pet dogs" strikes me more as either some kind of 'gentleman farmer' notion where it's not really a working farm, or if your mother grew up in a culture where beef was not an acceptable meat to consume so cattle weren't slaughtered for meat, they were kept for dairy only.
Did your parents cry tears while eating milk, butter, or cheese? Did they eat fish? Eggs or poultry?
Yeah I think OP is from India where I could see a farm keeping a cow around to mostly be a pet.
My family in the states raised cows from calves including bottle feedings and lots of play, but still butchered them and ate them.
A childhood friend's family freezer had packages of beef labeled by name, which they always thought was hilarious. (I usually stick with date, with tag# in the log if I need to look it up.)
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Yep, this was India. She also personally avoids pork & goat......but doesn't get worked up about others eating it.
Cows in India are treated pretty well, when compared to how we treat our own humans.
There is a clear association between animal intelligence and how likely we are to empathize with it. Fish & Poultry aren't smart or can't message intelligence in a manner that is easily recognizable to humans. Cows, Pigs, Goats.....different issue. I eat everything, but I draw a line at dolphin.
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If it is well prepared. I grew up in a rural environment - spent my summers there. We played with the chickens, rabbits and sheep. In the autumn we slaughter them and ate them.
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As an aside, I find this incredibly surprising. I also grew up on a farm (a dairy farm specifically). For me, and for literally every other farm kid I ever have known, they have a very pragmatic approach to life and death as a result. Cows die, we eat them, it's just part of the circle of life. When you grow up around this reality of life every day, it desensitizes you rather than makes you more attached. I've definitely never heard of a farm kid thinking of cows as pets before, or being upset if someone eats meat.
Indian farms are very different that western farms.
This was an incredibly poor & pre-mechanization Indian farm. The cows were the transportation, they provided milk to the family on a daily basis, protected the children when the parent wasn't there (my mom has actual stories where their cows intimidated strangers who try to come near kids of the boss) and most importantly, they pulled the ploughs. In that sense, the cows were more similar to shepherd dogs.
She does not have that kind of fondness associated with chickens. No matter how close of relationship she built with a chicken, it never seemed to understand things quite like cows did.
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A family story I've heard is that my great-grandfather kept a hog each year, fed on scraps and whatnot. The pig always had the same name and whatnot.
Each late winter they'd invite over a butcher and he'd slaughter it and make ham, bacon, sausages and all the related delicious foods.
Great-grandpa always cried those few days. Maybe it was genetic, his son, who otherwise bore more than a passing resemblance to O'Brien from 1984 (job description, mentality,. dominance) also couldn't handle being around raw meat, even in the kitchen.
But hey, it was 1930s eastern Europe. Grossly overpopulated, people in rural areas were barely above subsistence level farming civ, basically.
Most today had no idea what's woodland now was then marginal farmland. People were trying to eke a hard living out on stony hillsides.
Same with pre-Famine Ireland. Lots of stone walls on hillsides to mark where small farms used to be, because population was (relatively) high, due to historical reasons large farms or tenancies of same were difficult to get for ordinary people, and you couldn't afford to let marginal land go to waste.
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Western Europe, 2023, and that is still going on where I'm from :)
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This can be true for dogs on farms too- from stories i've heard (this was 80 years ago in a poor country) dogs were treated as working animals, fed whatever's around and not fed if nothing is, excess puppies disposed of (if that sounds cruel - how are puppies different from cows, and their food comes out of yours and your childrens'). The way we currently treat pets is contingent on material prosperity and culture, not a fact of human nature!
At my grandparents farm back in Eastern Europe, they would let my cousins dispose of the puppies as a “fun activity”.
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Have you talked to an Indian dairy farmer before? I know a small-scale dairy farmer here in Ireland that would be loth to eat his own cattle, even though there's no taboo on beef here.
For OP it's like growing up on a stud farm and then eating horse.
What did they do with bull calves?
My grandparents owned a work horse, treated it like a tool, and when it got too old, they sold it for meat (which was apparently exported, because nobody ate horse meat in the old country, but they had no trouble with others doing so).
Horse meat is pretty good and similar to beef and when I've seen it sold it's usually far cheaper. We used to eat horse regularly when I grew up because a butcher near my father's work sold it for next to nothing.
There are about as many horses as there are dairy cows in Sweden so presumably there is a lot of horse meat out there but it doesn't really seem to get to market, maybe it goes to export somewhere.
In Finland, horsemeat is sometimes put into this sausage, which is pretty popular as a breakfast sausage.
Now that you mention it there is a reasonably popular horsemeat sandwich meat branded as "hamburger meat" lol.
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The worked on fields. Nothing was mechanized.
Cows had actual value. So a bull ox would juts get sold to some neighbor who needed one on his farm asap.
So they used the cattle to pull the plow and stuff?
Yep, this was before electricity was available in these villages & when tractors were too expensive.
Socialist India was not a great place to grow up.
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Think something closer to a cattle ranch that also raises horses as working animals and someone growing up there with a pretty strong aversion to horse meat.
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