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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
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?
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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