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Oh, I think he meant that he didn't expect friends to spend, say, 3 extra hours preparing a delicious meatless option. Perhaps there would just already be something meatless, which would make for a more balanced meal? :)

"but unless we're talking about the kind of salmon that comes freshly plucked from the vine, this makes you an omnivore."

That made me crack up...I liked the part about not eating anything that used to have eyeballs. It boggles the mind that some people somehow don't think chicken or fish are "meat."

Is it still relevant? Yes! I just had a conversation with someone asking about my vegetarian ways last week. The topic seems to come up often when meeting new people and this article exactly hits all the questions I get asked and all my usual responses. Of course I know bacon tastes good! Yes, sometimes I miss it. But no, I'm not going to cave just for a piece of bacon.

This is awesome, thanks very much! This is still relevant. I was served chicken just a year ago as the vegetarian option!! So many things about this article just hit the nail on the head! A lot of restaurants are very accommodating, but I'm a bit tired of polenta too. Its an awful lot better than soggy pasta and tomato sauce as the option instead of a juicy expensive steak!!

I usually bring something big to a bbq like an enormous dinner salad with lots of beans in that can easily serve as a meal, then no-one feels bad if there isnt much veggie stuff.

Great article! Thanks for sharing.

There is so much incredible veggie food out there it just amazes me that people are so tied to meat. If it doesn't have meat in it somehow it's just not considered or written off as just a side. I know as that used to be me. I've discovered so much since shunning the flesh. Incredible foods that make me wish I'd done this years sooner.

Here's the other stunner: anyone can eat vegan food. One doesn't have to be vegan to do it. Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwich is vegan. Hummus, Falafel, so much more and lots can be made vegan including Mac & "Cheese." For Cinco de Mayo I had Black bean cakes with tomatillo salsa, guacamole, lime, tomato slices and diced red bell pepper & onion topping. It was incredible with the bonus being rather healthy.

The article talks about plain tofu but part of why I made the jump was realizing I wouldn't eat the chicken thighs I was preparing without all the spices I was adding and that maybe the meat was getting used as a reason to have the flavors of the spices. Meat really is just a lump without all the special treatments. Who hasn't had some awful meat? Who hasn't had mediocre meat day in and day out? Why? I mean really, bologna? What is it that people say when something is full of it?

What cracks me up is how so many people get so defensive and put off just by my existence. Why? Is it really me and my choices? If I can "make" them so fidgety with what I choose not to eat then why is it impossible to understand why what they choose could bug me?

Maybe the reason so few seem to know any vegetarians is those who aren't are just so unpleasant about it.

However, some other myths? I don't like tofu (or most soy and/or meat substitutes), nor do I like mushrooms or cilantro. Turns out there's protein in most food and really it's about amino acids that we form into protein since our digestive system has to break protein down and apart into those amino acids.

And I too have had people share recipes with the disclaimer that vegetarians can just use "shrimp" instead of whatever meat is called for. Um... even back when, I hated shrimp. That hasn't changed either. :)

As an avowed omnivore, I often- more often than not- prepare meatless food, which is often even vegan. This is not intentional; it just so happens that there is a lot more non-meat food in the world than meat-based food. And for dinner parties and the like, it's often a lot cheaper to prepare meatless food or dishes in which animal products are only in a sauce or condiment of some sort, and how hard is it to make two versions of a sauce?
That said, the trickiest part of totally veggie cooking for me are seasonings- like bonito flakes, oyster sauce, fish sauce. I have yet to find really good vegan alternatives for these flavors.

My secret goal is to trick vegetarians into eating meat without knowing it. So I guess vegetarians should probably never eat anything that I make, just in case I stuck some meat in.

I've been vegetarian since I was 2. I got violently ill and ended up in the hospital with dehydration 3 times. The first time, my parents thought they had undercooked something and gave me food poisoning. After the third time, they told me I didn't have to eat anything I didn't want to. I haven't purposefully had meat since then. I'm not vegan...I would die without butter and cheese. When my husband and I were dating, he and one of my friends slipped a small piece of chicken into something I was eating when I was out of the room. I immedietely got sick. Yeah, I still married him. I hate that people willfully try to sneak meat into my food. I respect your decison to eat meat. It shouldn't be that hard for you to respect my decision not to.

Excellent article and, as someone who has never eaten meat, I agree with pretty much everything in it except that I don't know bacon tastes good, only that it smells good. I love the closing paragraph too. Classic.

Hopefully the couple of *sshole comments that were made on this thread were in jest. If not, they go a long way in proving his point (if wunami is serious he/she must be absolutely insufferable as I can only imagine the other ways that selfishness and spite could manifest itself).

sloppy, unfortunately the *sshole comments are not abnormal. This is actually a very civilized discussion here with a lot of respect.

And Gordon Ramsey is well known for his disdain of vegetarians (as is Bourdain) and has taken great pleasure in tricking vegetarians into consuming animal products. What I don't get is he donates money for the domestic abuse as his mother was battered but doesn't understand how disrespectful, controlling, deceptive and abusive his own actions are.

But GR is hardly the only one. There's tales all over the net of meat eaters taking glee over having put one over on vegetarians. And then there are the ones who write into advice columns for help on how to turn their girlfriends to meat and ideas on how to sneak meat in so she'll find out how much she really does like it.

Other advice column questions regard how selfish brides are who would even consider not serving meat for their guests and the evil vegan bosses who will be throwing an office party that won't have meat in the spread which can possibly be anything but a nightmare and are they still obligated to go...?

Heck, there was even the Miss Manners question from the couple who were so upset to find out via the church gossip the couple whose company they so enjoyed a few weeks prior were ::whisper, whisper:: VEGANS! Which meant they'd been tricked into eating vegan cake and they don't like soy!

As many know, it's not that meat doesn't taste good, it's that it's FLESH. Some people are not into eating FLESH, considering it a revolting practice. Human flesh is supposedly divine when it's roasted up, why aren't we eating that? It's just exactly the same thing. Tastebuds are very easily entertained by flavor - all junk food being a case in point. And how then, can vegetarians not judge meat-eaters? Respect and unconditional love over-rides judgement among the educated.