Quote:
Originally Posted by John Hill  Not everyone's idea of healthy eating is vegan, as a matter of fact if you randomly chose 100 people walking along the street I'd be surprised if more than 1 was vegan. |
The complaint wasn't about people on the street, for it's true that in the general population of the world, the idea of vegetarianism is pretty alien, and viewed with distrust and concern. The complaint was about people on this forum. Despite the fact that vegetarians are a tiny minority of the world's population, they actually outnumber the omnivores on this forum.
The problem as I see it, is this:
Vegetarians, and especially vegans, are a tiny tiny minority just about everywhere. And because the majority of the population in the US has never actually researched fitness, and simply parrots back the myths of their parent's generation, veggies face a lot of prejudice. Outside the 28-square-miles in Boulder, CO, a US veggie has been told hundreds or thousands of times that their lifestyle choice is wrong, stupid, or simply "misguided."
This makes them understandably a bit defensive. They've gotten used to assuming that omnivores think they're dumb, and in their everyday lives, it's a pretty good assumption. And so when someone on this forum (like me) says that they're an omnivore, it automatically moves me into the "enemy" category in people's minds.
Also, it's the first time a lot of vegans have been able to get together with like-minded people and discuss this lifestyle. In their communal bonding, some of it is bound to be a bit of complaining about all the problems that vegans share, and one of those universal problems is stuck-up, uneducated omnivores.
But it does make us omnivores, who are outnumbered for the first time in
our lives, feel a bit rejected. We feel like we can't have a rational discussion about a diet that includes meat without being attacked for
our lifestlye choices. And it's especially hard on people who are trying to improve their health for the very first time. You can't go from a diet of soda and cookies to a diet of vegetables and fruit juice. When people suggest that you can't be healthy without being vegan, it frightens off the people who really need to be starting with tips like, "drink 64 oz of water each day."
(Obviously, this doesn't include omnivores who feel the need to post something like, "Everyone knows that red meat is the best food available. Anyone who doesn't eat it deserves the slow, painful degenerative death that they will inevitably get." Those people, the vegetarians may feel free to flame)
It's not that either side is wrong, and in most cases I don't think anyone is trying to hurt others or criticise their choices or live their life for them. It's just that both sides have reason to feel defensive right now, and it leads to misunderstandings.