rant on gross meat dinner -- DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE!
 

OK, this is a rant that I wanted to share with vegetarians. Don't read if you are

(1) offended when vegetarians rant :p or
(2) easily grossed out.

***
I do not expect meat-eaters to change their eating habits around me. But this experience just grossed me out, and I don't know what to do about it if it happens in the future.

Last week, my parents were in town, and we went out to eat at a restaurant. My family and I were sitting at the table. I had ordered vegetarian food, and everyone else at the table was eating steak. Normally, watching other people eat meat doesn't make me nauseous. This time, however, looking at my mother nearly made me ill.

She had ordered mashed potatoes with her steak, which was cooked rare. Of course, blood was seeping out of the steak. Well, my mom didn't keep her potatoes separated from the blood. Instead, she used her fork to move the mashed potatoes over to the blood and soak it up. I could not watch... my mother was eating bloody mashed potatoes!

:barf:

She was sitting directly across from me, happily forking up piles of bloody potatoes and putting them in her mouth. She was talking to me, and was oblivious to the fact that I was utterly sickened. (No pun intended...)

How am I supposed to handle this situation???

I could barely look at my mother. How was I supposed to carry on a conversation with her? Where was I supposed to look? Should I have said something?

Blargh. I definitely have become more sensitive now that it's been a few years since I've been vegetarian. At first, when I gave up meat, meat was just a slab of substance that people cut with knives and then picked up with forks. Now, when I watch people eat meat, I perceive them as carving animal muscles, chewing on roadkill, and swallowing decayed flesh.

Obviously this change in perception is due to the thoughts that I let run through my head. I can change those thoughts, so shouldn't I be able to deal better when I see people eat meat? Any advice?

I'm not a vegetarian, so I hope you don't mind my contribution. I was raised in a family that ate all meat well-done, and was very squeamish about "bloody" meat, in fact we didn't eat "slabs" of meat all that often. My husband (of almost three years) however, likes his meat very rare (and large portions of it, if he gets a choice). It was very hard to even look at his plate at first, and my family still gives him grief (mostly teasing) about it when we eat out together. At home it isn't much of a problem, because I do most of the cooking, and he he has gotten used to my using meat more often as a condiment or at least secondary ingredient rather than as the main portion of the meal, but when we go out, it's his chance to have his rare piece of meat.

Ironically, it was my efforts to eat more vegetarian meals that actually helped me. As I shopped in more ethnic markets, and read more ethnic cookbooks (in search of good vegetarian and nearly vegetarian ingredients and recipes), my idea of what people could or should eat became a little less narrow, and I became less squeamish about what I thought of as gross (especially after seeing things like canned eal, and dried squid threads in the ethnic markets).

I guess this probably doesn't really apply much to your situation, so you're pretty much left with trying to imagine the blood as something else, or trying to treat it as if the person were eating with their mouth open, or doing some other gross activity at the table and find a way to focus your eyes somewhere else.


Colleen

Ewwww!! I feel your pain. Normally, I am okay watching others eat meat. Sometimes I even have a rather anatomical curiosity about their food. I've been veg since I was a wee child, though, so I'm just about as queasy as I can be about gross meat/raw meat. Usually it only bothers me when it's fish fish fish night at the college servery. You know, they night they decide to make calamari, salmon, shrimp, and a million other fishy-smelling things. Or when my gross ex-suitemate sat with us and proceeded to tear apart her greasy chicken with her bare fingers, then eat with her mouth open. Guhhh...

As for a solution? I've got none. If it's too bad, get up, go to the restroom, wash your hands in cold water, then come back and try to concentrate on something else. Though I admit, it is always hard to look away.

Oh....do I understand your situation! Not that long ago, I found myself sitting across from a very rare slab of prime rib and next to a large rare ribeye steak. All I could focus on was all the blood running around the plate. As you said, it was just disgusting. I think all you can do is learn from the experience and next time, try to position yourself near those people that may make better food choices...and not gross you out quite as much. While I don't eat meat, fish, or chicken...sitting by others eating chicken or fish isn't quite a disgusting as being near those eating meat.

Sorry I couldn't offer more help. When it comes to friends and family members, we just have to find ways to distract ourselves because we are usually in situations where we eat together and you don't have much of a choice. You can however control yourself, and feel good about your choices. :D

Since when are those things *not* "meat"? They are all dead animals :dizzy:


Personally, I do not eat where others are eating animals. I find it repugnant and unacceptable, for many of the reasons mentioned here...how can we know the truth and *not* be disgusted by those who are eating dead animals? :?:

I am off to work and so will respond more later, but for now I will just say I understand why this experience sickens you! I relate, so much that, as I said, I refuse to eat around animal-eaters! :(

I'd just as soon be with a person eating a pile of vomit or feces as I would be around someone eating a dead animal. The only difference, I suppose is that at least with the vomit or feces, no one suffered to put it there on the plate, but in the case of the animal, there is a guarantee of suffering!

oh barf! I find rare meat completely repugnant and I have seen people do the same thing you described with their mashed potatoes and felt my stomach roiling! Blech!

You can't make other people change their life so you will just have to deal with it. Maybe next time you could switch seats with someone and just explain politely that the blood from the meat is bothering you. I find that if you are polite and don't cause a scene about it people are a bit more receptive to what you are saying and a bit more understanding.

Also maybe if you start up a conversation with others at the table it will distract you from watching that person eating. It is hard to distance yourself from those thoughts but you can't let your imagination run away with you like that or you will feel stressed out.

The problem here as I see it is that it ISN'T her imagination...it's REALITY and it *IS* stressful :(

I seriously went through stuff like that and finally had to make the decision to just never eat around those eating animals to save myself from being around that disturbing behavior and sight :^:

I think you took me too literally when I said the part about letting your imagination runaway. Its just if you think too much in those terms you start getting freaked out about what everyone else is eating and you can't control what others do. I mean, you can't seriously ditch your social life and never eat again with all of your family and friends just because you are a vegetarian or vegan and they are not. That's not practical for most people. My dad would have to divorce my mum in that case :lol:

I had no reason to believe that you were being anything *but* literal. Maybe if you were vegan you'd understand why I responded as I did... :?:

I don't ever try to control others (what a waste of energy *that* would be :lol: ) but it's the same as with anything I find disturbing: when I see a mother screaming at her child or a homeless person passed out on the street or people eating animals, it brings up feelings of sadness, despair, empathy, horror, anger and frustration for me. Therefore, I avoid any of those things that cause that discomfort.

When people are eating animals, it's hard for me to have people dismiss my feelings and how sensitive I am to what they are doing and how seeing it happen affects me (people eating animals that had sad, short, miserable lives whose sole destiny was to end up butchered and on a plate to be eaten :( ).

Well you were mistaken because that was not my intent.

And I do understand how it is upsetting to be around things like that. I get freaked out over certain things too, like veal and caviar. Though I don't eat caviar when I found out that certain types of fish are farmed just for the purpose of taking their eggs I was totally disgusted and appalled and I can't even look at a jar of the stuff in the grocery store.

I thought that the fish laid eggs and they were taken (as if that is not bad enough) but the documentary I was watching showed the fish being killed and sliced open to get the eggs out of them- it was horrible! All that just to give people an over priced hor's doeuvre :mad: :(

But you are right, if people did think more about what they were eating and how animals are treated and the methods in which they are killed then they may change their way of eating. :)

I wasn't refering specifically to you or your statements when I said:

"When people are eating animals, it's hard for me to have people dismiss my feelings and how sensitive I am to what they are doing and how seeing it happen affects me (people eating animals that had sad, short, miserable lives whose sole destiny was to end up butchered and on a plate to be eaten )"

I thought I may have needed to be more specific and clarified my train of thought a bit :) this forum thing leaves a lot to interpretation...so here is what I mean:

I was refering to the way people react when I voice my feelings and request that I be able to move (to avoid watching them eating animals etc.) or when I ask people to schedule things around activities that don't center around eating animals and so on...and how they often act as though my being bothered by the habit of eating animals is ridiculous (which I find ridiculous! How is it strange to be bothered by suffereing and speciesism?).

Anyway, I just wanted to clear that up ;)

Thanks and I enjoy your input.

I guess I am starting to see why common ground is so dificult to find between some meat eaters (ethically minded or not) and anti-meat veg*ns. When I was growing up, my father was a volunteer EMT/ambulance driver and when we went to service picnics etc, the EMTs would talk about their calls. As a result, when I was in college and even now, I would and still do sometimes forget what appropriate dinner conversation is, and will discuss medical subjects... at the table. It is very hard for me to understand others' "squeamishness" in this regard, at least until I see the look of horror on their face as I describe something gory. I think my experience with veg*nism might be very much the same.

I can accept and somewhat understand the anti-meat perspective, but not finding it morally or aesthetically offensive myself, it is nearly impossible for me to truly understand. I ate lunch with a friend and his veg*n roommate. She ordered a Boca burger, and it smelled and tasted "wrong" to her, and she was afraid it was real meat (she hadn't eaten meat in years). I tasted her burger for her, and assured her that it was not real meat. She was still disturbed, and I wondered out loud if they had cleaned the grill before cooking her burger. She had not considered the posibility, and was horrified. I felt very bad that I had brought it up, especially so tactlessly, but coming from a completely different perspective I just had not had enough experience to be more empathetic.

Being raised in a meat-eating culture, and having personal and research experience in how short, stressful, and brutal a "natural" life is for animals, as well as my personal interest and love of predatory species (especially wild dogs and wolves) it is very difficult for me to fully understand opposition to eating ethically raised animals. I realize this isn't everyone's point of view, and I can sympathize, but it's just too foreign to my experience for me to truly empathize even when I try. Now that I think in that terms, it explains some very uncomfortable interactions with some veg*ns in my life. I didn't really understand that it was equally impossible for them to empathize with my lifestyle, behavior and beliefs. Mabe avoiding the topic and/or meal interactions is the only way to avoid conflict, but it doesn't really foster understanding on either side either.

Don't know if there's a solution, as "middle ground" is so hard to come by.

Colleen

Strangely the sight of meat or fish - however prepared doesn't seem to bother me, but the smell.............UGH!

Kaplods - I agree. As I posted in another thread here my husband's family are from the country and his dad hunts. It took me a long time to get my head around that.

I can't eat certain things because of childhood experiences like having to pluck feathers off a duck and partridges that my friend's dad hunted at their cottage. It was very traumatic to be up close and personal to a dead animal like that when the closest you get to wildlife as a city kid is feeding pigeons in the park or squirrels in your backyard. I've never forgotten that incident and how I felt at the time. Even thinking about it now makes me feel upset so I can see how some people could feel that way all the time about meat.

Hi
This is a very interesting topic! Should the vegetarian be able to stand up and say that makes me ill, stop! and please respect me and order a little less "bloody" or does the meat eater have the right to order and eat whatever they like!?!?!?!?!
It was your mother, which does make the situation difficult but knowing your mother as you surely should, you would know what her food habits are like? maybe you could say before you go out that you are a vegeratian and would she please order a little differently (liked fully cooked) to respect the way you feel. or you would not be inclined to go out with her? But yes this will probably upset her?
I am not completely vegetarian, Scientifically our bodies are made up as omnivores, but yes people tend to eat a lot of meat and tend towards just carnivores? I don't like raw meats, but know my mother was born and raised a big meat eater, she will sit in the kitchen cooking with mince and taste it first raw, then moan and eat more, but knowing she will do this SO I will find some excuse NOT to be with her in the kitchen at that time. I do feel sorry for animal killing and needless pain! but yet in nature this is a very normal thing? I have been a vegetarian for a lot of years due to my thoughts on killing, but now realise it is in nature? (I now just take the middle road, and eat meat occasionally but not continually) And ALAS whilst I was vegetarian I was also very ill! AND the Doctor advised me to eat some red meat at least twice a week ! I know all vegetarians would tell me to eat this and that, But I cannot absorb iron from non meat sources, even suppliments would not work! (My iron level was 5.... should have been 200! I was the walking dead!)
Of course all stories have 2 sides, but the thing is. do you have a right to say "that offends me" or does you mother have the right to order what she wants?
And soping up the blood with potato, I too would have to walk away or vomit!
But surely you would have had some pre knowledge as it was your mother, and you should know her habits? (not being offensive)

Cheers