Hi there Bette Jimbles! Very sorry for such a late reply. I really need to clean up my profile and the private messages in my inbox! An avalanche of important messages like this one are awaiting me. Things have been a bit zany and busy lately for me, slowly but surely I catch up though. I hope you are having a nice weekend, and are safe and sound.
Awesome that you have been a positive, transformative influence on your family, and that they're willing to eat less meat now. My family has a lot of senior citizens who have settled into their ways, and visibly wrinkle their face when I tell them what I am eatting, and often they decline to try any. But when they actually give vegetarian/vegan products a taste they are usually pleasantly surprised. I tricked my mom into eatting homemade vegan crab cakes from the Whole Foods deli a few times, making her think they were authentic Maryland style crab cakes. She loves crab cakes. She eats almost nothing but seafood. I call her "pelican" for her eatting habbits. She is also really picky about how her seafood is prepared. She happily ate these mock crab cakes though, thought they were especially good and had no idea that they were imitations. I kept buying them for her and she never caught on. She was really impressed once I told her the truth, and eats the mock cakes willingly now.
People sometimes have preconceived notions that our food is bad, and/or you're going to be unhealthy living off of it. My aunt worries just like your boyfriend's relatives. However, the jokes on them! A vegetarian diet is very healthy. In the words of my doctor, "Your cholesterol is just beautiful! Wish mine looked like that."
Also vegetarian food is some of the best. Being a vegetarian/vegan means you have to be flexible and sometimes up for a little adventure on the quest to find something that will check the box of your dietary needs. It can mean trying a dish from another culture. For instance Japanese, Chinese or Indian cuisine often have several all vegetable dishes, which is logical since many Hindus and Buddhists refrain from eatting meat.
Vegetarian/vegan food also can not only be colorful, but often we are very good cooks. If you're not self-sufficient you're at the mercy of what others cook-- and it may not be veggie. So we usually know how to cook for ourselves. We may be very knowledgeable also about seasonings and flavor combinations to reproduce things that taste like meat.
Of all the people in my family my dad has been perhaps the most willing to eat vegetarian food because he has a heart condition, and has to reduce his meat intake to stay with us. So he has stopped eatting red meat. My aunts and uncles are hopeless causes though, they are stout, older people from the country who would love dinner with your boyfriend's mother. They like ox-tail soup, trotters and all sorts of things that shouldn't be food. They tease me a little.
Uncle: *playfully jabs me in the arm* I know what this one wants for dinner. You want some fatback, right?
It's cool that your boyfriend is open to trying so many new things, and that you get to introduce him to dishes he would have never thought of otherwise. I am happy for you guys. My boyfriend is also willing to give vegetarian food a go too, and on his own has politely made inquiries with restaurants beforehand to find out if they serve vegetarian options so that he knows there's something there for me too.
I'd like to send you an official friend request if that's okay? Thanks for becoming an Animal Freedom Fighter! I'll see you at the clubhouse soon <3
Take good care!
-Sam
Awesome that you have been a positive, transformative influence on your family, and that they're willing to eat less meat now. My family has a lot of senior citizens who have settled into their ways, and visibly wrinkle their face when I tell them what I am eatting, and often they decline to try any. But when they actually give vegetarian/vegan products a taste they are usually pleasantly surprised. I tricked my mom into eatting homemade vegan crab cakes from the Whole Foods deli a few times, making her think they were authentic Maryland style crab cakes. She loves crab cakes. She eats almost nothing but seafood. I call her "pelican" for her eatting habbits. She is also really picky about how her seafood is prepared. She happily ate these mock crab cakes though, thought they were especially good and had no idea that they were imitations. I kept buying them for her and she never caught on. She was really impressed once I told her the truth, and eats the mock cakes willingly now.
People sometimes have preconceived notions that our food is bad, and/or you're going to be unhealthy living off of it. My aunt worries just like your boyfriend's relatives. However, the jokes on them! A vegetarian diet is very healthy. In the words of my doctor, "Your cholesterol is just beautiful! Wish mine looked like that."
Also vegetarian food is some of the best. Being a vegetarian/vegan means you have to be flexible and sometimes up for a little adventure on the quest to find something that will check the box of your dietary needs. It can mean trying a dish from another culture. For instance Japanese, Chinese or Indian cuisine often have several all vegetable dishes, which is logical since many Hindus and Buddhists refrain from eatting meat.
Vegetarian/vegan food also can not only be colorful, but often we are very good cooks. If you're not self-sufficient you're at the mercy of what others cook-- and it may not be veggie. So we usually know how to cook for ourselves. We may be very knowledgeable also about seasonings and flavor combinations to reproduce things that taste like meat.
Of all the people in my family my dad has been perhaps the most willing to eat vegetarian food because he has a heart condition, and has to reduce his meat intake to stay with us. So he has stopped eatting red meat. My aunts and uncles are hopeless causes though, they are stout, older people from the country who would love dinner with your boyfriend's mother. They like ox-tail soup, trotters and all sorts of things that shouldn't be food. They tease me a little.
Uncle: *playfully jabs me in the arm* I know what this one wants for dinner. You want some fatback, right?
It's cool that your boyfriend is open to trying so many new things, and that you get to introduce him to dishes he would have never thought of otherwise. I am happy for you guys. My boyfriend is also willing to give vegetarian food a go too, and on his own has politely made inquiries with restaurants beforehand to find out if they serve vegetarian options so that he knows there's something there for me too.
I'd like to send you an official friend request if that's okay? Thanks for becoming an Animal Freedom Fighter! I'll see you at the clubhouse soon <3
Take good care!
-Sam