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Comment by wtvanhest | Hacker News Reader

I dated a vegetarian for a while and people would always ask her dumb questions about it and make unoriginal (basically exact same) jokes about it so I sympathize with you to a degree.

On the other hand, I find it annoying that a vegetarian can draw the line in the sand and decide what is morally correct for everyone to believe.

I'm sure there are vegans judging you for eating (milk, eggs etc. whatever you do eat), and there are "vegetarians" that eat seafood who think you are too extreme, and there are probably people who only eat plants that died of natural causes who think all those groups are terrible and should have more self control over their diet.

The article was pretty interesting and novel to me and if you get a few more dumb questions from people, I don't think it is the end of the world.

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On the other hand, I find it annoying that a vegetarian can draw the line in the sand and decide what is morally correct for everyone to believe.

Pretty much everyone does that. People don't notice so much when other people are drawing the same lines as them.

I find it annoying that a vegetarian can draw the line in the sand and decide what is morally correct for everyone to believe.

Only some vegetarians do that, and it's wrong to imply that it's a defining feature of the demographic. I have vegetarian friends that cook me meat when I visit for dinner, despite me asking not to get special treatment. Other vegetarians just don't like the taste of meat, nothing to do with moral or health attitudes.

Unless the vegetarian is being vocal about the moral issue, it's pretty impolite to bring up the topic apropos of nothing - it's almost always just the questioner trying to score some sort of point.

Full disclosure: I'm a vegetarian. Another bonus of this choice is health. My wife and I made it through various third world countries without food poisoning as the travelers around us fell Ill. It could be coincidence, but considering that it was the only dietary difference, I doubt it. Well cooked vegetables only. It's worth considering when food safety is an issue.

Completely agree, but also a terrible tragedy for those times when you end up in Spain, Italy, France, Japan, and other countries with amazing food and good-to-great hygiene.

That said, I eat vegetarian most of the time because the alternative is to eat scary meat, which I'm not going to do. It's insensitive to the animal and a serious risk for me. Accordingly, I haven't eaten fast food in over a decade.

I'm also going to Spain next month and have every intention of gorging myself on delicious cured pork products every chance I get.

I'm sorry, what's scary meat?

My instant thought is backstreet barbequed guinea pig that's been on a warmer for days, with people picking thir choice with bare hands. Peru has amazing vegetarian food luckily!

The meat you'll find at a McDonalds, e.g.

Oh, ok. Well I barely consider that meat anyway ;) And I'm with you, I wouldn't eat it either.

> people who only eat plants that died of natural causes

Not that I've heard of. I have heard of fruititarians, who only eat the parts of plants the plants produce specifically to be eaten. (It's more complex than that, in fact, but I won't go into it all here.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruitarianism

That Wikipedia article mentions that "According to author Adam Gollner, some fruitarians eat only fallen fruit."

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