The biggest negative about being raised a vegetarian is that the decision is made for you. While other people can grow dreads, decide they hate their middle-class upbringing and decide to become a vegan in college, when you’re raised a vegetarian, you can’t put on a suit and order a steak. It just doesn’t work like that. So when people look confused when I don’t, say, just eat a burger, it kind of makes me laugh.
Dude. I cannot just eat a burger. Let me just break it down for you a little bit here: when I was growing up, we ate out a lot. Like, a lot. I spent a good portion of my childhood in restaurants. As you know, restaurants make mistakes. Sometimes if you order a taco with no meat, a little ground beef works its way in. If you order spaghetti, sometimes it’ll come with meat sauce. Being young, and still in the “I’ll eat whatever’s in front of me” mode, I didn’t realize these things at the time — but I realized them later. Oh, how I realized them later.
I’ve always been healthy and never fell prone to a lot of the childhood illnesses that a lot of my peers did. I went from the age of about 10 to about 17 or so without having a sickness that involved vomiting. Before that, I could definitely have counted the number of times I vomited on one hand, and still have had fingers left over. One of the rare exceptions was when some beef got into my Mexican food.
I was about 8 years old, but you would have thought I was a 20-year-old Sorority girl during rush week the way I was hugging that toilet. I was up all night long, and it’s not as though I sat and ate a pile of meat — a little bit was in whatever dish I had eaten. It was enough though. Enough to make me vow to be more careful with what I ate.
Two years later though, a similar situation happened with some pasta, but in addition to the late-night bathroom delight, I developed a rash all over my face and neck. That sure helped with the whole “fitting in” thing in elementary school. Nothing like a giant face rash to help you win friends.
As I grew up, I gained the ability to spot meat in a dish, so I could stop before anything too untoward happened. When people ask me why I don’t just start eating meat, I generally just tell them the story above, and the subject is basically closed. That is, until I met Luke. Don’t get me wrong, Luke has always been cool with the whole vegetarian thing. His roommate, on the other hand, was another story.
For our second date, Luke and I had gotten tickets to the midnight showing of Borat, and were meeting his roommate for dinner at RUB, a BBQ place, for dinner (I know, I know. Back off ladies, he’s all mine). At RUB, I made the mistake of ordering the portobello mushroom sandwich, which caused Luke’s roommate to launch in on me.
The thing I should probably mention about Luke’s roommate is that he was internet empresario and professional asshole, Tucker Max. So … it did not go well. Tucker demanded to know why I would defile one of the best BBQ joints in New York by ordering a mushroom sandwich. I understood his point, so I explained it to him. That, of course wasn’t good enough. I explained the vomiting and the rash to him, and his reply was basically, “So?” He tried to convince me that I could and should work through that (but, uh, not in the supportive way that it kind of sounds like here).
He may have had a point, but what I realized in that moment was that I didn’t want to. I had grown up without steak and ribs and burgers, and I didn’t really care. Sure, I wish that there were more things I could order at a restaurant, but would I actually want a burger? I don’t think I would. Maybe I’ve just developed a subconscious fear of meat, but actually eating a burger sounds kind of disgusting to me. Dude. You are eating out a cow’s ass! Like, literally (and seriously. Don’t even get me started on ground beef and the unknown horrors that lay inside).
So, yeah. That burger may be the best thing you’ve ever eaten, but I’m pretty okay with my decision. Not even a jackass New York Times best selling author (sigh) could convince me otherwise (even when he declared that dinner was on him — except for my dinner, because I was stupid). I’ll just stick with my mushroom sandwich and keep my vomiting relegated to drinking-related situations only.
Clacked by Kona Gallagher 
on May 19, 2009 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
You aren’t really eating out of a cow’s ass, per se, just everyone elses’ ass. Ground beef is a pathogenic nightmare compared to whole cuts of beef. Due to it’s large surface area, and the fact that it’s been turned inside out, bacteria don’t just live on the surface as they do in the case of a steak, they live throughout the sloggy mess of meat. That also means that whatever Manny the short order cook had on his hands when he made that patty, yeah, it’s in there.
Y’all enjoy those Memorial Day cookouts!
Wow Kona that is quite a story. I can not believe what a jerk that guy is. You know well my love of meat, but I would never disrespect you in that way. Some one needs to teach that boy a few simple manners.
Wow your boyfriend managed to live with Tucker Max and not murder him. That takes self control.
I’ve never heard of Tucker Max, but someone needs to tell him he’s got his name on backwards.
Ground beef is truly scary. I’ve eaten my fair share, but I’ve also sent back more than I can count at diners and restaurants because it wasn’t fully cooked. *shiver*
Sympathy and solidarity, Kona. Seafood does the same thing to me. Everyone always says to me “well, it must have been bad/poorly prepared/cheap seafood. You should try ”
No. Sorry. Seafood makes me vomit. Period. I am 31 years old, have a husband, a job, a mortgage – trust me, I’m grown up enough to know what foods my body will tolerate and what foods it won’t. Please stop trying to change that.
Whoops. That should say “You should try ~insert type of fish here~”
What a douche.
Thing is, your body tends to reject what it’s not used to anyway. If you were raised without meat, your body might not know what to do with it.
There’s also the argument that as animals we’re made to be able to properly digest it etc. I agree with that and yet I also believe the first thing I said. I guess we’re made to eat meat but if we’re not used to it our bodies will reject the unknown food until we get used to it.