Meat in the Middle

Stir-fried vegetarian 'beef' and green peppers over brown rice.

I became a vegetarian several years ago for a variety of reasons that could probably fill an entire post but pretty much amount to 'orneriness'. In any case, I do not use my dietary choices as a brickbat, nor judge others who do not share my views, nor try to convert them (except jokingly, with close friends).

Still, a not insignificant percentage of people get defensive or skeptical when they learn of my dietary preference. By 'defensive' I mean reacting as though I had accused meat-eaters of immorality, and by 'skeptical' I mean insisting that a vegetarian diet cannot supply adequate nutrition, despite sound evidence to the contrary.

In turn, I find myself reflexively throwing scientific research and dietary arithmetic around to justify my choice. This works about as well as you might expect, and accomplishes nothing except firmly convincing the other person that I (and probably all vegetarians) look down on meat-eaters. Lately, I have grown more conscious of this phenomenon and try to refrain from engaging such individuals.

Of course we have a desire see our own choices and preferences--even the largely arbitrary ones--as Correct. In some of us the need to validate this desire runs stronger than others. Perhaps those people would get equally defensive/skeptical about my preference of colors, or movies, or music, if different from their own.

Interestingly, I have found that I trigger the defensive/skeptical reaction less frequently when I say "I do not eat meat". This discovery came as a side effect of my 2011 yearly 'project', in which I undertook to eliminate the verb 'to be' from my vocabulary as much as possible. Doing so meant I could not declare "I am a vegetarian", and so I started expressing my dietary preference differently.

Why would insecure or excessively passionate meat-eaters find "I do not eat meat" less offensive? I would have imagined a negative statement about meat more likely draw more objections than a positive statement about vegetables. No. Instead, most people respond by asking me why.

I usually reply that my motivation stems in part from my practice of Buddhism, but that, for the most part, I simply do not like the taste of meat (though, as implied above, my vegetarianism has a far more convoluted history). They usually accept this without complaint.

So what makes this exchange more acceptable than "I am a vegetarian"? Perhaps the participation of the other party forges a sense of cooperation with me? Or the avoidance of identifying as a member of a group side-steps the in-group/out-group reflex? Or maybe the word 'vegetarian' itself has negative connotations in the American imagination, conjuring visions of PETA and the Counterculture?

Whatever the case, I have learned that creativity in language use comes with an unexpected bonus. Who knows what other psychological minefields I can circumvent by expressing things in unconventional ways!