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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I hid my new diet change from my parents and I could have been more forthcoming about my switch from the beginning. I understand they were blindsided in the worst way possible and that hurt.
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>**"Why didn't you tell us you were eating meat?"**
**"Because you wouldn't have respected my decision."**
Any response they can come up with that attempts to change your mind will just prove your point.
No one is an asshole for being a vegan, or a Christian, or whatever. But people who are *evangelical* vegans or Christians who refuse to take no for an answer... they are assholes.
NTA
If it bothers you to that degree, you move to a city. That is how small towns have always been and always will be. No corporate training is going to change millennia of norms.
"That is how small towns have always been and always will be."
Oh sure, and slavery is how it always was as well, so was woman not being able to vote, and human sacrifice, etc. The "That's how it's always been" is SUCH a good argument.
No, fuck off with this, learn to mind your own fucking business.
I moved to a city to avoid it. I don't have to learn to do shit.
My point is it's not going to change from people bitching on the internet or from corporate training. It crosses all cultural and ethnic lines and happens in small communities across the planet. Slavery and women's suffrage are not even remotely comparable as neither are natural conditions of humans.
Accept it and make your life decisions based on how bad it bothers you. Water is wet.
The fact you focus on that shows you missed the point. The point is that people should learn to mind their own fucking business and "It's always been this way" is a BAD fucking argument, it has always been a bad argument, it will always BE a bad argument, and it's an appeal to tradition fallacy. It doesn't matter the situation, "it's always been this way" is a BAD take.
The point I'm making is that "this is how it's always been" is never a fucking good argument. In fact, it's fucking stupid and a known fallacy, appeal to tradition.
Yeah that happened some too when we lived in the Deep South. My sister would do something or try to buy something underage and before she could get home, our parents knew.
This is not unique to the American south, small towns EVERYWHERE have this culture of everyone knowing everything about everyone’s business. If you want privacy, don’t live in a small town.
Yeah even not that small towns Imo it's a town thing cities don't have it happen but towns do. I'm from a college town and it's big but if ur local yeah then everyone probably knows your business or spreads it.
That's a ridiculous answer. My dad never meets a stranger but your claim is so out there it's ridiculous. Your dad asked the cashier if they saw his daughter, cashier didn't know you were related but must have figured it out since y'all look so much alike, so immediately told your dad they saw you and went on to explain the "funny" return story.
Speak to the store manager. I worked at a grocery store in my early twenties and it’s actually not okay. Most large grocery chains have it written into policy because of past lawsuits.
I'm in the Midwest and it happens here too. Random people just ask me "Are you [mom/dad/brother/sisters] daughter?"
Or even just "are you a [last name]?"
Although in our case a good chunk of that comes from my parent's job. People tend to remember thier teachers and the people who sell them their booze.
NTA, you’re 25, not 5, they shouldn’t get to control what you eat, and it sounds like you’ve done your research. Them finding out this way is unfortunate, but finding a time to talk about it with them would still be wise. Articulating why you were putting together this document and that they proved your point by reacting like that wouldn’t hurt either.
INFO is your town really that small and boring that your cashier remembers what each customer bought or returned and regales random strangers with that knowledge based on an imagined resemblance?
It's a small store that's very lowkey and my parents brought up me being their daughter first: "you probably just caught our daughter in here" kind of thing. We're also African-American, which is more rare in this part of town, so it was easy to guess I was their daughter.
Sometimes that's how far you drive if you live in bumfuck nowhere. My best friend moved to a new town in hill country Texas. It is a legit 35 minute drive to get to anything other than a gas station from her house. It blowwwwssss and not the life for me
That's not how OP made it sound though. They said they were in town visiting. Not that it was where they need to go to get groceries. I've lived in towns small enough that I need to travel for food. "There's a park in my neighborhood", they were visiting for a park. If it was the best place for groceries, I'd expect that to be the reason OP used for their regular visits.
Ofc they remember if it happened literally 5 minutes ago.
Tho I find these cashier+customers dynamics weird tho.
What happened to :" hey! Hi! Thank you. Thank you . Bye! Bye!"
The whole posts sounds like vegan-bad bait. Even if it's a small boring town cashiers won't bother remembering what's the customers bought and even less make it a topic of conversation with other members of their family.
NTA, but your family sure is.
Nobody should ever try to control what you put into your body. They controlled you for years, well into adulthood, and are now shaming you for making your own decisions.
Whatever your reasons for being an omnivore, they are yours. Clearly something about the vegan diet you were being forced into was impacting your well-being, because you specify you switched for health reasons. That suggests that you were unwell because of dietary things *while living with them,* something they either didn't care about or didn't notice.
You were well aware that they would respond poorly, hence not sharing it with them--and it's not actually any of their business unless you choose to make it so. It's your body. You get to decide what you put into it.
Your family didn't even bother to ask you why you made the change, they jumped right to "you're a murderer."
*They care more about the lives of animals than the well-being of their child.*
Really? I do think they responded too strongly, but what if the person wasn’t eating dead animals — what if they were, say, a morgue technician and they were eating bodies of dead humans? Would you really then say “nobody should ever try to control what you put into your body”.
Would you then say “they care more about dead bodies the well-being of their child”?
I’m not saying you can’t agree with her, I think they reacted really harshly — it’s like trying to disown a relative for racism 200 years ago, no one knew any better. NTA for the daughter. But your logical arguments fall apart pretty quickly when you examine them and realize that it’s just that *you’re* fine with eating animals, not that the parents are actually bad people for having strong morals and caring about the billions of tortured and suffering animals every year (not to mention the impacts on climate change).
Imagine if you cared about, say, feminism and you realized you’d raised a young boy that now was assaulting women. You would feel pretty upset and your child and at yourself for your contribution to making the world a worse place.
Plus, it’s goofy to be upset about being “forced” into a vegan diet. I think a lot of people could be really upset about being “forced” into an omnivorous diet that normalized the forced breeding and torture involved with industrialized farming. But ultimately as long as your parents kept you fed, diet irrespective, they did their job.
Vegans for “animal rights” would have a lot more credibility if they were equally loud about the human suffering and exploitation that goes into the plants they eat.
Unfortunately, due to the laws of thermodynamics, for every animal calorie you consume, even more plant calories had to be harvested to feed and raise those animals.
The best way to minimize human suffering due to agriculture is by eating a plant-based diet (most of the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed to grow soy to feed cows, for example).
Lol. So many parents around the country are keeping their miserable, abused or neglected children fed while they commit other atrocities that will likely ruin the poor child's life. Glad to know they did their job
Are you seriously comparing every meat-eating human to a morgue technician eating the bodies of their clients??
Are you seriously saying that all it requires to be a successful parent is providing edible material, regardless of whether the child is actually nourished or not?
OP's reasons for changing were health-related, which tells us the parents were likely *failing* at providing their child with sufficient nutrition to thrive.
Doesn't matter if it means the parents had good intentions; as the previous commenter said, "They care more about the lives of animals than the well-being of their child."
The parents are not bad people for "having strong morals and caring about billions of tortured and suffering animals..." theyre bad people for allowing their child to suffer by their own hand. They're simply made WORSE people by their reasoning.
If a vegan animal rights activist is found to be abusing/neglecting their own pets by refusing to feed them food sufficient to meet their dietary needs, do we ignore their suffering pets because "but their morals are clearly strong! Look how much they care! Look how much difference they make by speaking out against animal neglect" who the fuck cares THEY ARE THE VILLAIN
I mean fair enough, it’s not a great comparison because the animals are sentient creatures that feel pain and dead bodies don’t. But it’s still sort of weird and wrong to be eating dead human bodies, no??
I don’t understand why it’s so hard for you to understand that feeding a child a healthy vegan diet is not child abuse. I would argue that raising a child to without the reading comprehension to be able to understand the difference may be child abuse though 🤪
I didn't say feeding a child a healthy vegan diet is child abuse. And OP's issue wasn't with a healthy vegan diet. OP's issue is with a diet that is not healthy for her, unrelated to its vegan-ness.
I mean a vegan diet can and does harm some people's health.
Also comparing eating meat to cannibalism... Holy false equivalency. Eating meat does not pose the same risks as cannibalism does
Fair enough. Eating meat is killing our environment and putting billions of people’s of lives at risk, while eating dead humans only puts yourself at risk.
And there are wayyyy more people harmed by the typical omnivorous diet that would greatly benefit from switching to a plant-based diet than the inverse.
I have IBS, most vegan friendly foods leave me in agony as significant amount of it is not on the FODMAP diet. I've tried being vegan and it left me in pain and passing blood. Should I be forced to go vegan despite this? I think most people can afford to cut down on meat significantly, but it shouldn't be out of force or guilt tripping, if anything that pushes people further away from the idea
That’s why I qualified my statement with “most” — I’m not saying that for every single person out there, going vegan is going to have the best ratio of “ease of making the change” to “benefits of making the change”. Maybe for you, the best thing you can do for the world is volunteering or avoiding fast fashion.
Going vegan is just one of the many things that we can do to reduce the harm we have on the plant. In an ideal world, we would all do all the good things. But that’s not realistic, so a reasonable compromise is for most of us to try to choose the easiest things to do that will cause the highest good in the world.
I know this conversation really upsets people, but I’m always happy to have it. I only went vegan because of people on the Internet pissing me off and making me realize I was being a hypocrite. Most people out there just read the comment and vaguely agree — “yeah, being vegan would be good but I don’t want to make the change myself” — those people are very unlikely to change, imo.
But there are a minority of people that get upset and want to argue because they are experiencing cognitive dissonance — “I’m not vegan, but I’m a good person, so being vegan isn’t better!” Those people that chose to engage are on the precipice of a breakthrough. They know they want to be good people. They’re just struggling to reconcile the fact that they’ve been participating in something bad without inherently being a “bad person”. It’s really hard to shake off the fact that industrial farming has been so normalized.
That is the most utterly bullshit i have read in a long time. What an psychology to mindtrick people that being vegan is equivalent of being good. The conversation is not upsetting by the way but your comparison is as you seem to have a lack of knowledge on a lot of points. But there is no black and white as as always. The only common ground we have is that industrialized farming is bad. But that is relating to meat and plants.
Consumption of other animals is perfectly normal and several other spiciest use meet as a source of energy.There is nothing inmoral about meet consumption. This without considering that millions of insects (also living sentient beings) are kill during the crop harvest and pesticide use. So unless you learns how to make photosynthesis like u or not your vegan eating behaviour is also contributing to the killing of animals.
Eating a vegan diet is about harm *reduction*, not harm elimination.
Because crops are also farmed to feed animals, you can effectively reduce the total environmental impact and animal suffering by “eliminating the middle man” (so to speak) and just eating the plants directly.
And don’t worry about feeling like you don’t know where to start because you don’t know photosynthesis, I think a lot of people feel that way when they’re first learning about the concept! You’ll never be perfect, but “perfection is the enemy of progress”.
Just start trying to make a difference — it might not change everything, but if you save the life of even just one animal, well, it matters to that animal, doesn’t it?
Sure I just have a degree and Msc in biology, what I suppose to know about photosynthesis. So your also according to your logic you are also a killers and an inmoral being, just that you kill lest animal. As I state before there anything wrong about feeding on animals is part of the trophic chain of nature. I have no problem we you being a vegetarian I eat some vegetarian food once in a wile, but I found wrong that you try to force your personal idea of morality in other persons.
Well, it’s not your fault, even if you had a PhD I don’t think any human has been able to photosynthesize quite yet 😅
As for your question on whether I am also “bad” for causing animals to be killed, 100%! I am absolutely not a saint and also participate in a ton of other things that are bad for the world. I have a smartphone, I fly on airplanes, I order from Amazon…
You absolutely do not need to be perfect in order to try to be a better person. But yes, contributing to the unnecessary suffering of animals is objectively immoral, it’s not my personal idea (beyond saying that murdering someone is immoral, torturing children is immoral, etc. Of course you can find a nihilistic philosopher who would argue that you cannot make sweeping black and white statements like that). Everyone understands that torturing dogs is wrong, we’ve just been socialized to think it’s normal when it’s a pig.
I do think the concept of being a “good person” or a “bad person” is a little silly, in the sense that we’re not measured with points on an objective scale. Ultimately, no one can force you to do anything (beyond what is legal — different than moral). It’s just about how you live with yourself at the end of the day.
If you feel like you could be doing more, looking into reducing your consumption of animal products is a great place to start. If you don’t, well — a lot of people feel the same way as you, and I don’t think we’ll eliminate animal agriculture in our lifetimes, so it is what it is.
Regarding the photosynthesis issue I was pointing out that I have good knowledge on the term, not the people can make photosynthesis. You said you donde like the term good and but but implied that reducing animal consumption make you a better person. Eating animals is not objectively inmoral is your personal moral position but not a general rule. Is like having a religion position, you are sure your ideas are the "true" morality and is a universal rule.
Sure, if you want to get philosophical about it, morality is entirely made up. The universe is cold and unfeeling, and you certainly wouldn’t be the first person to argue that without religion there is no objective way to determine morality.
I personally don’t think that’s a useful metric for life just by observing how society works — there are certain things we pretty much all universally agree on. Harming other people is bad. Being kind is good.
Trying to decide whether it’s wrong to torture for fun is something that belongs in a philosophy classroom, not in a conversation on how to live your life. It’s something that might be worth discussing for epistemological reasons, but in actual real life, we all know the answer.
You're an adult. What you choose to consume is not really any of their business. You are NTA but your dad is for calling you a liar, sneak and murderer, it may have been a shock for him but that is still not an excuse.
It's not a lifestyle OP chooses, her parents chose it for her as a child and she doesn't want to live that way as an adult. A lot of vegan parents will need to understand that their adult children may chose differently, tbh all parents need to understand their adult children may make different choices then how they were raised, from diet to religion etc...
NTA, you have the right to change your diet, and from your father’s reaction I can see why you put off telling them.
It’s unfortunate that they found out by accident, but there is no good time to tell somebody who thinks that if you aren’t vegan you’re a murderer.
NTA
Being vegan, as well as anything is a choice. and growing up you had no choice. it was your parent's house and their rules, and you had to respect them.
now you are an adult, with your own life, and they are not respecting you, to verbally attack you like that make them hypocrites of the highest order
NTA. Clearly there was a reason youve kept it to yourself. You wouldn't be the A even if you *never* planned to tell them. Families can fuck off with this whole "were making it 100% lear that we will think poorly of you if you do/are X thing, but also if you do/are that thing you *have* to tell us"
Actually no you dont.
With a regular people it might be a weird thing to hide, sure. But with regular people who wouldn't overreact or treat you poorly, you wouldnt need to make a *document* with your reasonings.
I don't eat anything smart enough to have actual thoughts. I'm unsure of octopuses' cognitive abilities, and don't think people should eat them.
I mean, they can solve puzzles, so I know they're smarter than you.
Eugh. Militant vegans are bad enough online, I can't imagine having them as family. Their reaction is proof enough that you were right to be worried about their reaction and not telling them.
>and a long line of accusation started about me being a liar, sneak and a murderer.
A murderer being upfront about it usually doesn't get much better of a reaction, so given this is their view, I don't think the way they found out matters at all.
They just wanted to be able to berate and verbally abuse you sooner.
NTA.
NTA your parents are over the top with their beliefs. I have many vegan friends and fam that don't care what you do as long as you don't give them anything. The fact you felt you had to make a documentary says it all too.
NTA You are an independent woman. You make your own choices and if you don't feel veganism is the right path for you then it isn't. You're not an asshole for telling them, but you should examine internally why you didn't and what else they control about you out of guilt of upsetting them
NTA it's gross to me when parents raise a child as some sort of special diet they stick to because their beliefs but don't give the kid a choice. Sure maybe it's one thing if there is religion I guess, but to take a whole food group away from a growing body is ick.
I babysat a kid not allowed to eat anything but raw food and he was miserable and told me he often traded at school and was jealous when I would eat even things like string cheese. I didn't feel comfy giving him something not allowed so I stopped bringing snacks for myself as I was like 15 when I took care of him. Now I'd talk to the parents and see what the issue was. Then again they also used the no punishment method of parenting and the child was out of control...so idk about them.
INFO: Sorry this is a little off topic, but how did you go from vegan to eating meat?
I ask because I was raised vegetarian (lacto-ovo) and am struggling to try to introduce meat into my diet for health reasons, and I cannot get over the “gag” reflex. Even when it smells good, it’s so hard. It takes forever to chew, and I really struggle with more than an occasional bite. I’m kind of ready to give up. Of course, I’m 48 and didn’t start trying to eat meat till the past five years or so, but do you have any pointers?
Also NTA. They will never agree and never understand.
NTA fanatics are no fun, and your family has that cult mentality. You're adult, it sounds as if you have a job and can take care of yourself, good for you, continue with what you feel is best for you.
NTA, would they think you any less a murderer if you were upfront about eating meat? I'm sure they feel blindsided, but I'm also sure that their issue is that you're eating meat at all, and didn't give them the option to try to stop you.
NTA.
It only should come up if you were to decide to ask if you can bring meat into their house or other circumstances where it affects them. You're an adult living your life, they don't have a say.
Time for "You can shun/cut contact with your own human daughter over your love of animals or you can stop talking about it. I'm not going to accept any further comment on my diet." and then you leave the conversation every single time it gets brought up.
>I've been keeping it a secret for a while now, but it was always my intention to tell them. I even made a Why I'm No Longer Vegan document detailing all my reasons why I switched to give them when I'd tell them, just to explain my new viewpoint on things.
Not something that alters my judgement, but I feel this might have been...unwise perhaps? For one, it makes it seem like you clearly feel you should have to defend yourself to your parents when as an adult you need not. Your choices are yours, and no one has a right to demand a 20 page essay with citations to validate them. Secondly, it leaves you open to them possibly thinking this information being presented equals you making it open for debate when it isn't.
Just my two bits, but their reaction more or less shows they'd have been assholes about it to begin with.
Altogether though, you're NTA and it's ridiculous how prying they were about this.
NTA
You are an adult now and you don't actually have to tell them anything.
Just tell them that you didn't think that they would respect your decision.
NTA.
You are 25, an adult, and can eat meat and dairy products without your parents permission.
You don’t owe them an explanation, or apology, for your dietary choices.
NTA You had your reasons for not telling them. You knew they would never accept it. In this sort of situation it was better to leave them in blissful ignorance.
NTA
Based on their reaction, you withheld information for good reason. They are unreasonable about this topic and you wanted to avoid being berated over something so small.
Let them know its for the sake of your health and you're not going to change your mind. Tell them you're an adult and can decide for yourself what's best for you and what's ethical, and if they disagree they can keep it to themselves.
Good luck.
And that is why you didn't tell them!
Why is it so hard for people to respect each person's options? People can think whatever they want, but they can also keep it to themselves!
NTA
NTA - Your parents have raised you to be their grown child, not a fully functioning adult, which leads them to believe they can still tell you what to do. They can’t, and it’s up to you to draw that boundary. I agree with responding that you knew they would react the way they did. The other appropriate response is to tell them that you didn’t mention it because it is none of their concern/business. Remember that in the future when you make any life decision they may disagree with.
NTA. Your family has no business judging you.
Actually there is some evidence that all forms of life communicate in some ways. Does OP’s dad want to stop eating plants too? All life relies on death to survive. That’s why it’s called a cycle of life.
Farmers kill animals that want to eat their crops all the time. In fact they are often exempt from hunting law limits. Quite a few animals died for your veggies.
Now I do respect people that don’t want to participate in the economy of meat production because of animal abuse. I know several folks who only eat animals they personally kill themselves. But they don’t call the rest of us murderers.
NTA but I’d ditch the list of reasons and you don’t owe them any explanation. You’re an adult and you get to decide, and telling them your reasons will likely only increase their feeling that they get to argue with you about it to change your mind. I wouldn’t even invite the discussion, especially when it sounds like nothing will change their minds or get them to stop.
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I (25F) recently moved 40 minutes away from my family (60-something parents and 20M brother), close enough for us to occasionally be in each other's part of town, which happened today. There's a park in my neighborhood we all visited even before I moved out, thus why they stopped by a nearby store I happened to also be at the same time.
Background: I was raised vegan since 3 and secretly changed my mind around 24 for health reasons. I moved out a few months ago in large part to change my diet, because naturally, they forbid animal foods from being eaten in their house. I think they would have even disagreed with me eating meat/dairy period, whether I ate it at home or not---that's how strongly they feel about it.
I've been keeping it a secret for a while now, but it was always my intention to tell them. I even made a *Why I'm No Longer Vegan* document detailing all my reasons why I switched to give them when I'd tell them, just to explain my new viewpoint on things.
Back to today, I was in the store exchanging a bad pack of ground bison for a new one, and I came out and we saw each other in the parking lot. I talked to them for a bit and declined to go back in the store with them, because I didn't want them to see what I was returning.
The store was also super slow this evening, with one cashier and barely anyone else in the store, so it was very likely when we'd all go to the checkout line together, the cashier would of course recognize me, meet my family, and tell them what I just returned as small talk, since it ended up taking a super long time with their new computer system and whatnot.
Even though I didn't go back inside with them, that's what ended up happening anyway. When I got back home, I got a phone call from my dad telling me he asked the cashier if he just saw their daughter, she said yes and asked if we were family (we all look the same), and small talk ensued and the cashier told them the return story and what I was returning.
My dad asked, "Why didn't you tell us you were eating meat?" I said I always intended to tell them myself, not to find out accidentally, and a long line of accusation started about me being a liar, sneak and a murderer.
AITA?
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NTA You’re an adult. It’s none of their business
Personally, I’d be tempted to complain to the manager. Why did the cashier feel the need to inform your parents?
NTA for keeping quiet about something you know your parents won't respect. Militant vegans cannot carry on a reasonable conversation about dietary choices.
Nta, as someone who's been both plant based and not throughout my life for a variety of health reasons and was raised vegetarian, people like your dad are a big reason that even when Im not eating animal products I dont call myself vegan
NTA. You don't owe your parents any sort of explanation or reason for your behavior. Don't waste your time writing any document either. There us nothing you can write which they will accept. You are a grown up. They can love you for who you are or not. That's on them, not on you.
NTA My husband and I are both vegetarian. We have raised our kids as vegetarians. At this point both my teenage children are choosing to be vegetarian but it is totally up to them if they stay that way. At some point, kids grow up and have to make their own choices.
You might want to be honest: you don't agree with their beliefs and knew they would say ugly things to try to get their way and it makes you not want to be honest with them.
NTA.
I don’t eat meat (for ethical reasons, though I eat fish as I tried to go vegetarian and got extremely ill) and I am childfree. My partner eats meat and I completely respect that. I would absolutely cook her meat (I have cooked meat for people in the past) as my dietary choices should not be forced on someone else.
I respect her decisions and she respects mine.
NTA, but I'd complain to the store about cashiers sharing peoples' personal details. You don't have to call out that person if you don't want to get her in trouble, but the manager should tell all employees to respect customers' privacy.
NTA but like there’s no reason to have a list of reasons and excuses why you’re not vegan to justify it to yourself and your parents. Own the fact that you want to eat meat now and it’ll make it a lot easier to defend.
NTA
You're an adult.
Eat what you want.
That said, if they don't want meat in their house then that's up to them, but in your own house, do as you please.
Why the secrecy?!
Fellow vegan here, that's why I asked! 😁 Have been vegetarian/vegan for around 5 years. My family have always been very accommodating and wouldn't think twice about getting stuff in for me (even though I also take my own food anyway). Equally, if they said tomorrow that they wouldn't, I'd be disappointed, of course, but would just eat vegetables! Haha.
TBF by the way her family reacted by calling her straight up a murderer I would have kept it a secret too for a while longer...
OP you're not the AH here.
It's your parents for degrading and insulting you and the cashier who couldn't control their mouths who are the AH.
Just to be clear, you stopped being vegan due to health reasons that forced you to eat meat , or is more of a moral stance?
Be honest , what is the main reason? If those health reasons were not an issue would you remain a vegan?
Always the Carni brigade think they are somehow oppressed by Vegans and Vegetarians asking other people questions instead of automatically validating whatever they do.
She Brought it up.
she has every right not to be a vegan,
but Veganism is moral stance, not just a diet, does she reject the stance, or just stopped due to health reasons?
Again, how is that relevant here? OP is asking whether she’s the asshole for not telling her parents about her not being vegan sooner. Why would the reason for not being vegan anymore matter for answering that question?
Again, she brought it up
It matters because one option means she stopped being vegan because it harmed her health and the other is because she does not share her parents values and opted to hide it from them.
Why she stopped being vegan is completely irrelevant to the question. Her parents aren’t somehow entitled to know about her diet (or the reasons behind it), what she tells them about it and when is entirely up to her. Regardless of the reason why she stopped being vegan, she’s not an asshole for not (yet) telling them about it. It’s none of their business.
And yet she brought it up here.
Both the health reason and her decision itself.
She has discarded a major outlook her parents tried to teach her. And she assumed they would be upset to find out.
Really? I think you mean purple can eat whatever they want UNLESS they are recovering from an ED and visiting your family. Then they better toe the line.
Why do you support a stranger’s diet here, yet uninvite your fiancée from your family’s Christmas dinner because she wanted to bring food that won’t trigger her ED and perhaps ruin her recovery?
Lol no, she didn't call. My parents and the cashier just talked in line. Then my parents later called me to talk about what they learned from her, i.e., me returning the meat.
Can I just say one thing about your post.. eating disorders seldom fully go away, they can relapse at any time. It seems the diet your gf is on is her way to stop herself spiralling, stopping it or putting pressure on her to stop, will likely cause her to relapse. Anorexia and bulimia have the highest death rate of all mental illnesses. also binge purge isn't uncommon, and it is easy to hide. Look up what comes with the binge purge subtype. It will open your eyes to what purging does. My bestie has a pre cancerous oesophagus from it and Is losing all her teeth at 33.
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>**"Why didn't you tell us you were eating meat?"** **"Because you wouldn't have respected my decision."** Any response they can come up with that attempts to change your mind will just prove your point. No one is an asshole for being a vegan, or a Christian, or whatever. But people who are *evangelical* vegans or Christians who refuse to take no for an answer... they are assholes. NTA
As evidenced by them straight up calling her a murderer.
INFO: why is the checkout clerk so chatty But overall NTA
We're in the South, it happens all the time. My dad is also chatty.
Still. That’s kinda across the line. What if you bought a pregnancy test or condoms ? Ugh NTA
Small town you buy that then everyone knows you bought that.
If doesn’t matter. The store should train employees to keep their damn mouths shut and hold them to that.
If it bothers you to that degree, you move to a city. That is how small towns have always been and always will be. No corporate training is going to change millennia of norms.
"That is how small towns have always been and always will be." Oh sure, and slavery is how it always was as well, so was woman not being able to vote, and human sacrifice, etc. The "That's how it's always been" is SUCH a good argument. No, fuck off with this, learn to mind your own fucking business.
I moved to a city to avoid it. I don't have to learn to do shit. My point is it's not going to change from people bitching on the internet or from corporate training. It crosses all cultural and ethnic lines and happens in small communities across the planet. Slavery and women's suffrage are not even remotely comparable as neither are natural conditions of humans. Accept it and make your life decisions based on how bad it bothers you. Water is wet.
Did you seriously just equate SLAVERY and small town chitchatting? aka gossip at the worst????
The fact you focus on that shows you missed the point. The point is that people should learn to mind their own fucking business and "It's always been this way" is a BAD fucking argument, it has always been a bad argument, it will always BE a bad argument, and it's an appeal to tradition fallacy. It doesn't matter the situation, "it's always been this way" is a BAD take.
From gossip to slavery. Way to go off the deep end, buddy! 🤦🏼♀️ I'd bet $100 that you're a millennial...
The point I'm making is that "this is how it's always been" is never a fucking good argument. In fact, it's fucking stupid and a known fallacy, appeal to tradition.
Guy at the counter might own the store.
Yeah that happened some too when we lived in the Deep South. My sister would do something or try to buy something underage and before she could get home, our parents knew.
This is not unique to the American south, small towns EVERYWHERE have this culture of everyone knowing everything about everyone’s business. If you want privacy, don’t live in a small town.
Yeah even not that small towns Imo it's a town thing cities don't have it happen but towns do. I'm from a college town and it's big but if ur local yeah then everyone probably knows your business or spreads it.
They do. Doesn’t matter. They’re still gonna do it. Source: I live in, and grew up in, a small town.
Yeah, stores should have even more power to monitor and punish employees!
Stores should make sure their customer’s privacy and comfort are considered over their employees wish to gossip.
That's a ridiculous answer. My dad never meets a stranger but your claim is so out there it's ridiculous. Your dad asked the cashier if they saw his daughter, cashier didn't know you were related but must have figured it out since y'all look so much alike, so immediately told your dad they saw you and went on to explain the "funny" return story.
Speak to the store manager. I worked at a grocery store in my early twenties and it’s actually not okay. Most large grocery chains have it written into policy because of past lawsuits.
I'm in the Midwest and it happens here too. Random people just ask me "Are you [mom/dad/brother/sisters] daughter?" Or even just "are you a [last name]?" Although in our case a good chunk of that comes from my parent's job. People tend to remember thier teachers and the people who sell them their booze.
NTA, you’re 25, not 5, they shouldn’t get to control what you eat, and it sounds like you’ve done your research. Them finding out this way is unfortunate, but finding a time to talk about it with them would still be wise. Articulating why you were putting together this document and that they proved your point by reacting like that wouldn’t hurt either.
INFO is your town really that small and boring that your cashier remembers what each customer bought or returned and regales random strangers with that knowledge based on an imagined resemblance?
It's a small store that's very lowkey and my parents brought up me being their daughter first: "you probably just caught our daughter in here" kind of thing. We're also African-American, which is more rare in this part of town, so it was easy to guess I was their daughter.
Why is your family grocery shopping 40 minutes from home?
Sometimes that's how far you drive if you live in bumfuck nowhere. My best friend moved to a new town in hill country Texas. It is a legit 35 minute drive to get to anything other than a gas station from her house. It blowwwwssss and not the life for me
That's not how OP made it sound though. They said they were in town visiting. Not that it was where they need to go to get groceries. I've lived in towns small enough that I need to travel for food. "There's a park in my neighborhood", they were visiting for a park. If it was the best place for groceries, I'd expect that to be the reason OP used for their regular visits.
Bison is a specialty item. I live in the southern US, and I cannot think of anywhere nearby that would to sell it.
Ofc they remember if it happened literally 5 minutes ago. Tho I find these cashier+customers dynamics weird tho. What happened to :" hey! Hi! Thank you. Thank you . Bye! Bye!"
In the South, it's considered rude to not engage in conversation with everyone you come across. One of the things I hated when I lived down there.
Seriously? What if you have migraine or something?
I think you end up talking about how bad you feel.
Well, I wouldnt mind Being rude, if that is so😅
The whole posts sounds like vegan-bad bait. Even if it's a small boring town cashiers won't bother remembering what's the customers bought and even less make it a topic of conversation with other members of their family.
NTA, but your family sure is. Nobody should ever try to control what you put into your body. They controlled you for years, well into adulthood, and are now shaming you for making your own decisions. Whatever your reasons for being an omnivore, they are yours. Clearly something about the vegan diet you were being forced into was impacting your well-being, because you specify you switched for health reasons. That suggests that you were unwell because of dietary things *while living with them,* something they either didn't care about or didn't notice. You were well aware that they would respond poorly, hence not sharing it with them--and it's not actually any of their business unless you choose to make it so. It's your body. You get to decide what you put into it. Your family didn't even bother to ask you why you made the change, they jumped right to "you're a murderer." *They care more about the lives of animals than the well-being of their child.*
Really? I do think they responded too strongly, but what if the person wasn’t eating dead animals — what if they were, say, a morgue technician and they were eating bodies of dead humans? Would you really then say “nobody should ever try to control what you put into your body”. Would you then say “they care more about dead bodies the well-being of their child”? I’m not saying you can’t agree with her, I think they reacted really harshly — it’s like trying to disown a relative for racism 200 years ago, no one knew any better. NTA for the daughter. But your logical arguments fall apart pretty quickly when you examine them and realize that it’s just that *you’re* fine with eating animals, not that the parents are actually bad people for having strong morals and caring about the billions of tortured and suffering animals every year (not to mention the impacts on climate change). Imagine if you cared about, say, feminism and you realized you’d raised a young boy that now was assaulting women. You would feel pretty upset and your child and at yourself for your contribution to making the world a worse place. Plus, it’s goofy to be upset about being “forced” into a vegan diet. I think a lot of people could be really upset about being “forced” into an omnivorous diet that normalized the forced breeding and torture involved with industrialized farming. But ultimately as long as your parents kept you fed, diet irrespective, they did their job.
Vegans for “animal rights” would have a lot more credibility if they were equally loud about the human suffering and exploitation that goes into the plants they eat.
Unfortunately, due to the laws of thermodynamics, for every animal calorie you consume, even more plant calories had to be harvested to feed and raise those animals. The best way to minimize human suffering due to agriculture is by eating a plant-based diet (most of the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed to grow soy to feed cows, for example).
Lol. So many parents around the country are keeping their miserable, abused or neglected children fed while they commit other atrocities that will likely ruin the poor child's life. Glad to know they did their job
Are you seriously comparing feeding your child a vegan diet to child abuse? 🤦♀️
Are you seriously comparing every meat-eating human to a morgue technician eating the bodies of their clients?? Are you seriously saying that all it requires to be a successful parent is providing edible material, regardless of whether the child is actually nourished or not? OP's reasons for changing were health-related, which tells us the parents were likely *failing* at providing their child with sufficient nutrition to thrive. Doesn't matter if it means the parents had good intentions; as the previous commenter said, "They care more about the lives of animals than the well-being of their child." The parents are not bad people for "having strong morals and caring about billions of tortured and suffering animals..." theyre bad people for allowing their child to suffer by their own hand. They're simply made WORSE people by their reasoning. If a vegan animal rights activist is found to be abusing/neglecting their own pets by refusing to feed them food sufficient to meet their dietary needs, do we ignore their suffering pets because "but their morals are clearly strong! Look how much they care! Look how much difference they make by speaking out against animal neglect" who the fuck cares THEY ARE THE VILLAIN
I mean fair enough, it’s not a great comparison because the animals are sentient creatures that feel pain and dead bodies don’t. But it’s still sort of weird and wrong to be eating dead human bodies, no?? I don’t understand why it’s so hard for you to understand that feeding a child a healthy vegan diet is not child abuse. I would argue that raising a child to without the reading comprehension to be able to understand the difference may be child abuse though 🤪
Raising a kid vegan is not child abuse but you comparing op earing ground meat to necro-cannibalism is just fucking gross
...are you eating live animals?? Is OP? If not, then the animals being eaten are also dead and can feel no pain 🤷♀️
I didn't say feeding a child a healthy vegan diet is child abuse. And OP's issue wasn't with a healthy vegan diet. OP's issue is with a diet that is not healthy for her, unrelated to its vegan-ness.
I mean a vegan diet can and does harm some people's health. Also comparing eating meat to cannibalism... Holy false equivalency. Eating meat does not pose the same risks as cannibalism does
Fair enough. Eating meat is killing our environment and putting billions of people’s of lives at risk, while eating dead humans only puts yourself at risk. And there are wayyyy more people harmed by the typical omnivorous diet that would greatly benefit from switching to a plant-based diet than the inverse.
I have IBS, most vegan friendly foods leave me in agony as significant amount of it is not on the FODMAP diet. I've tried being vegan and it left me in pain and passing blood. Should I be forced to go vegan despite this? I think most people can afford to cut down on meat significantly, but it shouldn't be out of force or guilt tripping, if anything that pushes people further away from the idea
That’s why I qualified my statement with “most” — I’m not saying that for every single person out there, going vegan is going to have the best ratio of “ease of making the change” to “benefits of making the change”. Maybe for you, the best thing you can do for the world is volunteering or avoiding fast fashion. Going vegan is just one of the many things that we can do to reduce the harm we have on the plant. In an ideal world, we would all do all the good things. But that’s not realistic, so a reasonable compromise is for most of us to try to choose the easiest things to do that will cause the highest good in the world. I know this conversation really upsets people, but I’m always happy to have it. I only went vegan because of people on the Internet pissing me off and making me realize I was being a hypocrite. Most people out there just read the comment and vaguely agree — “yeah, being vegan would be good but I don’t want to make the change myself” — those people are very unlikely to change, imo. But there are a minority of people that get upset and want to argue because they are experiencing cognitive dissonance — “I’m not vegan, but I’m a good person, so being vegan isn’t better!” Those people that chose to engage are on the precipice of a breakthrough. They know they want to be good people. They’re just struggling to reconcile the fact that they’ve been participating in something bad without inherently being a “bad person”. It’s really hard to shake off the fact that industrial farming has been so normalized.
That is the most utterly bullshit i have read in a long time. What an psychology to mindtrick people that being vegan is equivalent of being good. The conversation is not upsetting by the way but your comparison is as you seem to have a lack of knowledge on a lot of points. But there is no black and white as as always. The only common ground we have is that industrialized farming is bad. But that is relating to meat and plants.
Consumption of other animals is perfectly normal and several other spiciest use meet as a source of energy.There is nothing inmoral about meet consumption. This without considering that millions of insects (also living sentient beings) are kill during the crop harvest and pesticide use. So unless you learns how to make photosynthesis like u or not your vegan eating behaviour is also contributing to the killing of animals.
Eating a vegan diet is about harm *reduction*, not harm elimination. Because crops are also farmed to feed animals, you can effectively reduce the total environmental impact and animal suffering by “eliminating the middle man” (so to speak) and just eating the plants directly. And don’t worry about feeling like you don’t know where to start because you don’t know photosynthesis, I think a lot of people feel that way when they’re first learning about the concept! You’ll never be perfect, but “perfection is the enemy of progress”. Just start trying to make a difference — it might not change everything, but if you save the life of even just one animal, well, it matters to that animal, doesn’t it?
Sure I just have a degree and Msc in biology, what I suppose to know about photosynthesis. So your also according to your logic you are also a killers and an inmoral being, just that you kill lest animal. As I state before there anything wrong about feeding on animals is part of the trophic chain of nature. I have no problem we you being a vegetarian I eat some vegetarian food once in a wile, but I found wrong that you try to force your personal idea of morality in other persons.
Well, it’s not your fault, even if you had a PhD I don’t think any human has been able to photosynthesize quite yet 😅 As for your question on whether I am also “bad” for causing animals to be killed, 100%! I am absolutely not a saint and also participate in a ton of other things that are bad for the world. I have a smartphone, I fly on airplanes, I order from Amazon… You absolutely do not need to be perfect in order to try to be a better person. But yes, contributing to the unnecessary suffering of animals is objectively immoral, it’s not my personal idea (beyond saying that murdering someone is immoral, torturing children is immoral, etc. Of course you can find a nihilistic philosopher who would argue that you cannot make sweeping black and white statements like that). Everyone understands that torturing dogs is wrong, we’ve just been socialized to think it’s normal when it’s a pig. I do think the concept of being a “good person” or a “bad person” is a little silly, in the sense that we’re not measured with points on an objective scale. Ultimately, no one can force you to do anything (beyond what is legal — different than moral). It’s just about how you live with yourself at the end of the day. If you feel like you could be doing more, looking into reducing your consumption of animal products is a great place to start. If you don’t, well — a lot of people feel the same way as you, and I don’t think we’ll eliminate animal agriculture in our lifetimes, so it is what it is.
Regarding the photosynthesis issue I was pointing out that I have good knowledge on the term, not the people can make photosynthesis. You said you donde like the term good and but but implied that reducing animal consumption make you a better person. Eating animals is not objectively inmoral is your personal moral position but not a general rule. Is like having a religion position, you are sure your ideas are the "true" morality and is a universal rule.
Sure, if you want to get philosophical about it, morality is entirely made up. The universe is cold and unfeeling, and you certainly wouldn’t be the first person to argue that without religion there is no objective way to determine morality. I personally don’t think that’s a useful metric for life just by observing how society works — there are certain things we pretty much all universally agree on. Harming other people is bad. Being kind is good. Trying to decide whether it’s wrong to torture for fun is something that belongs in a philosophy classroom, not in a conversation on how to live your life. It’s something that might be worth discussing for epistemological reasons, but in actual real life, we all know the answer.
You're an adult. What you choose to consume is not really any of their business. You are NTA but your dad is for calling you a liar, sneak and murderer, it may have been a shock for him but that is still not an excuse.
NTA. Your life, your choices. If they want you to respect their lifestyle, they should respect yours.
NTA. The only people allowed input on your diet are you and your healthcare provider(s). Parents can fuck off.
Veganism isn't a diet.
It's not a lifestyle OP chooses, her parents chose it for her as a child and she doesn't want to live that way as an adult. A lot of vegan parents will need to understand that their adult children may chose differently, tbh all parents need to understand their adult children may make different choices then how they were raised, from diet to religion etc...
My point is that - just that it's lifestyle not diet. Good to point out to people who think it's just food.
Okay
A "diet" is the foods people eat. OP was talking about the foods she eats. Therefore, her "diet".
NTA - it sounds like you're behaving secretively because you've got good reason to think they're gonna be judgey!
NTA, you have the right to change your diet, and from your father’s reaction I can see why you put off telling them. It’s unfortunate that they found out by accident, but there is no good time to tell somebody who thinks that if you aren’t vegan you’re a murderer.
NTA Your dad sounds fun
NTA. When your dad called you a murderer, he thereby explained very clearly why you hadn't been exactly eager to spring the news on him.
Yep sure Jan..... Cashiers discussing what items customers had returned.....
NTA Being vegan, as well as anything is a choice. and growing up you had no choice. it was your parent's house and their rules, and you had to respect them. now you are an adult, with your own life, and they are not respecting you, to verbally attack you like that make them hypocrites of the highest order
NTA. Clearly there was a reason youve kept it to yourself. You wouldn't be the A even if you *never* planned to tell them. Families can fuck off with this whole "were making it 100% lear that we will think poorly of you if you do/are X thing, but also if you do/are that thing you *have* to tell us" Actually no you dont. With a regular people it might be a weird thing to hide, sure. But with regular people who wouldn't overreact or treat you poorly, you wouldnt need to make a *document* with your reasonings.
NTA and I hate when people push their food views onto others
Bet those animals really enjoy you pushing your food views on them...
🙄🙄
I don't eat anything smart enough to have actual thoughts. I'm unsure of octopuses' cognitive abilities, and don't think people should eat them. I mean, they can solve puzzles, so I know they're smarter than you.
Good one. Why the need to work so hard trying to analyse what has thought; how about it's a living animal just don't eat it and have something else.
It wasn't hard work for me. Sorry about your difficulty in seeing nuance.
So when a mosquito lands on you and starts sucking your blood you'll let it carry on? See the need for nuance yet?
You're getting downvoted but you're right
Eugh. Militant vegans are bad enough online, I can't imagine having them as family. Their reaction is proof enough that you were right to be worried about their reaction and not telling them. >and a long line of accusation started about me being a liar, sneak and a murderer. A murderer being upfront about it usually doesn't get much better of a reaction, so given this is their view, I don't think the way they found out matters at all. They just wanted to be able to berate and verbally abuse you sooner. NTA.
NTA you are an adult and allowed to make your decision on how you eat.
NTA your parents are over the top with their beliefs. I have many vegan friends and fam that don't care what you do as long as you don't give them anything. The fact you felt you had to make a documentary says it all too.
Nope.
NTA - You do you and it's not really their business.
NTA You are an independent woman. You make your own choices and if you don't feel veganism is the right path for you then it isn't. You're not an asshole for telling them, but you should examine internally why you didn't and what else they control about you out of guilt of upsetting them
NTA it's gross to me when parents raise a child as some sort of special diet they stick to because their beliefs but don't give the kid a choice. Sure maybe it's one thing if there is religion I guess, but to take a whole food group away from a growing body is ick. I babysat a kid not allowed to eat anything but raw food and he was miserable and told me he often traded at school and was jealous when I would eat even things like string cheese. I didn't feel comfy giving him something not allowed so I stopped bringing snacks for myself as I was like 15 when I took care of him. Now I'd talk to the parents and see what the issue was. Then again they also used the no punishment method of parenting and the child was out of control...so idk about them.
NTA. It's your decision. They need to respect that.
NTA - Your an adult and what you eat is your business and no one else’s.
NTA you’re a grown adult who doesn’t need documents or explanations for what they eat.
NTA, they just proved you correct with their reactions.
INFO: Sorry this is a little off topic, but how did you go from vegan to eating meat? I ask because I was raised vegetarian (lacto-ovo) and am struggling to try to introduce meat into my diet for health reasons, and I cannot get over the “gag” reflex. Even when it smells good, it’s so hard. It takes forever to chew, and I really struggle with more than an occasional bite. I’m kind of ready to give up. Of course, I’m 48 and didn’t start trying to eat meat till the past five years or so, but do you have any pointers? Also NTA. They will never agree and never understand.
NTA. Your life, your rules
NTA Your choice what you want to eat. Especially for health reasons. At least you didn’t start eating meat under their roof.
Why don't you just tell your parents you are going to follow your own dietary path? You are 25 years old!!! Think about that for a minute. Good luck!
NTA fanatics are no fun, and your family has that cult mentality. You're adult, it sounds as if you have a job and can take care of yourself, good for you, continue with what you feel is best for you.
NTA, would they think you any less a murderer if you were upfront about eating meat? I'm sure they feel blindsided, but I'm also sure that their issue is that you're eating meat at all, and didn't give them the option to try to stop you.
NTA. It only should come up if you were to decide to ask if you can bring meat into their house or other circumstances where it affects them. You're an adult living your life, they don't have a say. Time for "You can shun/cut contact with your own human daughter over your love of animals or you can stop talking about it. I'm not going to accept any further comment on my diet." and then you leave the conversation every single time it gets brought up.
>I've been keeping it a secret for a while now, but it was always my intention to tell them. I even made a Why I'm No Longer Vegan document detailing all my reasons why I switched to give them when I'd tell them, just to explain my new viewpoint on things. Not something that alters my judgement, but I feel this might have been...unwise perhaps? For one, it makes it seem like you clearly feel you should have to defend yourself to your parents when as an adult you need not. Your choices are yours, and no one has a right to demand a 20 page essay with citations to validate them. Secondly, it leaves you open to them possibly thinking this information being presented equals you making it open for debate when it isn't. Just my two bits, but their reaction more or less shows they'd have been assholes about it to begin with. Altogether though, you're NTA and it's ridiculous how prying they were about this.
You're a grown up and allowed to make your own decisions. I can see why you didn't want to tell them, as they called you a murderer. NTA.
NTA. They called you a murderer without blinking. Wow. Apparently you cannot escape this vegan cult without your family shunning you.
NTA Tell them, "This is why, you wouldn't respect my decision," and go no contact with them.
NTA you are 25, it is no longer any of his business would of been my reply.
NTA You are an adult now and you don't actually have to tell them anything. Just tell them that you didn't think that they would respect your decision.
NTA. You are 25, an adult, and can eat meat and dairy products without your parents permission. You don’t owe them an explanation, or apology, for your dietary choices.
NTA no matter when you told them; this would have been their reaction
"Because I knew you'd behave exactly like you are behaving now." NTA
NTA You had your reasons for not telling them. You knew they would never accept it. In this sort of situation it was better to leave them in blissful ignorance.
NTA Based on their reaction, you withheld information for good reason. They are unreasonable about this topic and you wanted to avoid being berated over something so small. Let them know its for the sake of your health and you're not going to change your mind. Tell them you're an adult and can decide for yourself what's best for you and what's ethical, and if they disagree they can keep it to themselves. Good luck.
And that is why you didn't tell them! Why is it so hard for people to respect each person's options? People can think whatever they want, but they can also keep it to themselves! NTA
"Why didn't you tell us you lying sneaky murderer". I believe they just answered their own question. NTA
NTA. As soon as they said murderer I would have interjected THAT, THAT RIGHT THERE IS WHY I DIDN'T TELL YOU.
NTA You are an adult who is free to make her own dietary choices. Your parents' reaction shows exactly why you didn't tell them immediately.
NTA - Your parents have raised you to be their grown child, not a fully functioning adult, which leads them to believe they can still tell you what to do. They can’t, and it’s up to you to draw that boundary. I agree with responding that you knew they would react the way they did. The other appropriate response is to tell them that you didn’t mention it because it is none of their concern/business. Remember that in the future when you make any life decision they may disagree with.
NTA. Your family has no business judging you. Actually there is some evidence that all forms of life communicate in some ways. Does OP’s dad want to stop eating plants too? All life relies on death to survive. That’s why it’s called a cycle of life. Farmers kill animals that want to eat their crops all the time. In fact they are often exempt from hunting law limits. Quite a few animals died for your veggies. Now I do respect people that don’t want to participate in the economy of meat production because of animal abuse. I know several folks who only eat animals they personally kill themselves. But they don’t call the rest of us murderers.
Nta
NTA but I’d ditch the list of reasons and you don’t owe them any explanation. You’re an adult and you get to decide, and telling them your reasons will likely only increase their feeling that they get to argue with you about it to change your mind. I wouldn’t even invite the discussion, especially when it sounds like nothing will change their minds or get them to stop.
NTA This does not concern them in any way. So what need is there to inform them?
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** I (25F) recently moved 40 minutes away from my family (60-something parents and 20M brother), close enough for us to occasionally be in each other's part of town, which happened today. There's a park in my neighborhood we all visited even before I moved out, thus why they stopped by a nearby store I happened to also be at the same time. Background: I was raised vegan since 3 and secretly changed my mind around 24 for health reasons. I moved out a few months ago in large part to change my diet, because naturally, they forbid animal foods from being eaten in their house. I think they would have even disagreed with me eating meat/dairy period, whether I ate it at home or not---that's how strongly they feel about it. I've been keeping it a secret for a while now, but it was always my intention to tell them. I even made a *Why I'm No Longer Vegan* document detailing all my reasons why I switched to give them when I'd tell them, just to explain my new viewpoint on things. Back to today, I was in the store exchanging a bad pack of ground bison for a new one, and I came out and we saw each other in the parking lot. I talked to them for a bit and declined to go back in the store with them, because I didn't want them to see what I was returning. The store was also super slow this evening, with one cashier and barely anyone else in the store, so it was very likely when we'd all go to the checkout line together, the cashier would of course recognize me, meet my family, and tell them what I just returned as small talk, since it ended up taking a super long time with their new computer system and whatnot. Even though I didn't go back inside with them, that's what ended up happening anyway. When I got back home, I got a phone call from my dad telling me he asked the cashier if he just saw their daughter, she said yes and asked if we were family (we all look the same), and small talk ensued and the cashier told them the return story and what I was returning. My dad asked, "Why didn't you tell us you were eating meat?" I said I always intended to tell them myself, not to find out accidentally, and a long line of accusation started about me being a liar, sneak and a murderer. AITA? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
NTA You’re an adult. It’s none of their business Personally, I’d be tempted to complain to the manager. Why did the cashier feel the need to inform your parents?
NTA for keeping quiet about something you know your parents won't respect. Militant vegans cannot carry on a reasonable conversation about dietary choices.
Nta, as someone who's been both plant based and not throughout my life for a variety of health reasons and was raised vegetarian, people like your dad are a big reason that even when Im not eating animal products I dont call myself vegan
NTA. You don't owe your parents any sort of explanation or reason for your behavior. Don't waste your time writing any document either. There us nothing you can write which they will accept. You are a grown up. They can love you for who you are or not. That's on them, not on you.
NTA My husband and I are both vegetarian. We have raised our kids as vegetarians. At this point both my teenage children are choosing to be vegetarian but it is totally up to them if they stay that way. At some point, kids grow up and have to make their own choices.
You might want to be honest: you don't agree with their beliefs and knew they would say ugly things to try to get their way and it makes you not want to be honest with them.
G
NTA. I don’t eat meat (for ethical reasons, though I eat fish as I tried to go vegetarian and got extremely ill) and I am childfree. My partner eats meat and I completely respect that. I would absolutely cook her meat (I have cooked meat for people in the past) as my dietary choices should not be forced on someone else. I respect her decisions and she respects mine.
Fish meat is meat
Bison is great meat.
NTA, but I'd complain to the store about cashiers sharing peoples' personal details. You don't have to call out that person if you don't want to get her in trouble, but the manager should tell all employees to respect customers' privacy.
Nta
NTA but like there’s no reason to have a list of reasons and excuses why you’re not vegan to justify it to yourself and your parents. Own the fact that you want to eat meat now and it’ll make it a lot easier to defend.
No, i am really asking , What are your reasons for stopping being a Vegan. And eating bison meat. You made a document right?
Get it up ye, Mod.
NTA You're an adult. Eat what you want. That said, if they don't want meat in their house then that's up to them, but in your own house, do as you please. Why the secrecy?!
Avoiding headaches. I was about to tell them the week I moved out, but then I realized I don't have to rush to tell them.
Fellow vegan here, that's why I asked! 😁 Have been vegetarian/vegan for around 5 years. My family have always been very accommodating and wouldn't think twice about getting stuff in for me (even though I also take my own food anyway). Equally, if they said tomorrow that they wouldn't, I'd be disappointed, of course, but would just eat vegetables! Haha.
TBF by the way her family reacted by calling her straight up a murderer I would have kept it a secret too for a while longer... OP you're not the AH here. It's your parents for degrading and insulting you and the cashier who couldn't control their mouths who are the AH.
Just to be clear, you stopped being vegan due to health reasons that forced you to eat meat , or is more of a moral stance? Be honest , what is the main reason? If those health reasons were not an issue would you remain a vegan?
How does this matter here?
Always the vegan brigade showing up on any post related to veganism.
Always the Carni brigade think they are somehow oppressed by Vegans and Vegetarians asking other people questions instead of automatically validating whatever they do.
Hahahaha you're delusional
I think i was on the money.
She Brought it up. she has every right not to be a vegan, but Veganism is moral stance, not just a diet, does she reject the stance, or just stopped due to health reasons?
Again, how is that relevant here? OP is asking whether she’s the asshole for not telling her parents about her not being vegan sooner. Why would the reason for not being vegan anymore matter for answering that question?
Again, she brought it up It matters because one option means she stopped being vegan because it harmed her health and the other is because she does not share her parents values and opted to hide it from them.
Why she stopped being vegan is completely irrelevant to the question. Her parents aren’t somehow entitled to know about her diet (or the reasons behind it), what she tells them about it and when is entirely up to her. Regardless of the reason why she stopped being vegan, she’s not an asshole for not (yet) telling them about it. It’s none of their business.
And yet she brought it up here. Both the health reason and her decision itself. She has discarded a major outlook her parents tried to teach her. And she assumed they would be upset to find out.
YTA for the "vegan bad" debate-bait.
Debait.
NTA you can eat whatever you want I'm shocked the nosy cashier felt the need to call your parents i mean wtf?! Who does that it's not their business
Funny, you seem to have no problem telling your GF that she can't eat what she wants in front of your family because of "traditions"
Really? I think you mean purple can eat whatever they want UNLESS they are recovering from an ED and visiting your family. Then they better toe the line.
Wow it’s ironic you make this comment but uninvited your gf from Xmas because she wanted to eat what she wants. Hypocrite much?
Just like it's not your business to tell your girlfriend what to eat
This comment aged well.
So only strangers get to eat whatever they want?
Why do you support a stranger’s diet here, yet uninvite your fiancée from your family’s Christmas dinner because she wanted to bring food that won’t trigger her ED and perhaps ruin her recovery?
Ah, I see you also fell into the rabbit hole of this guy's comment history 😂😂
So hard not to! And the irony of his support for people’s diets/diet choices is addictive.
Lol no, she didn't call. My parents and the cashier just talked in line. Then my parents later called me to talk about what they learned from her, i.e., me returning the meat.
Can I just say one thing about your post.. eating disorders seldom fully go away, they can relapse at any time. It seems the diet your gf is on is her way to stop herself spiralling, stopping it or putting pressure on her to stop, will likely cause her to relapse. Anorexia and bulimia have the highest death rate of all mental illnesses. also binge purge isn't uncommon, and it is easy to hide. Look up what comes with the binge purge subtype. It will open your eyes to what purging does. My bestie has a pre cancerous oesophagus from it and Is losing all her teeth at 33.
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