If you're vegetarian or vegan and you haven't heard the animal cracker question yet, you probably will eventually. (Hey, can vegans eat animal crackers? This is apparently quite humorous.) Actually, it seems that there are several universal responses to hearing that someone's vegetarian - and guess what? You'll get to hear all of them! Some are objections, some are jokes, and some are just really weird. Ever gotten stuck on a way to answer them quickly? Here are some of the most common:
- "What if…"
I were on a desert island, and there was no food at all except for some cows, who apparently had adapted to use photosynthesis in the absence of vegetation? I have no idea what I'd do. Maybe I'd start using photosynthesis myself. Hey, it's a hypothetical situation - anything can happen! But I wouldn't blame someone for killing and eating the cows in a survival situation. The point is that we are not in survival situations here.
- "But if we didn't eat animals, they'd over-run the earth!"
Actually, if we didn't eat animals, we'd stop breeding them! We get meat mainly from "farmed" animals who have been "raised" by humans, not from the wild. If we didn't eat animals, it wouldn't be profitable to raise them. "Factory farmers" would decrease the number of animals born, not release them to the surrounding area.
- "Oh, come on, just a little won't hurt you!"
No, it wouldn't hurt me, but I've made a commitment to vegetarianism as a way of not hurting the animals.
- [for vegans] "No, no, no. You just don't get it! There's no baby chicken inside the egg!"
The point of not eating eggs isn't because there could have been a chicken inside - it's a way of not supporting the farms where chickens lay the eggs. Often the "layer hens" kept to produce eggs are in absolutely terrible conditions, and not eating eggs decreases the demand for them.
- [for vegans] "It doesn't hurt the cow to milk her!" or "But the cow would explode if we didn't drink the milk!"
I don't drink milk because I don't want to support the dairy industry, where cows are often in horrible conditions. Not buying milk decreases the demand for it and sends a message to the dairy industry to decrease production by decreasing the number of calves born and kept for milking. They're not going to say "Hey, less demand for milk! Let's just stop milking Betsy there!"
Answering questions can actually be rather amusing. Some people evidently just want to seem smart, and when they find you are prepared to answer a question they promptly walk away. Others are genuinely interested, but have long-held objections to the idea of vegetarianism. By being well informed and tactful you can help lead them to a compassionate diet.
--Kim was the winning essayist in our 2003 essay contest. Read her article, Spreading the Word.
Send feedback about this article
This article made me laugh, not because it didn't make sense, but because it made so much sense. This is my life, iI always hear questions like that, and I could so easily relate to this article. As a strict lacto-ovo vegetarian, and on-off vegan, it frustrates me when people ask questions like that just because they feel it would make me question and stop believing in something that is such a part of my life. I just wanted to say I appreciated the article.
--Linzi
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