don't touch my veg with your meaty hands!

Hey,
Just found this website and wanna have a whinge about a little food handling issue I keep running into. It's hard enough to eat on the run as a vegetarian, but I am constantly put off by what I see as bad food handling. For instance: you go into subway (or any sandwich bar/cafe really) to get a vege sub and the girl/guy behind the counter is making someone else's big meaty sandwich. After handling their meat she/he then uses the same gloves to plunge into the various salads that will end up in your mouth and then cuts your salad sub in half with the same knife that has sliced through 100 other meat infested creations! Sometimes you can even taste it. I know I sound paranoid but it just grosses me out so much. The thing is, nobody else gets it-they say things like 'oh, just take the meat out' or just eat around it. Eww! I don't want it anywhere near my food! It's like smoking in a room and expecting everyone else to inhale your smoke. Because we are not the majority we are treated as 'difficult' and labelled obsessive or paranoid. I don't pick on anyone else for their choices, I just don't want to share their meaty chunks!

 

if i eat at subway or something i always ask them to change their gloves before they make my sub. they get a little frustrated but i am nice about it and i explain then they are more compliant. then since i am a happy customer i give them a decent tip.

 

Ha, this thread title made me laugh! When I was a new veggie and even a new vegan I'd freak out all of the time about contamination, traces of certain things in my food. It's funny because I'd yell at my housemates to "GET YOUR MEAT-HANDS OFF ----" and mean it too, quite unhinged. Animal Liberation by Peter Singer is a really interesting read and something that he said in it has always stuck with me and helped me to settle on the neurosis a tad. It's about intention and what helps the animals - being vegan helps the animals - stressing about whether or not this has this or whatever does not but indulge our nitpickyness and make us unhappy. That said, I'm an extremely strict vegan and I do everything I can to keep trace ingredients off my plate, since even if it is listed as a small part, you can bet the manufacturers are buying it on a grand scale. Another reason why it's good to steer clear of non-veg restaurants - it can suck sometimes though I know. By the same toke... it's your money dude, and don't take shit! ~Love

 

Sige following on from what you've said though, being a vegetarian for a long time can make you have an upset stomach or make you feel ill if you eat meat as your stomach is not used to churning up so much dense food

 

i usually don't stress about it.

but i have a friend with a coffee house who is very careful to use separate knives and grills for vegetarian and meat sandwiches, and tries very hard to be conscious of providing strict vegan offerings too, which i think is pretty cool.

 

As long as it's not cooked with meat i'm usually satisfied.. I had chips from the chipshop (first time in months as i was so hungry -.-) EUGH, could taste all sorts of meat on the chips + they were disgusting ^_^ Last time i'll ever had chips from the shops..

 

I don't usually worry too much about this sort of thing. But the other day my husband brought home some onion rings from a fast food place. They tasted so much like meat I couldn't eat them.

Kathi

 

Honestly, that's nothing to worry about. As my arch-nemesis Dr. Phil would say, "If that's you're biggest problem..." Then he'd trail off while the sycophantic audience laughed their asses off, but you'd still get the point.