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by rrrrrrrrrrrryan
2134 days ago
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People just hate being told what to eat - it's as simple as that. I've given up trying to explain that dietary preferences are surprisingly elastic, and highly dependant on what you've recently eaten. It's something that's obvious to anyone who's dabbled with any sort of dietary modification (e.g. cutting down on carbs, or trying out vegetarianism for a bit, or just cutting out soda). Your tastes change surprisingly fast. Something that you previously loved, like a burger, or a big hunk of steak, can transform from a regular craving to something that sounds kind of gross in a matter of a couple months. But just trying to explain this phenomenon to people is often met with extreme defensiveness. You'll hear: I could NEVER give up pasta/meat/whatever. But they absolutely could, and it wouldn't be nearly as hard as they're imagining. I'll always encourage anyone curious about tweaking their diet to just go for it, but I've given up entirely on trying to nudge people toward a healthier lifestyle if it's not something they're already working toward. |
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In Netherlands in loads of restaurant the vegetarian option will taste terrible. In recent years that's slowly changing. I often wondered why someone chose the vegetarian option, it looked and tasted terrible. It wasn't just the initial impression, everything vegetarian was bad to terrible. Plus stupidity on my part, instead of buying something nice that's vegetarian I'd try terrible meat-replacements.
To me someone eating vegetarian was someone giving up enjoying food.
IMO it's nicer to focus on the positives rather than on what someone cannot or should not do. E.g. various colleagues are now vegan. Some just because the vegan diet is better for them (more energy, sleeping, etc). That's stuff they experienced, I'm not vegan/vegetarian.
Another thing I realized is that sometimes the meat part in a dish is actually terrible. A lot of the chicken in Netherlands is sold with a huge amount of added water. It actually does not taste any good, sometimes it is not even noticeable that it is in a dish. A vegan friend was visiting, I already was doubting why I was adding chicken to a dish. Replacing the chicken resulted in a nicer dish (cauliflower with mango chutney plus loads of other spices). Since that experience that dish will at least be vegetarian.
Further, why not let people experience it? Instead of saying that they'll change, maybe say it might happen. IMO it's not that important someone completely changes their diet or never eats something. If they go from regularly eating meat to sometimes eating meat that's already a huge change.