Hah!
Shamus' comment indicates that it's time to tell my famous "vegetarian" story again!!
My husband's supervisor at work [he and his wife were former meat-eating Texans, apparently...] was supposedly a "vegetarian". Meanwhile, hubby was a real carnivore - a human 'T-rex', if you will.
One holiday season, hubby and I were invited to their house for a co-workers' get-together. The featured dish was to be vegetarian chile.
Hubby told me not to eat much before we went to his supervisor's house, because there would be "lots of good vegetarian dishes to eat"...
[Keep in mind that I'm hypoglycemic, and tend to get REALLY cranky if I'm hungry. Also, though I'm not a true vegetarian, I come pretty close. I occasionally eat meat - say, once or twice a year - but most of the time it's veggies, fruits, milks, cheeses, yogurts and maybe a bit of fish.]
So, I didn't eat for about 3 hours before we went to the party...
Anyway, we show up a half-hour after the party started, and there was NO CHILE LEFT.
There ALSO was precious little REAL FOOD to eat. All this woman had to offer, was Ritz™ crackers, commercially-made orange sherbert, some 'snacky' cracker mix and one hard brick of sharp cheddar cheese.
By this point, I was becoming faint with hunger. I looked at the table, and said, "Why, this food is all white sugar and refined flour!"
One of the guests pipes up and agrees with me, whereupon the supervisor's wife glares daggers at him. I looked at her and said, "You know, we could have made this a potluck. I could have brought some tabbouli salad, some cous-cous and some hummus."
The wife looked down her nose at me, and in the most thoroughly snotty voice possible, said, "WE DON'T ALLOW MEAT IN THE HOUSE"...!!!
So, I asked if she had ANY vegetables to eat. She opened up her refrigerator and - I SWEAR this is true!!! - THERE WASN'T A SINGLE SPECK OF FOOD IN THE ENTIRE REFRIGERATOR!!!
THEN she opens the freezer. There was nothing in there, either, EXCEPT FOR A GIANT TUB OF "BEN & JERRY'S" ICE CREAM...!!!
Finally, she opened up an UNrefrigerated pantry door, and there was a small, half-empty bag of wilted baby carrots on the shelf. I was so hungry, that I devoured the whole disgusting mess of soft, dried-out baby carrots.
Needless to say, by this point I was flabbergasted.
I finally asked her, "What type of vegetarians are you?"
She seemed PERPLEXED by the question, so I tried again...
"What type of vegetarians are you? There's "pico" vegetarian, which means a person eats fruits, vegetables and fish; there's "pollo" vegetarian which means a person eats chicken - birds - in addition to plants. There's "ovo-lactate" vegetarianism, which is closest to my diet, which means that a person eats plant matter and milk products and eggs, then there's straight vegetarianism, which means a person only eats plant products, and then there's "vegan", which means that a person only eats plant matter that doesn't kill the plant, which I think is a bit extreme - I mean, after all, the wheat and corn is going to die in the autumn, anyway...."
She STILL had that "deer-in-the-headlights" look in her eye, so I prompted her again, and she said, "The - uh - the - uh - the milk and the - uh..."
I said, "You mean, the 'ovo-lactate' vegetarian?"
She said, "Yeah! That one!"
I gave her SUCH a look of disgust, and marched to the front door, paced back and forth until hubby made his goodbyes, and then we thankfully LEFT that blitheringly clueless twosome and their blind ignorance!!!
And I went home and ate my VEGETARIAN dishes of tabbouli salad, cous-cous with veggies, and hummus.
Later on, I ran into another alleged vegetarian in the SCA, and I described that night in detail [almost exactly what I've written above]...
When I finished, and asked again about the empty refrigerator and especially the huge vat of ice cream in the freezer, she hung her head and said, "Yes, my husband and I are 'junk-fooditarians', too..."
It seems that there is actually ANOTHER class of "vegetarian" - known as the "junkfooditarian". They are careful to avoid meat, but eat EVERY OTHER CRAPPY, SUGARY, REFINED-FLOUR ARTIFICIALLY-FLAVORED piece of crap produced by the food industry!
And THAT, dear Shamus, is why SOME vegetarians look
pale, weak, and sickly.
Zid
