LOVE ME, LOVE MY DIET

Thursday's New York Times has a piece about couples whose eating habits just aren't compatible.

You know - he eats meat, she's raw-vegan.

They're called "interdietary couples" -- which conjures up images of multicolored aliens.

The topic has allowed the writer to employ conceits such as "vegangelical" and "Man does not love by bread alone."

Some excerpts:

Ben Abdalla, 42, a real estate agent in Boca Raton, Fla., said he preferred to date fellow vegetarians because meat eaters smell bad and have low energy.

Lisa Romano, 31, a vegan and school psychologist in Belleville, N.Y., said she recently ended a relationship with a man who enjoyed backyard grilling. He had no problem searing her vegan burgers alongside his beef patties, but she found the practice unenlightened and disturbing.

Her disapproval “would have become an issue later even if it wasn’t in the beginning,” Ms. Romano said. “I need someone who is ethically on the same page.”

While some eaters may elevate morality above hedonism, others are suspicious of anyone who does not give in to the pleasure principle.

June Deadrick, 40, a lobbyist in Houston, said she would have a hard time loving a man who did not share her fondness for multicourse meals including wild game and artisanal cheeses. “And I’m talking cheese from a cow, not that awful soy stuff,” she said.

The full article is here.


I prefer not to date meat-eaters - especially if they consume it in my presence.

And I certainly won't buy dinner if it includes something dead on their plate.

Even worse are those who attack my reasons for being meat-free since '87. Do I attack you for believing in Jeebus?

(Those of you who call yourselves yogis and still eat meat should read this article, called "No Yama, No Yoga." Yoga students who are not making "progress" or feel stuck in their practice should also consider cutting back on the meat intake. Fish, by the way, is not a vegetable. Nor are eggs.).


By the way, being meat-free has a long history even in the West:

The Greek philosopher Pythagoras, famous for his contributions to geometry and mathematics, strongly believed in the reincarnation of the soul and preached an ethical lifestyle that included injunctions against killing living creatures, whether through animal sacrifice or for the eating of meat. His proscribed diet was very close to today’s vegan diet, and attracted two different classes of adherents. One group, an elite group who studied directly under Pythagoras called mathematikoi ("mathematicians" followed an extremely restricted regimen, eating only cereals, bread, honey, fruits and some vegetables. A larger group of followers called the akousmatikoi ("listeners" who attended lectures by the philosopher were allowed to eat meat and drink wine, but were required to abstain on certain days.

According to historical documents, Pythagoras told his followers, "Oh, my fellow men! Do not defile your bodies with sinful foods. We have corn, we have apples bending down the branches with their weight, and grapes swelling on the vines. There are sweet-flavored herbs, and vegetables which can be cooked and softened over the fire, nor are you denied milk or thyme-scented honey. The earth affords a lavish supply of riches, of innocent foods, and offers you banquets that involve no bloodshed or slaughter: only beasts satisfy their hunger with flesh, and not even all of those, because horses, cattle, and sheep live on grass." His biographer, Diogenes, wrote that Pythagoras ate millet or barley bread and honeycomb in the morning and raw vegetables at night, and that he paid fisherman to throw their catches back into the ocean.

It's almost enough to make a girl want to study philosophy - since Hippocrates, Socrates, Plato, Seneca, Ovid and Virgil also advocated vegetarian diets.

Almost.

Learn more about becoming veg here.