Are You Vegan? Do Your Friends Know?

The following Q & A from the Ideal Bite website was included in the August '08 issue of whole living / body + soul magazine:

Q: I recently stopped eating meat, but most people don't know this yet. So far, its become an issue only when I'm invited to a dinner party. To avoid hiding bits of steak in my napkin, is there a polite way to inform my hosts of my new dietary restriction?

A: This may sound cliched, but honesty really is the best policy. If you wait too long or don't say anything at all, your risk offending your host. Instead, as soon as you get an invitation, call the party-giver and let her know of your newfound eating habits. Assure her that you're low maintenance and will be fine with whatever delicious sides she plans on making. You can even offer to contribute a dish, so she knows you're not expecting her to refigure the whole menu just for little ol' you. When dinnertime rolls around, steer the conversation away from what you are or aren't eating. Yes, going meatless lightens your load on the earth, but lecturing doesn't make for good table talk. If the other guests prod you despite your attempts at deflection, throw out this tidbit: If 10,000 people replaced a beef meal with a vegetarian option just once a week for a year, we'd save enough water to fill roughly 605 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Some other interesting tidbits from grinning planet.com and environment.newscientist.com that were not included in the magazine blurb:

• A baby cow does not typically feed from its mother's teat, but rather is fed a bottled formula mix that contains (among other things) the blood of cows that have previously been slaughtered.
  
• Once a maturing cow leaves the pasture for the feed lots, it is typically given a feed mix that contains slaughterhouse waste—parts from cows, pigs, and chickens that have been ground up, rendered, and mixed with grain or other feed stocks.


• A kilogram of beef is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution than driving for 3 hours while leaving all the lights on back home.