Here I hope to gather misconceptions about us (vegetarians, vegans, fruitarians, raw foodists). Whether it be a commen one: "so do you only eat broccoli." Or a relevant quote "She has a head made out of lettuce" (simpsons). Something from a movie or tv: (a fruitarian talking) "we believe fruits and vegetables have feelings, so we only eat things that have already fallen from the tree or bush and are in fact dead already. Or add something else you think of.

I hate it when people think that all veg*ns are hippies. So not true!

I agree! We're not hippies, just crazy. I mean imagine someone not wanting to harm something that can't really defend itself. My gf eats meat regularly and when we go out to restauronts and ask about veggie options they automatically put the plate in front of her even though I ordered the veggie dish. It's a running joke with us.

there's the common stereotype of a weedy girl who talks timidly. I notice that I turn heads, since I have a tendency to speak in a brash northern accent, and i'm very much a typical bloke, although slightly eccentric. I don't seem to fit the stereotype.



A recent advertisement for bread in the Uk seems to have an underlying "crazy vegetarian" theme to it.

How about: The hostile counterculture teenage girl (sometimes dressed as a Goth) who doesn't say a thing about being vegetarian until - eww! - some cooked animal flesh is put in front of her and she nearly pukes and pushes it away and says something nasty about meat/meat-eaters.



I saw this in all its stereotypical glory in the movie "What's Cooking?"

This thread reminds me of a Pizza commercial I saw about 5-10 years ago. It's this pizza cam roaming the halls, like a pizza delivery guy looking for a room to deliver to (except it's from the POV of the pizza, so you see all this meat and cheese, etc at the bottom of the screen). The commercial is for the Meat Lovers pizza.



Well they finally come to a door that says "National Vegetarian Society" and the door opens and all these hippies look up from singing Kum Bah Yah, take one look at the pizza, and start screaming hysterically. Every one of them was just like that hippie teacher in Beavis & Butthead.



(I actually thought it was pretty funny ).







The Rev

Pitying kind of funny towards our stupid culture or just ha ha funny?

That exact scenario played itself out on Judging Amy last week (or the week before... I'm bad with time).

Years ago I went to a weird christian show where there was this magician guy who was impressive and this complete jerk of a 'comedian'. He called out into the audience if there were any vegetarians or vegans, turns out we were all too shy or stoned to reply and he made some comment about vegetarians being too weak to raise there arms.

I HATE this comment!

I don't mind being made fun of because I am a veggie, but people are either having a laugh with you or laughing down at you.

Which bread commercial is this? (I haven't seen it)

We watched "Cheaper By The Dozen" (which is nothing like the book), and the crazy , mean, overprotective mom next door was a vegetarian. *sigh*



Example: One of the "Dozen" kids went missing, and so a family member went to the veg woman's house to ask if the child had been there. Veg woman's son offered to go look, and so did the father, but veg woman protested, saying it was past her child's bedtime. (It was like, 9PM.) Her husband overruled her and took the kid with him to go help look for the missing child, leaving her at the house looking mean and pouty.

That's actually hilarious!!!

I hate it that people think that because I'm vegetarian I'm "on a diet" or I have an eating disorder or something like that. Or that if I am sick then its automatically because I'm veg*n.



Back to the topic though, the misconception that all vegetarians are eccentric, extremist hippies who wear kaftans and spend their evenings smoking pot and reading the latest offering by the dalai llama or something equally left of centre irks me somewhat.

One night at work, I was wearing a Dead Kennedys shirt.. this guy, for some reason seemed really surprised that I liked DK and then outta nowhere (I guess because of Jello?) asked me if I was vegetarian. I said, "...uhhh.... yeahh.....????" and he just had this exasperated look and rolled his eyes and said something like "come on, man... everyone's a vegetarian these days." Because yeah, I've been doing it for the fashion all these years

everyone's a vegetarian?! damn, what crowd does that guy hang out in?? must be great!!

LOL i know!!! Unfortunately, I didn't have the energy or patience to take the conversation any further. I think I said something along the lines of, "really? Haven't met any of them yet," and walked away to actually go do some work.

Remember the Simpson's episode with "Dirt First"?



"I'm a level five vegan. I don't eat anything that casts a shadow."

-Jesse Grass

Ha!

I'm a simpsons fan but it pokes fun at us, everything casts a shadow. Also that Jesse has a compost heap in his pocket

isnt matt groening a veggie, i thought that he was , I could be wrong

I'd prefer meat-eaters were treated with the caricaturizations vegans often are, though it'd be best if people stopped that kind of behavior altogether.

Umm... we have plenty of those caricaturizations on VB. We often talk about omnis as insensitive, heartless jerks. Thankfully, we have plenty of people here who speak up and point out that not all omnis are equal.

I agree with Epski and Skylark. The thread title "stupid things omnivores say" should be changed to, IMO, "ignorant things people say."

well, it is stupid things that omnis say. We know not all omnis are like that, but I think that changing it to "ignorant things people say" would be a bit overboard on being politically correct.



Anyhow, the portrayal of vegetarians i am often aware of a vegetarian family in the Uk is that it's a generally normal family, who have been vegetarian somewhere between 15 and 20 years, eat primarily healthily, are quite a strict, middle class family, who most likely have an Aga cooker, and are slightly quirky.



The advertisement I was talking about befor eis for warburtons bread. the vegetarianism thing isn't all that blatant until the end. There's a comment about a bacon sandwich, and we see the bread, pictured on a kitchen table. Behind it, we can see a shelf compromising of entirely vegetarian cookbooks, and a britafilter thingy (Which means they either live in blackpool, where the water tastes rubbish, or they're a health conscious middle class family) And you don't get many middle class people in blackpool - they're all smackheads.



Anyhow, the advertisement does have the token "aww... look, a cute kid" moment when the daughter grabs her little stuffed pig and holds it protectively at the mention of a bacon sandwich. And the mother is characterised as an over-authoritative family figure. not the best of representations, in all honesty. Which is a shame really, since vegetarians don't really get all that much representation in the media, so it's nice to see some positive representation as opposed to negative.



Anyway, most people in the health-conscious or vegetarian demographic are more likely to buy warburtons, since it doesn't use artificial additives, (E300 is in there, but try telling me that's an unnecessary additive - You'd die if you didn't have it!) or use bread machines.

I kinda think they are funny, when its an intended joke. (Like REv's example and the Simpsons) If we can't laugh at ourselves things get to...um...unfunny.



Now, when its people who seriously think all vegans/vegetarians are like this or that...thats just annoying.