Do vegetarians and vegans think they are better than the rest of us? Judging from personal experience, a good number of people who aren't vegetarian or vegan would offer a resounding "Yes"to this question.
Those individuals who publicly tout eating no meat, especially when their stated reason has to do with caring about animals, are thought to be telegraphing a message of superiority: My dietary choices make me a better person than you.
I encounter this sort of thinking frequently in the 13.7community. (I'm very close to, but not quite, a vegetarian, myself.)
When I
wrote about the paleo-diet, a reader commented: "You are one more in a long line of vegetarian holier than thou types." When I
considered vegetarian diets from an evolutionary perspective, a reader mocked, "Airy, fairy self- righteous, I am more virtuous than thou..." Another wrote to say, "The worst thing about vegetarians and vegans is that treat it like a religion. They preach, they push, and they act like they are better than the rest of us." And these are just three examples.
So is it true? Do vegetarians and vegans think they're better than everyone else?