What if your lover loves Meat?


The vegan living is clearly a superior way to live from a health perspective and because so often our reasons for becoming a vegan is grounded in moral, ethical values. And this is all well and good as long as you are functioning within the vegan community exclusively. But what if your lover is a meat eater? If the one you are in love with, or even engaged to is not even a vegetarian, which can lead to a huge mental trauma to break up.


The last thing of the traditional vegetarian movement is about hostility. But now things have been changed at fast speed. After the launch of Beyond Meat kind of public listed corporation in USA and small size copycat of same across the world, we vegans have been able to bridge the gap in much more better way since last one decade. So you have to have some guidelines on how to live in peace and harmony if you finally decided to have a life partner, who has not yet joined you in your vegan lifestyle. Of course, one resolution is for your sweetheart to become a vegan with you. You could go with the argument of, “well if you loved me you would give up meat and switch to non-animal meat.” But forcing someone to join the vegan community out of guilt is a terrible reason to make that change of life. Your sweetheart will just resent giving up a food he or she loves and will probably cheat and eat meat when not around you. That kind of tension, resentment and deception is no grounds for a long term love affair.

A better way is to come to terms with your differences, find ways to live with them and then see if down the road, your sweetheart might convert of his / her own free will. The first step, as is true of any conflict in an intimate relationship, is to talk about your differences openly. Sit down and talk about where each of you is on this issue. Agree to disagree. But also agree to find compromises and not to hold the other in contempt or to mock the other for the life choices he or she has made. By reaching a loving agreement, each of you can allow the other to be who he or she is and the romance can continue as the dietary dispute is resolved peacefully.

Above all, don’t need to look upon your sweetheart’s choice of diet with distain or disgust. All the way it's matter of love and communication. One point is clear in my personal opinion, that is, a lover can't eat heart or body parts of any animals as long as his/her love is natural. Don’t make the disappointed face each time for irrational excuses.

It is not so being ethical to live with meat eaters. It's a regressive practice or compromise for hidden benefits and not feel repulsed when others eat the foods you don’t approve of. Over time that approach may not result in the best long term love affair and maybe even see you come to a time when he or she sees the light and joins you in the joys of veganism since, it is the best way to live.

Sudesh Kumar / Vegan Writer / Nonfiction 

Email: ask@sudeshkumar.com