How to Create a Vegetarian Supportive Environment at Work and at Play

Posted by admin in Becoming Vegetarian on Mar 1st, 2010 | 0 comments

You now have a lot of valuable tools at your disposal—you know how to plan meals, you know what nutrients you need to keep your body healthy, and you know how to feed your vegetarian child. You even know how to answer questions from others and make sure you have plenty of healthful food to eat at home, at school, and at work.

Making your new lifestyle work at home and in the office requires a lot of flexibility, good humor, and planning. By this point though, you should feel up to the task. You’ve made excellent choices for your health and your future, and how you integrate them into the rest of your life will not only affect your relationships, but also how others view vegetarianism.

Nonvegetarians and Vegetarians—Managing a Mixed Marriage

All marriages are about compromise. You choose someone to spend the rest of your life with and, as time passes, you often find yourselves negotiating to find a middle ground that you can live with. One of you is messy, the other is neat. He loves reality television, she adores opera. One partner may be a social butterfly, but the other’s happy to stay home every night with a good book. Married couples figure out how to adapt to such differences, and a vegetarian/nonvegetarian marriage has to negotiate many more obstacles than most.

It’s understandable, when you’re single and dating, to believe that the ideal partner will share all of your values. But that’s unrealistic. No two individuals are exactly alike, and the day-to-day struggle of paying bills, doing laundry, getting to work, and raising children can sometimes make even the smallest difference seem enormous. As the popularity of vegetarianism increases, so do the number of mixed marriages between nonvegetarians and vegetarians. You and your spouse may agree on a lot of things, but still disagree on how to eat.

The key to making it work is acceptance of each other’s choices. If you judge your spouse harshly for not joining you in your vegetarian journey, you may be turning them off entirely and closing the door to them making that step themselves in the future. No one likes to be told that they’re going the wrong way, particularly if they’re simply eating the same diet as most of the other people they see every day.

Try to keep in mind that your choice to become vegetarian was a personal one, and it has to be the same for them too. You can’t control what your spouse eats, but you can control how you behave toward him or her.

Cherish the issues in your marriage that you agree on. There are probably far more of those than there are issues on which you don’t see eye to eye.

Acknowledge that your spouse’s diet isn’t meant to hurt you. If your partner eats meat, it isn’t a choice designed to make your life unhappy or more complicated. Try to respect his or her decision, whether it is based on ethical principles, on convenience, or on habit.

Try to get your partner to compromise on certain foods. See if you can get them to eat meat-free hot dogs, veggie burgers, and nondairy cheese at home.

Never attack your spouse’s point of view, especially in public. Belittling your partner will only cause them to be resentful and more resistant to vegetarianism.

Try to find restaurants where you can eat together. Choose venues that offer both meat dishes and vegetarian options, so that you can enjoy a fine meal together.

Play an active role in shopping and preparing meals. Cook a variety of tasty, appealing meals so that your partner can see that the diet isn’t boring. Buy a few cookbooks, and try new recipes to keep things interesting.

Be a positive role model. Allow your cheerful attitude and good health to serve as an example of how great vegetarianism can be.

Don’t talk endlessly about your diet. If your partner is interested, the subject will come up naturally; don’t lecture.

If you’ve agreed not to eat meat at home, accept that your spouse may eat meat sometimes when he or she is not with you. Again, you can’t control what they eat, and nagging doesn’t help.

Eating together is one of the greatest pleasures of any relationship. Negotiate a menu plan that’s acceptable to both of you, and then enjoy your meals together!

Being Vegetarian at Work

If you work in a corporate environment, food is as much a part of your job as voicemail, computers, and fluorescent lighting. Lunch is where you network, make deals, and discuss contracts. Looking and acting professional in such situations is vital.

As a vegetarian, this can pose a unique challenge. If everyone around you is ordering steak or chicken Caesar salads and you’re not eating much, it can call undue attention to your eating habits. Suddenly, no one’s talking about the deal; they’re talking about why you aren’t eating your lunch!

More and more people are choosing vegetarian lifestyles, but that doesn’t mean that being a vegetarian at work is easy. You’ve made a lifestyle choice dictated by your health and your ethics, but you have to walk the fine line of also fitting in with your colleagues. After all, if you’re too independent a thinker, they might not believe that you’re still a team player. When you’re at work, you want the focus to be on your work, not on what you eat. The same grace, good humor, and tact that you use to deal with family and friends are even more important in the workplace.

Answering Questions and Looking Professional

Most of the time, nobody’s going to care if you order a cheese omelet rather than ham and eggs. Sometimes, however, the comments made about what you ordered will be pointed, and they can even be just plain rude. If you’ve brought along a tempeh-and-pita sandwich and your colleague in the next cubicle tells you it looks disgusting, or if somebody at a power lunch says something insulting because you’ve ordered a hummus plate instead of a club sandwich, your best strategy is to simply act surprised that they care so much about what you eat. It deflects the obnoxious behavior and puts it in perspective. Why do they care so much about your food, anyway?

This is another situation in which you should be prepared to answer questions honestly but politely, while keeping your answers short. As we’ve mentioned already, you don’t want the focus to be on your diet, nor do you want to come off as lecturing. At this point you should already know the answers to common questions, but let’s review:

“So, what can you eat?” Tell them the truth, but downplay the tofu and tempeh. You can eat almost anything, after all, and if you tell them that, it’ll put their minds at ease. “Most of the same things you eat—pizza, spaghetti, burritos—just without the meat,” is always a good answer.

“Why did you become a vegetarian?” How you answer this depends on how well you know the person asking the question and how much personal detail you feel comfortable sharing with co-workers. Often, it’s best to highlight the health benefits of vegetarianism. Sure, you could go into details about factory farming, the environment, and the ethics of eating sentient creatures, but most people will get your message more readily if you simply make it clear that you’ve found that eating a meatless diet is better for your health.

“Will it bother you if I eat meat?” Your co-workers will probably want to make sure you’re comfortable, but often it’s more about them—they want to know that they won’t be judged if they continue to eat meat. The best way to get along with everyone is to respect their food choices and let them know that you aren’t going to look down on them for eating meat. If you simply can’t stand to be around people who are eating animal foods, find somewhere else to eat, but don’t make a big deal out of it.

In every food-related situation that you find yourself in, you’re an ambassador for vegetarianism. By maintaining the same calm, straightforward demeanor that you would in any professional situation, you’ll go a long way toward educating people that there’s nothing weird, boring, or threatening about the vegetarian lifestyle.

The Vegetarian Interview

When you are interviewing for a new position, you want to make the best impression possible. So what can you do when you are interviewing over lunch or dinner? What if you are invited out for a meal with your boss and prospective colleagues? Don’t panic. You don’t have to lie about being a vegetarian. There’s nothing wrong about the way you choose to eat. So what if the rest of the party orders steak or hamburgers? They will admire your resolve for sticking to your vegetarian diet and not following the crowd. Just approach the situation in an honest, sincere, and genuine manner. Here are some tips:

Make a good first impression. Job interviews are all about first impressions. Let your future boss and/or colleagues focus on your strengths and assets in regard to work. If they ask you about your vegetarianism, answer their question and then shift the conversation back to the original position. You want the job to be the focus of the conversation, not the way you eat. That way, when they are assessing you at a later date, they will remember your abilities and confidence, and not the fact that you are a vegetarian.

Don’t make it an issue. Being a vegetarian at work is a lot easier than people think. Don’t make it into a problem. Let your prospective employer know that it’s not an inconvenience and that you are willing to compromise in certain situations. For example, if the interview is taking place at a restaurant with limited vegetarian selections, don’t complain. Simply do your best to find something to eat. Order soup and salad. Or, ask the waiter politely if a certain dish can be made according to your dietary needs. Handle the situation as professionally as possible. Your future boss will definitely take notice.

Make being a vegetarian into an asset. When you talk about being a vegetarian, highlight the reasons why you chose to change your diet. Talk about being healthier and more environmentally conscious, but not in a condescending way. Be confident and factual. Be open to answering any questions your boss or colleagues may have. Keep any personal views about nonvegetarians to yourself, however. You don’t want to appear pompous and self-righteous. Don’t get suckered into any political debates. Keep the conversation light and professional by adding in a bit of humor.

In the end, whether you get the job or not won’t be determined by the food that you eat. If it is, then the job wasn’t a right fit anyway. Would you really want to work for a company who hired you based on your eating habits? All you can do is put your best foot forward. If you get the job, you’ll have to adjust to corporate meals and functions, and maintain the professional attitude you presented in the interview.

When Your Boss Foots the Bill

Part of corporate life is showing up for conferences, training sessions, and off-site meetings where food is ostensibly provided for you with a lot of thought. That thoughtfulness doesn’t always extend to offering vegetarian options, however. Don’t assume that vegetarian eaters will be catered to. If you know ahead of time that a corporate event is scheduled, by all means talk to your boss or to the employee in charge of planning the event and let them know you’d like a vegetarian meal. Usually, providing for vegetarians isn’t a problem, but whoever’s arranging for the food will need to know ahead of time how many vegetarian meals they would have to provide. If it’s a big event, you’re unlikely to be the only vegetarian!

If the planner is unfamiliar with vegetarian meals, offer some suggestions. Vegetable lasagna, spinach ravioli, Indian curries, eggplant Parmesan, vegetable burritos or hummus sandwiches are all dishes that can be made for a large number of people. If, for whatever reason, you’re unable to get a vegetarian meal, as always, make do with what’s on hand. Eat salad, bread, and side dishes. Even in the nicest restaurants or hotels, you can request a baked potato and a salad, and the kitchen will be happy to provide it for you.

Always remember that professional behavior is as important at the dining table as it is in the boardroom. If you throw a hissy fit about your lunch, you risk alienating your co-workers and looking bad in front of your superiors. No one wants to work with someone who’s finicky, humorless, and inflexible, and that’s precisely what your co-workers might think of you if you can’t handle a single meal without throwing a tantrum.

Also keep in mind that while it may be perfectly acceptable to bring an alternate vegetarian dish to a friend’s home when they throw a dinner party, bringing your own food to a corporate event is tacky. Even if there’s nothing for you to eat except salad and bread sticks, put on a charming smile and eat what you can. Nobody said it would always be easy!