Bev wrote recently that she "just gets up and and leaves,refusing to pay for
food at a restaurant when she is serve fat." I can understand this, because
I have felt like doing it too. More often, I will leave. Restaurants
are in business to serve food, and if the food is totally unsatisfactory,
and I have tried to explain it to them...then there is no reason to pay for it.
Dinner at friends is VASTLY different. My wife feels that our diet tends
to "separate" us from other people and our friends. Of course she's correct.
Our friends DO try to serve us food that doesn't have fat in it, to their
loving credit. Most often it's a dry salad and tastes awful. Thus, going
out to restuarants and to friends' homes to eat is NOT something we look
forward to, because the food will be awful, even if it has no fat. That's what
most people think us vegetarians eat all the time. They have no idea how
well (or how much) we eat at home!
My wife is not willing to become ostracized from our friends due to the
behavior of "leaving" the table and walking out. It just doesn't work unless
you want to deliberately offend them and have them no longer your friends.
I think a more reasonable thing to do is just bring your own food. One can
be delicate about this, and not make it too obvious. I just say that I have
a couple of things to "put in their microwave or oven" and I will eat a
single leaf of the dry lettuce they serve to me for dinner, even though I
hate it.
Lots of us VLF people just eat dinner before we "go out for dinner." We go
only for the social experience and enjoy it, but just don't eat at those
greasy, heart-attack producing restaurants like our friends.
Bev, this might be a better way. What do you think?
Mike Rosenblatt
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