Hindu Diners Should Drop Lawsuit Against Indian Restaurant That Accidentally Served Them Meat

I was served normal haggis instead of vegetarian haggis once… I thought it looked a bit iffy. Very glad I didn’t take a bite… but the restaurant gave me my meal for free 🙂

So all was good…

People make mistakes. If folk know they are going to be psychologically scarred by eating meat it is THEIR responsibility to check everything they eat beforehand. Others cannot be responsible for their neuroses… 

I think all that energy could be used towards something positive. But what do I know.

This is why I don’t eat out often.  I prefer to eat food that I’ve prepared myself.

One incentive of this incident is for restaurants to refuse to serve vegetarian meals, and to put up signs indicating that any of the dishes may have meat in them.

I’ve never understood the idea of being “spiritually polluted” by an accident. Can I pollute the spirits of other people? If that’s the case, we’re getting away from ideas about personal responsibility and heading towards black magic.

But if your spirit is polluted when you do something bad, how can you be held responsible for something that happened by accident?

Your mom’s reaction is an indication that it has nothing to do with morality or responsibility, but is instead about magic. Careful, or the evil wizards might pollute your spirit!!

Don’t worry about it! As a vegetarian myself I only go out to eat at places where I know it’s not a huge hassle for the cooks/wait staff to give me vegetarian food. That being said, I love it when non-vegetarian people keep their options open and realize they don’t always have to have meat for every meal. Eat up my friend! Devour all the vegetarian food your heart desires! We will be fine 😀

This reminds me of the older Jewish couple who were suing their building because an automated light in the entryway trapped’ them in their apartment. They claimed that if they triggered the light to turn on during a religious period, they were violating the edict of not making fire. The building owner claimed residents coming in late should have a light to see by, but didn’t want to leave the light on all night. Hence motion sensor lights.

I never did hear how that case played out…

That is a good point, and I believe part of the issue was that they claimed that they had been promised that automated lights wouldn’t be installed, and the building owner claimed that they did not make the promise and were worried about setting a precedent even though the couple were willing to pay for an over ride switch. I have looked it up, but can’t seem to find any articles mentioning how the case played out.

I have to admit, Taco Bell is not a name I considered remotely synonymous with vegetarian. 

You’d be surprised! I’ve been ordering things “minus beef plus rice” for about fifteen years now, and they’re very accommodating–they’ll do it for basically anything on the menu.

there is a lot of sabotage of vegetarians. So It is unclear if it is a mistake or not.  People don’t believe you, or don’t take you seriously all the time.  There is a lack of respect for choosing to not eat meat for whatever reason.  I think that suing for that amount is a bit much, but I am less willing to give the benefit of the doubt considering my experiences, and the experiences of my fellow vegan friends. 

I’m a vegetarian too, and I agree with Hemant. Maybe I’m cynical, but it really sounds like they’re just trying to get a free trip to India out of the deal. They should get their money back for the samosas, and not much else. If I’m at a restaurant, and meat somehow accidentally (or on purpose. who knows, who cares.) gets put in my food, I send it back, simple as that. Usually, if that happens, the restaurant has lost me as a customer, but I couldn’t imagine going so far as to sue over it. Shit happens.

They could, and I’d be sort-of OK with that from a veggie POV. If you can’t deal with me, then that’s just one of those things, so long as I know about it and can avoid your restaurant.

The practical problem though is that doing that rules out any party with even a single vegetarian in it. The stats on vegetarianism rates in the US seem to be remarkably fuzzy, but if we call it 10% for the sake of argument then for a group of six would-be diners you’ve only got just over a 50% chance of the group being completely veggie free. That sort of thing is going to put a pretty big dent in your potential customer base.

This is why Jews who keep kosher and take it seriously often only eat at places which have supervision to make sure that eveything is kosher. Similar remarks apply to Muslims who care about halal. Many of those are still willing to eat at completely vegetarian restaurants that don’t have supervision. In that context, I have even less sympathy to people who went to a fast food restaurant and had their order messed up. We’ve all had orders messed up before. And they are shocked that the screw-up happens to involve the thing they care about? Then don’t eat that the restaurant that has meat options. 

I can’t help that your experiences are different than mine.  But I have had people actively try to trick me into eating animal products, so have many of my friends.  I read an article, ( see: http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/cityofate/2010/09/sneaky_meat_survey_finds_chefs.php)  where many chefs sabotage meals.

also my mother recently told me of a carolyn hax article (sorry I don’t have the link) in which someone WAS allergic to meat, and their fiance’s parents secreted some into food because they thought it was funny.  it is not isolated or rare.  You are very lucky not to have dealt with it. 

The thing that is really the kicker, is that because it isn’t for PRESCRIBED religious reasons, but because of my own ethical conclusions, people seem to place LESS weight on them.  I suppose because they know I won’t feel “spirutually” tainted.  Somehow, my moral reasons are not as important as prescriptive religion. 

Lucky you, that you haven’t knowingly been sabotaged yet.  I live in a big city, with lots of veggie friendly places, but when out with a large group of people I sometimes end up at less friendly institutions.  There are douches and concern trolls everywhere who think I NEED meat.

Don’t kid yourself. Haggis has very little actual meat in it…

When I was a vegetarian I used to always get annoyed at the token veggie pizza at any function.  We’d order 6 pizzas for some big office meeting, and one would be veggie.  But many of the meat eaters would ‘try’ the veggie pizza, so if we were lucky we’d get one piece.  And vegetarians often made up more than 15% of the office.

If you’re not going to order enough veggie pizza for the meat eaters, then the meat eaters should stay away from it until the vegetarians have had a chance to have seconds.

That’s a pretty easy fix. Just explain the issue privately to your boss so that s/he can make an announcement before lunch begins that anyone who isn’t a vegetarian should wait until towards then end of the function before they decide to sample the pizza. Or, better yet, just talk to the person who orders the pizzas and explain so that they can modify the ratio.

Most people would be more than happy to accommodate veggies – it just doesn’t occur to them that there’s an issue. 

Better yet, how many people would complain if one of the meat pizzas got replaced with mushroom & garlic?

Actually they just use the cheapest grade of beef you can legally serve to people, one step above what you’ll find in dog food.  In the end it’s still actually beef.

In Soviet Russia, beef grinds you.  

I think that’s the perfect opportunity for you to mention how popular the veggie pizza was, and that maybe they should consider ordering more of those for future functions, instead of perhaps the ham & pineapple pizza that is only 1/4 gone.

Yes we tried that. People forget. People make mistakes. It gets tiresome. It’s a very minor case of privilege. Same thing at another workplace with alcohol. Yes the 3 of us who didn’t drink could get a coke from the machine. And even take it from petty cash. But it would be nice if these little things were remembered. We got tired of being squeaky wheels.
Not the worst thing ever. Life goes on.

It’s about equal parts sheep and oats, much like the land it comes from. (I’m of Scottish extraction and my parents like to celebrate Burns Night very traditionally. The good news is that after enough scotch you don’t mind the haggis.)

I agree. If you are running out of veggie pizza that is because there is not enough veggie pizza.

Vegetables are not just for Vegetarians.

Hemant, this may be moving slightly away from the topic but there are some parts of the Ganges which are very clean. Haridwar and Varanasi are the places where it is very disgusting. Of course all talk of “purification” is bullshit.

Whether or not that’s reasonable has nothing whatsoever to do with what I said.  Reasonable or not, if something is such a major issue for you then it’s just sensible to take extra precautions.

As to restaurants – I think it’s reasonable to hope that you get exactly what you order, however I also think that it’s reasonable to accept that this can not always be the case.  That’s just life – hope for the best, plan for the worst.

If you absolutely, positively, make-no-mistake, accept-no-substitute can NOT eat meat, for whatever the reason, then you should do whatever you can to take human error out of the equation because whatever you expect, people make mistakes.

Personally I think that it’s unreasonable to expect a 100% success rate for everyone working in the service industry.  If you go in with those sorts of standards then I guarantee that you will A) be disappointed and B) ingest something you had not planned on ingesting.  I’m not saying it’ll be pubes – but it’ll probably be pubes.

It is not paranoia when it is a fact that it occurs very frequently.  If you read Susoeffl’s link, it says that 15% of the chefs surveys by the Food Network had used animal ingredients in vegetarian meals.  One even said that he saw a chef add lamb’s blood to a vegetarian meal.  I remember a BBC interview with Gordon Ramsay where he said he has lied to vegetarians in his restaurants. 

Bullshit.

Do you have issues with the Dallas Observer article?  It seemed both clear and credible to me, although I suppose I haven’t investigated the study in question enough to assess its methodology.  Either way I’d think that we can take a rational look at the evidence rather than dismissing it out of hand.

Note that the article talks about deliberate sabotage, not simply misunderstanding what a vegan diet is.  Also note that, according to the article, the sabotage is simply in response to ordering off-the-menu, not ranting or ‘preaching’.

Uh, the whole point of chef-sabotage is that nobody who isn’t in the kitchen sees it. 

But I think we’re getting away from the main point, which is that however obnoxious or pushy a vegetarian is (and in my experience, I’ve never once seen a veg person ordering at a restaurant rudely) it’s still indefensible to sneak meat into the meal they’ve paid for.

People do.  If I want meat then I want meat.  I’d be pretty pissed if I wanted a meat based dish on a plane and all they had left were vegetarian meals.