Meat Versus Veggies

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The ultimate battle.

"Good news, everyone! You don't have to eat meat! I've got enough gazpacho for everyone." —Lisa, The Simpsons, "Lisa the Vegetarian"

"Veggies are what food eats." —Doc, The Whiteboard

Bob is a born and bred "meat and potatoes" type of guy. He counts meat-related foods as his Trademark Favorite Food, has a Bacon Addiction, staunchly believes that Real Men Eat Meat, and in extreme cases will willingly become a Burger Fool just to be close to the burgers. Chicken, pork, beef, fish, lamb, goat--if it's meat, he'll eat it without any qualms, and he's not afraid to be a Large Ham about it.

Alice, on the other hand, is a vegetarian. As such, she's a supporter of the all Soy diet and would thus thrive in a Veganopia environment, and literally Does Not Like Spam. She'll probably eat Fantastic Fruits and Vegetables, or jump at the Call to Agriculture. Maybe she'll advocate Artificial Meat, the type that's made from plant byproducts, such as tofu, mictoprotein, or gluten steaks, and she might well assure you that it Tastes Like Chicken. Perhaps at one point she used to eat meat, but switched camps after meeting her food live and in person. Or perhaps she doesn't eat meat because it's against her religious beliefs to do so. If the creators of the work dislike veggies in general she will probably be a Straw Vegetarian.

When their philosophies on food come together, expect them to clash. Bob thinks Alice is eating Fake Food, and that she just needs to try meat once to appreciate how good it tastes; Alice is squicked out by Bob's dietary choice and thinks he'll suffer Death by Gluttony for his obsession with meat.

A Cooking Duel may ensue for each side to prove that their preferred food type is superior to the other. Worst-case scenario, a Food Fight or Diner Brawl will ensue.

Basically, this trope is about the kind of conflict that goes on when a meat-eater and a vegetarian have to share the same dining space. There will be no middle ground.

No Real Life Examples, Please on this page. PLEASE. The last thing we want here is a brawl between "meat-and-potato people vs. tree-huggers."

Anime and Manga

• The eponymous character of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water is a strict vegetarian and believes there is no justification for eating meat. She is so stubborn about this issue, in fact, that she turns a deaf ear to Jean's arguments that he and her friends only eat meat for food, not for cold killing. (She abandons this attitude, however, when she tells them about her tragic past that led to her rigidness about it.)

Film

• In the 1987 movie Date With an Angel, the angel responds rather poorly when the main character offers her a burger...she does, however, eat the French fries.
• The 2005 low-budget film Shooting Vegetarians focuses on the main character, a vegetarian, being forced to go and work in his father's butcher shop. Hilarity Ensues.
• Willy Spino, a meat-eater, and a vegetarian blind woman have a minor spat about their diets in the Apocalypse film series movie Revelation.

Live Action TV

• Phoebe Buffay of Friends is an odd case, as she flits between being a strict vegetarian by virtue of being an animal-rights supporter, and eating meat as part of Hypocritical Humor. The trope is played straight in one episode, however, when she gives in to peer pressure and eats some veal, and is later sick because of it.
  • During her pregnancy her body craves meat, and only after Joey promises to stop eating it to balance out her intake does she give in to those cravings.
• Dharma and Greg: Abby, Dharma's mother, is a strict vegan, which causes problems in some instances.
• Roseanne is every bit of a Jerkass toward Darlene and her boyfriend David because they're both vegetarians.

Roseanne: (introducing them when they're camera-shy) They're vegetarians. They don't have the strength to hold their heads up.

• • On another occasion, she delivers this line to David:

Roseanne: Listen to me, David! RABBITS AND GEESE AND GOATS ARE NOT PEOPLE!! THEY DON'T SING AND DANCE!! THEY'RE FOOOOOOD!

• Star Trek: Mr. Spock is a vegetarian, and is extremely displeased with himself when he eats meat in an out-of-character moment in the episode "All Our Yesterdays":

Spock: Please pay no attention. I'm not myself. I'm behaving disgracefully. I have eaten animal flesh and I've enjoyed it. What's wrong with me?

• • In Enterprise, there is a sect of Vulcans that rely on both emotion and logic in balance, and they have no qualms about eating meat.
• Gordon Ramsay once tricked a vegetarian into eating meat in one of his cooking shows. Needless to say the vegetarian wasn't pleased.
• In Leonardo, Jerk Jock Michelangelo makes fun of Leo for being vegetarian, and suggests the birds he frees should be "released" into a cooking pot.
• Frequently referenced on No Reservations - Tony falls squarely into the meat camp, many of his personal favourite Food Porn moments involve huge piles of sizzling animal parts and he rails against vegetarians or vegans with political motivations he finds ridiculous and who don't actually know how to cook vegetables properly. He will grant points to the (generally Buddhist) vegetarian cooks of places like India and China, however.

Literature

• Vorkosigan Saga: Cordelia comes from Beta Colony, where all the "meat" is actually vat protein. When she marries Aral and moves to Barayar it takes her a long time to get used to meat from actual animals.
  • IIRC from a remark by one of the Koudelka sisters in A Civil Campaign, Cordelia still insists on vat meat at Vorkosigan House, thirty-some years later.
• In the novel Elizabeth Costello, the eponymous character's vegetarianism is just one of the many issues she has to contend with in the world she lives in.
• In the Garrett P.I. series, vegetarian Morley and steak-lover Garrett constantly mock each other's eating habits. Subverted in that Morley is the one who's a stone killer by profession.
• In the Babysitters Club series, Dawn and her family were vegetarians (though this varies from book to book; sometimes they simply avoided red meat, and sometimes they, especially Dawn, were devout vegetarians). This was especially played up after Dawn's mother married Mary Anne's father, with three vegetarians and two meat-eaters in the same house having to make peace with one another's diets.
• In Robert Kimmel Smith's Mostly Michael, the title character's grandmother is a vegetarian health nut who believes meat is "evil" and that everyone would be better people if they only ate fruits, nuts, and vegetables. When Michael asks if eating a hamburger will turn him into a killer, she basically says yes.
• Molly from Catherine Anderson's Sweet Nothings is a health-food nut and a vegetarian, but tends to be pushier about the former than the latter due to working as a cook on a horse ranch; she will prepare meals with meat in them, but insists on serving them with brown rice and calorie-free butter spray.

Webcomic

• In Girls with Slingshots, Jameson's girlfriend/later wife Maureen is a shy vegetarian blogger who is harassed by one of Jameson's longtime friends, Candy. At first Candy's jokes and pranks about Maureen's eating choices/reactions to the thought of meat are treated as funny, but eventually everyone in the group decides that Candy has gone too far for too long and call her out on it. As for the rest of the cast, it rarely if ever comes up as an issue.

Web Original

• James Lileks' fisking of the Meat Cook Book in his Gallery Of Regrettable Foods includes many comments reminding readers to never, under any circumstances, eat the vegetables.

WARNING! The carrots here are not to be eaten. Your manly meat-a-rifficness will diminish if you eat the carrots. Vegetables are for commies.

• • Though, if you read the gallery, it's pretty clear he finds all the meat recipes revolting.
• The "You might be a twinkie if..." list, "twinkie" referring to "My great-grandmother was a Cherokee princess; do you want me to read your aura?", has "If you ask me for vegetarian recipes..."
• EPICMEALTIME has fun with this one.

Western Animation

• In What About Mimi?, Mimi's mother is vegan, but when she's away for the weekend Mimi's father secretly eats meat.
• In Peace on Earth, Meat-eaters and Vegetarians are among the warring factions mentioned as the grampa squirrel explains how Mankind wiped itself out.
• Danny Phantom: between Tucker and Sam, Meat and Veggies respectively.
  • To expand upon this example: It begins after Sam gets the school to take meat off the school menu, and it escalates to the point where the two of them each organize two dueling protests in front of the school.
• The Simpsons: between Lisa and Homer in "Lisa the Vegetarian", where Homer is throwing a BBQ just around the same time as Lisa has just converted to vegetarianism. After attempting to sabotage the BBQ Lisa goes missing as she is searching for others who share her philosophy; when she finds them, they point out that though they share her values, she's actually being pushy and needs to let other people do their own thing. Whether or not her family respects her choice depends on the writer; some of the supplementary books and comics have Marge making vegetarian substitutes for things like ribs and chicken so Lisa doesn't feel left out at barbecues, but one episode has her saying it's "just a phase" and admitting to sneaking meat juice into her vegetables. The Lisa Book also has her putting beef juice into macaroni salad "for Lisa's own good".
• Avatar: The Last Airbender has a minor moment of this, when the Gaang arrives to the Fire Empire: Sokka is overjoyed to eat meat at last, while Aang gets a little sick thinking about eating meat, and decides to stick with the veggies.
• Teen Titans: Beast Boy is a vegetarian (or a vegan; he doesn't seem eat eggs or dairy, but is still referred to as a vegetarian in canon.) virtue of the fact that he's "been some of those animals." He frequently encounters conflict with Cyborg because of his dietary preferences (making scrambled tofu instead of scrambled eggs, at which Cyborg was not amused). In one episode he tries to persuade Raven to eat one of his tofu-dogs; her response:

Raven: I respect that you don't eat meat. Please respect that I don't eat fake meat.

• • In fact, in the episode "The Beast Within," one of the signs that something is wrong with him is when he eats meat and eggs and apparently enjoys them.
  • Ironically, Raven's voice actress, Tara Strong, is vegan.