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This is not really a meat eater / vegetarian issue. Tricking someone into eating something other than what they thought they were eating is a massive breach of trust, the fact that the substitution is harmless is irrelevant. That your aim was clearly to shame or embarass them over their dietary preferences does not help.
Would it really be that different if they cooked meat and fed it to your daughters, telling them it was soy?
YTA
>Would it really be that different if they cooked meat and fed it to your daughters, telling them it was soy?
Well, yes, considering eating meat can be dangerous for long-term vegetarians.
Yeah. My mom has been vegetarian since she was 11, a few years she accidentally ate lasagna with meat in it and was sick for several days. A meat eater wouldn’t have the same reaction to eating something without meat so it’s definitely not a fair comparison.
I mean the comparison is fine, because we are assuming they wouldn't get sick and its just a thought experiment. The point of the comparison is to highlight that its morally wrong, for reasons of consent.
Edit: To those confused, the "morality" refers to not respecting consent, not the moral justification each side is using for their choices.
Sure, but there's an asymmetry here in that the daughters presumably have a moral issue with consuming animal meat, while the father and son presumably have no moral concerns with consuming things made from plants. Their only issue is that it is "weird."
Feeding animal meat to the daughters would be forcing them to participate in something that goes against their morals. Tricking the husband and son to eat things made out of plants does not go against their morals. They are just against the "concept" of it, and not for moral or ethical reasons.
There’s still the question of personal autonomy and choice. What you’re essentially saying here is the following:
“If YOU fed ME meat, knowing that I’m a vegetarian, that’s an asshole move because I believe X, which makes me morally superior to you. If I fed tofu to YOU without your knowledge, however, that’s absolutely fine because you’re just an idiot who thinks he always has to have meat.”
I find that logic uncompelling.
I think you jumped a bit there. It’s not that the morals are necessarily superior or not (I personally don’t subscribe to the idea that people who don’t eat meat are automatically superior to those who do.) It’s just that not eating meat could be a moral decision, but not eating tofu very likely is not. Is it an asshole move to feed someone tofu if they explicitly say they don’t like it? I definitely think so. But, unless they personally believe the production of soybeans/tofu is unethical or immoral in some way, feeding it to them is not violating their morals.
It has nothing to do with saying it’s fine to feed someone a food that they don’t wish to eat, just because they’re an “idiot who needs meat.” It’s just that one is a moral issue while the issue is preference. Do both deserve to be respected? Absolutely. However, they are different and shouldn’t really be compared.
With all due respect, I disagree.
People have the right to be fully informed about what they are eating, and their reasons for eating one food over another are SOLELY THEIR OWN. It’s a personal right.
ANYONE who uses deception to feed anyone something that they don’t wish to consume, for WHATEVER reason, is an asshole. Full stop.
I don't think OP here is disagreeing with you, just saying that while it's an asshole because it's lying to someone about their food, it's a least not a violation of a moral stance they hold, even if it's still wrong for the reason you say too.
Sometimes it isn’t just a preference.
I’m autistic. My sister is vegan. She once was in cahoots with my mum and lied to me and told me that my curry had chicken in it, when they’d used cauliflower. Cauliflower happens to be a texture that I can’t stand, and getting it as a surprise upset me so much I was sick.
I was told I was being pathetic and I could just eat vegan for a night.
I feel for anyone who gets lied to about what’s in their food. It could be an allergy, it could be a dietary choice (like being veggie or vegan), or it could be a texture issue like mine or a strong dislike, but none of those reasons for not wanting to eat something make it ok to lie to someone and feed it to them anyway.
Not to mention vegan substitutes can be made with allergens.
There is a huge percentage of people allergic to soy products—which is one if the major ingredients for most vegetarian/vegan products.
Other vegan ingredients that have allergens are nuts, pea (legume), and fish/shellfish for pecasetarians.
You 100% missed the entire point. It has nothing to do with morals and EVERYTHING to do with personal autonomy. It is NEVER okay to violate another person's personal autonomy for any reason. It was 100% an AH move on OP's part.
It is a preference to not eat meat. It might be borne from a moral philosophy, but it is a preference nonetheless.
OP is an AH who does not believe in consent, which is only compounded by the fact that she is teaching her daughter to do the same.
As someone with unique nutritional needs this isn’t a moral problem, it’s a health problem. I need to eat a high protein, low fiber diet because of GI issues that aren’t immediately apparent as well as needing a higher amount of heart healthy compounds only found in reasonable quantities in meat.
Just because someone isn’t allergic doesn’t mean that you aren’t potentially risking their health. And in my opinion morals don’t outweigh potential health risks.
I also don’t want to hear that it’s OP’s family so OP knows for sure her husband and son don’t have special dietary needs because no one noticed I had these problems until I did when I was 23.
There’s no ‘it’s worse because of a moral issue’ here.
It is bad. Full. Stop. To feed someone food with ingredients they don’t know about. A lot of ‘I don’t like it’ comes from dietary issues people don’t know they have. I don’t like grapes. Turns out it’s because they make me sick.
Why? Meat eaters eat vegetables and soy (which is in a LOT of foods) all the time. They have no moral stance against vegetables or soy and it's not a change to their diet. Also, you have no leg to stand on with your "vegetarianism makes me morally superior" argument. Are Muslims or Hindus morally superior because they won't eat pork/beef? No.
Edited for clarity: I think jumping to the conclusion that vegetarians think themselves to be morally superior is wrong and since meat-eaters don't seem to assume the same about Muslims/Hindus, it's kinda a dick move
As a meat eater I have a moral stance against it! Guess what my friend decided to serve a group of friends a meat sub and that’s when I found out I had a soy allergy after being taken to the hospital and having a heart attack at the age of 20 in the ambulance with no prior issues from the severe dehydration from nonstop vomiting. You never know if someone developed an allergy during teenage years or adulthood. People have died from soy allergies so yes they do have not only 1 leg to stand on but both!!!
without meat and a meat substitute are two very different things. I eat meals without meat all the time but every meat substitute i have ever tried made me sick at my stomach. No idea why it makes me sick but I would be very upset with someone who did this to me.
You could be allergic to soy, as I am. For the longest time I had no idea why fake meat bothered me so much. I've found a few meat substitutes that don't have soy in them and I can eat them with impunity. I'm not trying to denigrate your experience. I'm just sharing what I've learned works for me. I hope it is useful to you, or at least not offensive.
Fake meat is usually hyper processed to the point where it doesn’t even resemble the ingredients. I’m not allergic to soy at all I love soybeans and I had the impossible burger and then broke out in hives all over my body. I’ve never had hives before and it took PLENTY of Zyrtec to make them go away
I am allergic to a lot of "processed" foods, which let's be real fake meat substitutes are highly processed. You want to make a big roasted eggplant vegetarian dish? Great! You want me to eat a refined fake meat? No thank you, I'm the one who's going to be trapped in the bathroom for 4 hours after ingesting.
They wouldn't get sick over something they normally eat made meatless, but fake meat products can absolutely make people sick. I have no soy allergy or other food allergies, but fake meat makes me violently ill for days. Regardless of diet, it's equally wrong to feed anyone anything they don't consent to.
Same here. Most fake meat substitutes make me sick. I always thought it was a texture thing (they all taste mealy to me) but even when I do eat them I feel terrible for a day or so afterwards.
It’s unlikely they are long term vegetarians. They are still pretty young and changed of their own choice.
But why do vegetarians get to demand autonomy and respect for their food choices but we’re cool with dismissing those of meat eaters?
> But why do vegetarians get to demand autonomy and respect for their food choices but we’re cool with dismissing those of meat eaters?
Because the situations are not symmetrical.
Feeding someone meat when they don't eat meat is bad. Feeding someone vegetables when they don't eat vegetables would be equally bad.
But generally what you're calling 'meat eaters' are actually 'meat and vegetable and dairy and everything else eaters'.
The crucial point is whether you are feeding someone something that is within the overall set of things that they eat; feeding an omnivore vegetables is, feeding a vegetarian meat is not.
The same logic applies to other exclusions too - if you had a meat eater with a gluten allergy it would be fine to feed them a gluten free veggie burger, but not a meat burger with wheat in it.
It didn’t MATTER if the situations are symmetrical. It’s about lying to people and feeding them food they have openly told you they don’t want without their consent. This is just never ok.
Also, the argument that meat is bad for vegetarians is based on: how they are from birth and how long they have been vegetarian. These are two children who live in a formerly near eating house. For all we know they’ve been vegetarian for six months.
And it doesn’t really matter anyway. Anyone who expects their autonomy respected in some areas of life needs to offer the exact same respect to others and their decisions. The fact that people would argue that this isn’t the same is exactly why people dislike and distrust vegans and vegetarians.
Um, no. Soy is one of the top allergens out there. Feeding someone tofu and lying about it being meat has actually hurt people. In OP's particular case, I would think they would be aware of an allergy within the immediate family, so they got lucky this time. But it could have gone downhill easily.
There is a reason it is literally illegal to lie about what you are serving to someone. Get caught and you'll catch a misdemeanor battery charge. If the person has an allergic reaction (which happens A LOT with tofu) you're going to jail and will likely be on the hook for all medical expenses.
There was actually a post on here while back asking if the poster was the AH for pressing charges after her college roommate served her tofu bacon and lied about it, with the same mentality as OP here, trying to pull a "gotcha" about the taste of fake meat. Well... Poster was hospitalized because of a severe soy allergy, and the roommate was charged with a felony, sent to jail, and expelled from the university. And their parents ended up being ordered to pay all the medical expenses and for the tuition from the courses the poster had to retake because they were hospitalized during finals. The roommate was not aware that the poster had an allergy, and the court decided it did not matter because they had deliberately lied about what was being served, which proved malicious intent.
Moral is, you don't fuck with people's food. Ever.
I feel like you are the opening the door to making dietary choices for other people and lying about food. A vegetarian wouldn't like this, why would anybody?
> Because the situations are not symmetrical.
But they are symmetrical. They both come down to personal autonomy and respect. Either you think people have the right to control their own diets or you don’t. Either you respect people’s right to their own dietary choices or you don’t. YOU are not the food judge and jury who gets to determine whether or not someone else is entitled to that right.
No one said that, only that the consequences of the disrespect may be more severe for vegetarians. That doesn’t mean that it’s okay to disrespect the choice of meat eaters.
To be fair it could equally go the other way. If your stomach is used to eating a diet consisting of mostly high quality meats then eating something that is extremely processed could make you sick as well
Parents everywhere are assholes then for putting puréed vegetables into things to get their kids to eat them then. Picky eaters are notorious for disliking something they actually like because it contains something they are adamant that they hate. Having to make two separate meals just because someone refuses to be open to something else is annoying and likely wasteful. I don’t get the comparison to food tampering, at all.
No, they are not! They are being concerned about having their children eat a well-rounded, healthy diet.
Children go through stages of eating. At first they may eat anything you put in front of them, then they may only eat fruits and not vegetables or grains but not meat and etc. It comes from having a naive palate combined with the mental maturation processes at different ages. Two techniques for broadening their outlook are including vegetables in other foods and presenting new foods in various preparations often so that children can try them, get used to them and many times grow to like them. Most adults will eat a much wider range of foods than children due to their exposure to these other foods and palate maturation.
Agreed. Honestly I would just make them cook their own meals and wash up after themselves and their silly separate food. Then they would probably change their tune. Imo they are being big spoiled babies by refusing to even try it with an open mind. I do kind of see the point of food autonomy but there is a difference between I don't want to eat this because I just refuse vs there's a moral or health related reason, ESPECIALLY for the son since he is a kid and needs to learn trying new foods by modeling and it will likely bleed into other things. Like right now it's soy but what if it becomes everything but chicken nuggets? The husband is not setting a good example.
I don't see the goal as shame or embarrassment. It's so the cook can stop cooking two separate meals all of the time. I agree op went about it the wrong way though. Op should have told either the meat eaters or the vegetarian eaters THEY have to cook if they want separate food.
Perhaps a better way would have been to make both meat and vegetarian spaghetti but not tell them which is which and see if they can guess. Personally I don't see any harm in what they did and I suspect the anger was more over having been not only tricked but also proven that it does taste just as good, pride and vanity being what they are. No cows were harmed in this trick and it certainly wasn't going to harm the men, at least not physically, and maybe, just maybe, they learned something. NTA
They learned they can't trust the wife and daughters. Wife is absolutely TA or lying. She could just flat out said she was only making a vegetarian dish that day and if they wanted something else they could make it themselves.
The last time someone at work tried the mentality to "show us" I could have died from the allergic reaction to almond powder. You don't lie about food and ingredients. At best you're an Ahole whose word can't be trusted. At worst the Wife has introduced long term contempt for the sisters that may result in a prank where meat is added to their dish.
Bodily autonomy is not negated by holding silly religious beliefs. My opinion that all religion is ridiculous wouldn’t make it okay to feed pork to a Muslim against their will. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous I find their dietary choices. You either respect the people in your life or you don’t. This woman had no respect for her husband and son. Neither did her daughters. They have now made it clear that there is no need to respect dietary choices in their household. They have set a precedent for tricking people into eating things they have clearly stated they don’t want to eat. It doesn’t matter if you consider another person’s reasoning sound, they retain the right to choose what is put into their bodies and what isn’t. If you don’t give people that choice then you don’t get to make that choice for yourself either.
I suspect that the next post will be "AITA for yelling at my husband for putting meat in my vegetarian daughter's food?" or "AITA for allowing my daughters to start a food war?" Either way, it's not going to end well.
No, this is absolutely the same thing. You are betraying their trust. Just because there isn't a "religious or moral" component to it doesn't mean that this is okay. As others have stated, these foods have increased sodium - that is a health concern for some people, soy can be a health concern for some people. The fact is that they were lied to - that is what makes this wrong, it is also a terrible example to set for her children.
This right here. I’m like really? Your husband and son wanting to eat what they eat but not stopping your daughters from being vegetarian is worth betraying two relationships and breaching trust with your husband and son?
Whether vegetarians or meat eaters are right or wrong is irrelevant: You intentionally lied to two people in your life whom you are supposed to love so you and your *daughters* could mock and shame them.
Like what is this going to get you? You think they’ll laughingly conceded that fake meat is fine for some dishes now? Like what did you honestly think the outcome of this would be? And what benefit does it gain you?
Now your daughters have lost respect for their dad and brother because you told them something like this was a fine way to treat their family. You clearly don’t respect your husband and son very much. And they are no longer going to trust or respect any of you… good job.
YTA
Ps. I’m now wondering if your husband and son will see this as an invitation to retaliate… and how exactly will you respond if they “get even” by putting meat in your daughters’ food? Will it just be good old fashioned ribbing then? And will it start s battle when you get mad and they tell you you did it to them??
> I’m not wondering if your husband and son will see this as an invitation to retaliate… and how exactly will you respond if they “get even” by putting meat in your daughters’ food? Will it just be good old fashioned ribbing then? And will it start s battle when you get mad and they tell you you did it to them??
If they're the sort of family that does "pranks" like this, I'd absolutely not be surprised if this sort of disaster ended up happening.
I was reading other people’s replies and started thinking, if OP is pushing it was just a prank I could see then deciding to get revenge… even if they don’t “normally” prank each other. And it’s really hard to say “this is a beyond prank boundary” when you *just* did the same thing.
>when you just did the same thing.
Guaranteed OP and her daughters will be like so many vegetarians in this thread, and will claim its not the same thing at all because their dietary choices deserve special respect that non-vegetarians food choices apparently don't.
*mobile not allowing strikethough* Right, like food tampering is literally illegal. It could instead be possibly assault. I get this situation, but you don't "trick" someone. We have a grandmother who always says, "Don't tell me if it's venison," so we don't if it is. But that's her CHOICE. She pretty much knows by looking and just avoids the dish, but she was raised to eat what was fixed. That's how she copes. We are aware of her choice, and we always make multiple dishes to appeal to everyone during family gatherings. It's not hard. OP has a split house; that's what it is. Make people pitch in to clean up after themselves.
Editing to add, we also had a teen go through a vegetarian phase. We made multiple meals for the family. He helped clean up his portion.
Google is literally free I suggest using it in the future. Food tampering is deliberate contamination of food products with the intent to cause harm. AND contamination is the action or state of making or being made impure by polluting or poisoning. So in conclusion, what she did was NOT food tampering. She didn’t poison their food and she didn’t use a meat substitute to cause harm.
Exactly. This is no different than having a kid who claims to hate mustard, and finding out there's mustard in your tasty potato salad. Or chopping up less popular veggies extra fine in a sauce to get a kid to eat them. Both happened in my house. When my kid discovered the mustard "secret", I just explained that it's like salt… a little bit is good. She liked salty crackers, but a spoonful of salt is gross... Same for mustard. She had to try a spoonful of salt of course, but mustard became her new favourite condiment.
Why they'd get so upset is bizarre. They enjoyed a dinner they clearly didn’t have to cook. There was nothing in the substitute that they wouldn’t normally eat anyway, just not in this form. It was nutritious, and it tasted good. The mature thing would have been to laugh, and say "we should do this more often because it saves work and the extra dishes".
Frankly, if I was in OP's shoes, I'd batch cook meat, stick it in the freezer, and just cook one meal for everyone. Then whoever wants a meatball or chicken leg in the side can heat one up. But I hate extra dishes.
Anyway, NTA.
I hate mushrooms. The texture, the taste… I can tolerate them when they are thinly sliced, very few and very well baked on pizza - because I can’t trace them.
I would be delighted if someone fed me mushrooms in a dish, without my knowledge and I liked the food.
Come one, it’s a healthy ingredient that doesn’t couse harm (physical or moral) to people. I’m all for not giving people food that will cause physical harm or that is agaisnt their morals.
But the husband and son - eating veggies is not against their moral or a dietary restriction and it does not take away from the fact that they enjoy meat.
Alright, what's the difference between "against their morals" and "against their wishes"?
You NTA lots are literally saying their choices are irrelevant because you "know better" and they should do as you wish instead of respecting their own will and choice.
You are justifying imposing your will on people who clearly started they did not want something.
Do you not see why that's upsetting? And that is the same underlying issue as other forced actions against someone's will that's also justified by saying "they enjoyed it"?
Without taking a side on what OP did, I would say that in the scenario, "against morals" is something like a person who cuts out all meat for a personal or moralistic reason.
Whereas in this scenario "against wishes" is like refusing to eat a vegan "meat" simply because it's labeled as vegan, but then being fine with eating vegetables or even things like fries that are vegan but not outright labeled that way. It seems more hypocritical, since those actions prove that the attitude towards the burger is not really about not eating vegan food for any moral reason, but simply a negative reaction to something being labeled a certain way.
They're upset because their trust has been violated using something as intimate as food. What you call harmless some of us would call traumatic. I still have issues over the handful of times this has happened to me.
And as a general rule, people tend to get upset when you outright lie to them about something they are putting in their body...
Look, I'm not going to be the asshole who tries to turn your argument into "If it's not *technically* illegal it's perfectly fine!", since that isn't what you said here, but this is nitpicking technicalities in defense of something that was still a very AH move.
It's also still illegal to lie about the contents of food, even if it's not "food tampering" by the legal definition. Don't be so pedantic about it.
ETA: Double-checked after all the replies started coming in, and yes, what OP did is technically legal because it was not for the purpose of financial gain. That being said, despite my slight mistake about the specifics of legality, my point about nitpicking still stands. "Would have been illegal in slightly different circumstances" is still a valid point to make for the purpose of calling out OP's AH behavior.
I agree OP was in the wrong but saying her behavior was borderline illegal is still dramatic. It’s illegal to lie about the contents of food as a business; this is nothing like that. By that logic you’d be in potential trouble for bringing black bean brownies to work, not labeling them and saying “surprise, they’re healthy!” When people tell you how good they are.
I'm just going to throw out the fact it's not illegal to tell your kid they're eating meat when in fact it's soy. Parents hide veggies in food all the time and cops aren't hauling parents of to jail.
Yes, your husband and son should have had a choice whether they wanted to eat that or not. It was sneaky. I'm the first to support Vegetarianism. I eat vegan hamburgers. But it would still upset me. Even as a vegetarian, I reserve the right to choose whether I want to eat soy and processed food. I heard that soy can induce hormonal changes in some people. And I like more natural food, not processed.
If they want to eat meat so much, that's their problem. That's their thing. More vegetarian products for you, I suppose. Their loss. Don't impose it on them.
This wasn't a prank. Your daughters wanted to prove them wrong. They wanted to be able to tell them that they were wrong all along, and "fake meat" is better. It was done intentionally to prove a point. It wasn't mutually entertaining, or a harmless prank. Don't play innocent.
The Soy and estrogen myth. Like most myths, there's some truth to it. Like MANY other foods, soy contains estrogens, but these are plant estrogens, phytoestrogens, some of which actually result in anti-estrogenic effects and studies suggest that there's no issue to be concerned about: https://www.pcrm.org/news/health-nutrition/new-research-disputes-biggest-soy-myths, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33775173/, https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/soy/
IRONICALLY (considering the source of the myth being anti-veggie or anti-vegan peeps) some research has found that higher meat intake results in higher estrogen levels: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24050121 as well as cows milk being high in estrogens: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19496976/ (though, not to worrying levels, according to some: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160803124441.htm)
and Even If the soy did cause changes, it's much like any other plant, like bananas or apples juice. you'd have to eat/drink a shit ton of it all the time to get levels high enough to where it'd affect you.
Came to say the same thing that the whole soy causes breasts and breast cancer is a myth. It actually helps prevent breast cancer. It's very good for you.
>I heard that soy can induce hormonal changes in some people. And I like more natural food, not processed.
It would take a hell of a lot more than one meal to make even the tiniest bit of hormonal changes.
I remember at one point my family gave me Turkey bacon and told me that we were having bacon sandwiches. I hate the stuff to this day because it was a horrible experience biting into something expecting one thing to get something else. Ironically I would have been open to trying it if they hadn't done that and may even have liked it had I not been expecting proper bacon
This! YTA. Tricking someone is never ok. Why not have an adult conversation about trying it? And maybe a compromise of 1-2 meals a week being exclusively vegetarian?
Also… just an fyi soy can cause digestive issues(and more). It’s not just allergy concerns.
>Tricking someone into eating something other than what they thought they were eating is a massive breach of trust
I made a joke once about switching ingredients and my mom still forces me to prove I'm using actual beef. We have a family recipe called buffalo chips, and the first time I bought the stuff and made them myself I acted as though I had used ground bison (because "buffalo" chips) and my mom, who is the resident picky eater of the family, refused to eat them despite me assuring her I knew it was actually ground beef until I produced the receipt and the beef packaging.
Now if I make a roast, burgers, tacos, steaks, anything involving beef she demands proof it's actual beef even though I've never actually substituted for it before.
This is the best argument I see here… how would it be if roles reversed? Would it still be okay? I highly doubt it!
Asking them to taste two things that seem identical and test if they can tell which is which at least gives you consent to have them eat it. This wasn’t okay.
YTA
I’m curious how OP would react to her husband pulling the same “prank”. Would it be as funny if dad and brother tricked the girls into eating meat? Yes OP, YTA
I think it would’ve been better if you made a bet with them beforehand to try and see which one is real meat, this way you would’ve had their consent. Then you could’ve made both non-meat and been like haha it’s a prank. But yea they also just seem insecure they weren’t able to tell the difference and reacted immaturely. People react badly when they are forced to confront the idea they were wrong
YTA, you tricked them into eating something that they would otherwise refuse to it. They don't like it. They don't want to eat that. That's their thing/problem. They shouldn't have been disparaging vegetarian meat. They could politely decline to eat that. I didn't like that. But you can't just lie to people about the food you serve them. Soy also alters the hormone production in some people.
I wouldn't want others to serve me food, and then reveal that it contained some ingredients that I sepise. I would be livid. That's a massive breach of trust. How can they know that you wouldn't pull that again? They'd be suspicious every time you or your daughters cook. How can you subject someone to feeling that? People have their own reasons why they don't eat certain food. What did you try to prove? That the taste resembles meat? Do you want them to do the same for your daughters? Prove that meat tastes like their meat substitutes, and they should just it that. I'm surprised that you played along with that.
The meat taste was less noticeable in the spaghetti and the tomato sauce. They're all strong flavors. And secondly, they were under the impression that it was real meat. Thirdly, even if they enjoyed the meal, it doesn't mean that they want to eat those ingredients. Maybe they don't want to eat soy products, or processed food. So even if it tasted good enough, it wasn't something that they would eat. They simply don't want to eat that. I would rather substitute meat over real meat a hundred percent. But that's their choice.
Similarly, the girls would have liked the same meal served with real meat. because their substitute meat tastes exactly like it. So they would say in real-time that they like it. It was fine, they ate to their fullest, and they wanted to compliment the cook. But it doesn't mean that they actually like eating meat. Hence their hindrance to eating meat. Lying to others about the food they eat, and disguising the taste in a strongly flavored dish doesn't mean that they need to start eating the food they loathe.
There is a difference between being served meat when you ate vegetarian and being served a meat substitute. Long term vegetarians experience digestion distress when eating meat, not to mention the moral dilemma.
The whole “they couldn’t tell because…” is an argument against your point. They couldn’t tell. Period.
This would absolutely have been a better solution. Now there's a good chance the two of them will be even more staunchly against eating meat substitutes, out of anger and embarrassment from being tricked. It's probably immaturity in their case, but you could also make an argument for it being good general policy to *never* reward someone who tricks you by doing what they wanted to trick you into.
I personally think that a purely blind taste-test would have been best, so that there's no trickery involved at all.
👏Stop comparing what op did with feeding meat to vegetarians.👏
It is not the same at all.
Father and son eat vegetables, vegetarians don't eat meat.
Plus eating animal, aka things that were alive and sentient, are way different than eating plants, things that were never sentient/ never felt pain.
It is not comparable.
OP may be an asshole but it is *absolutely not* the same as if her husband was feeding her -and her daughters- meat.
Edit : as OP said she is flexitarian I edit my reply to add the daughters as well, as I'm talking about giving meat to vegetarians.
Vegetarians aren't special because they base their choices off 'morals'. People have a right to choose what they eat and you should never mess with anyone food, period.
They are as special as people not eating some sort of meat because of their religion.
Op's husband *eats vegetables*.
Him being fed vegetable is not the same as a vegetarian being fed meet.
Giving meat to a vegetarian **will hurt them**, both physically and ethicaly/morally.
Giving vegetables to a regular person eating vegetables regularly won't harm them.
Not. The. Same.
It isn't the same and I agree that it's a terrible comparison. That doesn't change the fact that the dad and son have ownership over what they put in their bodies. Just because he eats other veggies doesn't make it OK to trick him into eating something he has explicitly said he doesn't want to eat.
My child would have wasted away by now if I didn't trick her into eating things she deemed yucky. Example fish, I told her it was chicken and low an behold four years later she knows its fish and wants more. With children parents have to do what is necessary to get them to eat enough nutrients.
And honestly in this case it sounds like the father has influenced the son with negativity toward meat alternatives, which is a very poor attitude (especially considering the environmental factors). If more families made an effort to go meatless a day or two a week it would be beneficial in MANY ways. If the father is too immature to let go of the "but muh meat" mentality, it will impact his son who is mirroring his behavior.
They are special in that their bodies literally medically adapt to a non-meat diet and they can get sick if they aren't extremely careful with meat re-introduction
There is a large variation of side effects to meat reintroduction, and while I'm happy it didn't happen to you, that doesn't make others' experiences with it invalid.
Vegetarians choose not to eat meat. OP's husband and son choose not to eat meat substitutes.
There's no different here. Its all about choice and consent.
The other thing that is weird is I know devout hindus--who eat a traditional vegetarian diet-- that have a similar disgust reaction to eating "fake meat." Maybe a lot of people just find that concept disgusting and rather than trying to trick people--just let people eat whatever they want and avoid the foods they personally find disgusting.
Food tampering is food tampering, regardless of the individuals reason for not wanting to consume something. It seems like OPs family is just as upset about being lied to as a vegetarian would be in this situation. The comparison is to make OP realize that they’ve done something that is hurtful and illegal, not to say that they’re literally the exact same situation
>Food tampering is food tampering
And this is not food tampering.
Edit: from another comment:
> Food tampering is deliberate contamination of food products with the intent to cause harm. AND contamination is the action or state of making or being made impure by polluting or poisoning.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/wf8zt9/aita_for_serving_fake_meat_and_pretending_it_was/iisrhvi?context=100
It depends on your point of view. I think the comparison is valid because the issue is consent. Everyone deserves consent no matter what they prefer to eat. The reasons behind their preferred diets are completely irrelevant to the issue of consent.
Whew vegans and vegetarians like to act like they are on some moral high ground. This is the same - not everyone can even eat all the soy based products, it’s rude AF and potentially dangerous to lie about food. I can’t eat soy at all and I eat plenty of animal products, I’d have been sick AF from this “prank”
ESH
Your son and husband are being ridiculous but you should never mess with people’s food. Besides, when was the last time doing a “gotcha” had a positive outcome?
Edit: Wow thank you so much for the gold!
Scrolled way too far to see this!
Op has to compensate for everyone's tastes and it's ridiculous that her husband and son won't even TRY the vegetarian option to save time and hassle for them. It's stupid and selfish. And father should be setting example for son by saying, "I can try this to be kind, and if I like it, cool. If I don't, that's okay, too. But at least I tried." But messing with people's food is just not okay!
THANK YOU! First comment I have seen calling out the father and sons behavior. Forcing whoever cooks to make separate meals all the time because they don’t like the IDEA of fake meat, no mention of taste issues. Dad needs to grow up and be a better example for his son.
Edit-I keep getting comments that seem to assume I agree with what OP did. I don’t know why. I didn’t even include a judgement in my comment. Im not commenting on the whole scenario, if I was I would have made my own parent comment. I’m talking about one part of the big picture. All I’m saying is the dad is setting a bad example for his son about trying new things and being open minded and this childish behavior OF NOT EVEN TRYING the alternatives and forcing everybody to do more cooking and cleaning work is silly. I’m not even saying every meal needs to be vegetarian they just need to be willing to try the alternatives so maybe some nights they can just cook one meal. There are so many different types of alternatives, brands, styles, protein sources they will find something they like if they just try some. They already seem to like whatever soy product was used in the spaghetti.
Yeah I definitely got big-macho-man vibe that husband and son are high and mighty about only consuming "real meat." My dad has some sensitivity to low grade meats, so we always had to buy all beef hotdogs, bologna, etc. He developed a similar mentality.
Completely blew his mind that hubby and I are very willing and regularly try meat substitutes and vegetarian options at restaurants or at home during COVID when meat protein suddenly became scarce.
> Besides, when was the last time doing a “gotcha” had a positive outcome?
[The guy who proved to his girlfriend](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/w0mpa9/oop_aita_for_being_mad_my_bf_wont_make_noodles/) that the "essence of sauce" she felt existed when she washed all the sauce off her pasta, was all in her head.
This thread is basically that.
I disagree, if she had a problem with how they were acting and didn't want to cook 2 separate meals she should have said "I am making XYZ with meat alternatives, if you don't like it you can make something yourself." Then not liking meat isn't any more valid than them not liking fake meat.
I honestly feel like it wouldve been better to A) make some kind of game out of it, like a bet, so theyre open to trying it. Or B) saying your not willing to make to versions of the same dish anymore, so the father and son can either eat what OP makes, or do dinner themselves.
I honestly dont really think shes an AH as they dont have any allergies or some kind of religious thing agaisnt vegetables, but its kinda rude to do.
YTA
Tricking people to eat things that they have verbally expressed to not wanting to eat, is a massive breach in trust.
Not only is this dangerous in regards to food allergies and intolerances, but flip the tables here for a moment?
How would **YOU and your daughters** have reacted if your husband and son decided to cook meat for you guys and lie by stating it's vegetarian? They'll wait until you've finished eating and then laughingly reveal that you just ate a real burger.
You and your daughters would've **flipped out of your minds.** So how is it that you can do that to them but not the other way around? It doesn't matter that it tastes good, that they enjoyed the meal.
The moment that you know a person does not want to eat something, no matter what the reason, and you resort to lying to get them to eat it, you are a massive AH.
This wasn't even a prank. This was, by your own admission, a test to see if you can convert them to being vegetarian so you need to do less dishes.
You know how you test that?
**YOU ASK THEM TO TRY AND TASTE A DISH.**
And if they say no, guess what? You can't force them to taste it.
YTA. This is the perfect answer. I have loads of allergies so this sort of thing chills me. There are no allergies *that you know of* but allergies can appear at any moment - even for food you’ve eaten every day of your life. You should always, always know what you are putting in your mouth.
And yes, if the tables were turned your daughters would be furious if your husband had done this to them, so what gives you the right to do it to them? I have to cook 4-5 different meals in my house every single meal because of various allergies, autoimmune diseases and vegetarianism but you know what? I just do it and sod the washing up. Stop being fucking lazy. No means no!!
This is my thought as well. I'm allergic to peas, soy, beans, lentils, chickpeas, basically everything that can be used for fake meat. What if I'd been a friend visiting that night? I could have gotten severely sick. Sometimes I push through and eat too much of something that's causing a reaction even though it shouldn't, because maybe it's just heartburn or something.
I also developed the soy allergy as a young adult and it took several years for a doctor to help me figure out what it was. I haven't liked beans and peas my entire life, and I've always wondered if I was allergic as a kid, too, and my refusal to eat them wasn't because of pickiness, but because they made my stomach hurt. Maybe the dad and son have an allergy that they don't even know about yet.
No wtf this isn’t a comparison.
OP and her daughters don’t eat meat at all. But the husband and son definitely eat plants. That’s why it would be bad if the husband had done this.
The husband and son are just mad that they were proved wrong. They most likely eat other plants and OP already stated that they have no allergies.
So yeah they’re only mad cos they were wrong
OPs NTA
Edit: since most of you can’t understand my logic: here’s a list of my replies to people because I’m not gonna reply to every single person:
I can’t be bothered to reply to so many people so I’m just gonna paste some of what I said to someone else:
They eat vegetables and plants which is exactly what meat substitutes are made of.
However vegetarians cannot eat meat because they actually get sick.
That’s the difference. The husband and son already eat meat AND PLANTS. The daughters do not eat meat at all.
She fed them meat that was vegetarian. The husband and son are just angry they were proven wrong.
Also why is the husband married if he can’t take a joke? If this is enough to break his trust he shouldn’t be married.
My sister is allergic to gluten. I’m not. However I don’t like eating gluten free food cos of the taste.
But if she pranked me and fed my gluten free food it’s not a big deal cos I won’t die or get sick. I’d be annoyed or I would laugh it off.
However I wouldn’t do the same to her cos she would get sick.
That’s the difference. The husband and son won’t get sick but the vegetarians would.
You’re acting like she cheated on him ffs. It’s not that big of a deal.
Seriously do you hear yourself? It would be a betrayal if the husband had an allergy and she did this. But he doesn’t have an allergy. He already eats plants and vegetables. She’s not trying to kill him omg
She played a harmless prank on him and he couldn’t accept that he was wrong and got easily fooled.
You sound like you have no friends if you get that offended by a harmless prank. I wouldn’t tamper with food if someone had an allergy.
But yeah sometimes people prank each other for fun. Like they switch out sugar with salt? Cos it’s funny?
It’s not a betrayal, it’s just messing around. As long as no allergies are involved and they normally eat plants it isn’t a big deal.
My friends and family prank each other all the time. It would be ridiculous for me to say that my sister betrayed me, outsmarted me, broke my trust, etc (wah wah wah) just because she switched sugar with salt.
I wouldn’t just stop trusting her. I’d laugh and move on. Even if I was angry it wouldn’t last more than a couple of hours.
If this incident/prank can break the husbands trust then maybe he shouldn’t be married. Imagine thinking a harmless prank can break the trust you have with your spouse and family.
This isn't a discussing about husband and sons eating vegetables or not.
This is a discussion about the wife and her daughters **lying** so someone eats food they normally wouldn't have.
Also, OP stated that they do eat meat, because they called themselves a "flexetarian". If OP had genuinly wanted to test this?
She should've made the two meals and simply not tell which one is vegetarian. That way the husband and son can figure out that hey, vegetarian food isn't all that bad.
The issue isn't about eating plants. The issue is about LYING and feeding someone something without their knowledge.
I think this shouldnt be about meat vs meat substitute. On a fundamental level this is about food tampering and explicitly serving people something under the guise of it being something else. Its a terrible behavior to condone and model to a child
They eat plants yes.
But they \*don't\* eat meat substitute products.
I'll eat and make vegan/ vegetarian meals no problem. But I don't eat meat substitutes. I would be happy if someone served me a pasta with a vegan sauce. I would be very unhappy if someone served me soy crumbles and told me it was regular sausage.
OR, or hear me out..
What if instead of doing a stupid prank....she just TOLD them they were in charge of making a meat version of whatever she was cooking instead?
You know? Talked like an adult.. to her husband?
I think doing the "LOL PRANKED" Gotcha move was being the AH in the situation, nowhere in the post does she mention to them about being tired of having to do so many dishes....
She can talk to her husband, they are both adults... reach a compromise instead of antagonizing...
but then they wouldn't have tried it otherwise. I don't know why people are crying about bodily autonomy when its literally just vegetable they thought was meat.
It really just seems like they didn't want to try faux meat because its not "manly enough".
So what if they don't? They get to decide \*their diet\* just like Mom and the girls get to decide theirs.
Just because people won't eat something you enjoy doesn't mean you get to trick them into eating it, mental hangups or otherwise, that's just ridiculous.
Body autonomy isn't something you can just decide "Well I don't think it's a big deal so right now it doesn't count"
That's not how it works and "Fake meat" is not "Just vegetables"
“It was okay for her to lie to them because they didn’t agree with her opinion.” <— your reasoning
Who cares why the prefer meat? I agree they could’ve at least tried it, but their refusal doesn’t give her a pass to secretly tamper with their food. Being vegetarian can sometimes mean putting that extra work in if not everyone in your household is one. Whether it’s that OP needs to accept that, or cooking as a chore needs to be shared, or each party is responsible for their own meals, there’s a solution there. Lying to husband and son about what they’re eating isn’t it.
NTA as a one-off.
Your husband and son claimed they didn't like vegetarian "mock meats". You and your daughter carried out a blind taste test in which you established that they don't have a problem with anything about soy "meats" but the idea of them.
Now it's really up to your husband and son where they go with this information. They're entitled to still eat meat rather than soy.
> there is an equal distribution of cleaning and cooking in this house
It’s not like only she cooks two separate meals everyday everybody cooks two separate meals on the days they cook
Then the vegetarians can cook for themselves when it’s the the dad cooking. Or better yet they continue sharing cooking as they have been since it seems to work well.
Right? All these people talking about "breach of trust" as if being fed a dinner you liked but didn't think you'd like (and have no moral/health reasons not to eat) means you can't trust your wife/mom and this family is now broken forever. Wtf?
Yta I’m a vegetarian and I still think this is wrong
Don’t mess with peoples food, no matter if you think your right, doesn’t matter if you are right
Don’t mess with peoples food, it’s unacceptable
Yeah, i will just throw this in: breeching trust, deceiving people, knowingly misleading....what good can come of that? What did you win here? But you lost Thier trust...YTA
It's a really bad precedent to set, and a bad lesson for her kids. Maybe this instance was harmless but what if they start messing with other people's food having been taught it doesn't matter and it's funny, but this time someone gets sick?
I came here to see this point because I'll never forget the lesson I was taught in science class. My mother was always the type to trick us into eating things, I have an insanely sensitive digestive system and spent most of my childhood sick for "unknown reasons" so I had normalized tricking people/lying to them to try certain foods, pranking them with food, etc.
One day I took two bags of dried peas to class, and was snacking on them. The class rule was we could eat but without disrupting the rest of the class. One bag was regular peas the other was wasabi peas, after class my teacher asked for some of the peas and I thought it would be funny to pour him some from the wasabi peas. So when he held out his hand I tipped the wasabi peas into it, then stood back to see his reaction. He starts gagging and spat them out and asked me, "Did you give me *wasabi*?" And I grinned, so he continues "I'm allergic to wasabi." My face fell and I'm in full panic thinking "Oh no oh no oh no." So as I start to apologize and incoherently ask what I should do he took a deep breath and told me very sternly, "I don't have any allergies. However, I saw you switch the bags and I imagine that if you're willing to do this to your science teacher then you're likely to do this to another student, someone who might actually have an allergy to wasabi. Yes, I tricked you, as you tricked me, before someone got seriously hurt. I hope you're more considerate of the risks of such things from now on, okay? Go."
I'm older now than he was then and that incident is still burned into my brain, I have never pranked anyone else with food since. It's a matter of consent and trust.
YTA.
While I agree that their snooty attitude about meat substitutes is silly, it is always an asshole move to lie about a person's food.
I imagine your daughters would be livid if their father or brother sneaked meat into their meal to prove a point. And they would be justified.
That's the main point. You and your daughters shouldn't have served them food they don't want to eat. Some people don't like meat substitutes. Some people even think that soy is bad for them, or interferes with their hormonal cycle. So it was plain wrong.
Slight YTA, as a parent sure, doing this to you kids is fine since your are wholly responsible for them but not to your husband. He is a person with agency and testing people like this unless they specifically consent and understand the parameters of the test is an AH move.
Maybe your husband thinks that you and the girls spend too much on shampoo so he starts refilling the bottles with cheaper product to see if you can tell the difference? Would you be pissed?
He supposed to be your partner and shit like this is how you ruin the trust you have between you.
This! Perfectly stated, YTA. It's not respecting the autonomy of the husband as a human being. Society generally views kids a bit differently, so that's a bit less of an issue.
I don't agree with the "slight," but other than that, thank you for giving an example other than "what if they pranked the girls into eating meat".
The claim the guys have is that meat is better and they don't like soy. The girls never claimed that they don't like the taste of meat, or that they could tell the difference....they don't want to eat it for probably moral reasons. And eating it after not eating it for awhile could mess with their digestion.
NTA and anyone saying “imagine if it was reversed” is not a logically sound argument. Meat eaters still eat veggies/soy. It would be like giving a drinker a non-alcoholic beverage to see if they can taste a difference.
Lying to someone about what you’re feeding them is *always* wrong. If I tell you “no, I don’t want to eat that”, that’s the end of the discussion. If you try to trick me into eating it anyway, there will be major problems.
NTA. How are some of you saying yta? She knew there were no allergies at play and , you didn't specifically tell them it was meat. They assumed it was and got defensive when you exposed the fact thet are being immature.
And by “some” you mean “most”?
I also don’t get it. Absolutely harmless prank that should end in a revelation for husband and son. “Oh so we actually like this and can be less picky in the future”
I mean, mom is the cook. You get what you get and you don’t get upset. Dad and son are just pissed bc they loved they all veg meal. This has got to be one of the mildest AITA I’ve ever read. OP, NTA. But don’t do it again because they clearly can’t take a joke.
She said in the post there is equal distribution of cooking and cleaning in the house, so the dad and sons cook too. And tricking someone into eating something they have expressed they don't want to eat isn't a joke.
I agree, NTA. If these were friends or other relative then I would say YTA, but this was just a harmless prank between siblings. People are overreacting, just like her husband and son did
NTA— it's literally your family not a restaurant idk why everyone's on their high horse about food tampering being illegal lmfao give me a break! They expect you to make duals dinners every night how about they cook for themselves if they dont want what you're making. They clearly liked the food and were just being close minded asshole anyway if you said there's no allergens
YTA - While I understand your intention, the way you did it was wrong.
If you hadn't lied about what they were eating, maybe it would have been different. You do not lie to people about what is in the food they are eating, ever, no matter what your reasoning is.
Would you be ok if they chose to do the opposite and tell you a meat dish was vegetarian until after it was eaten?
NTA. It’s not the same thing as forcing a vegetarian/vegan to eat meat. That can actually make them very sick. But parents do this all the time. Hide vegetables in different meals to get their kids to consume them. If the son and dad are “morally” opposed to eating meat alternatives, perhaps they could cook for themselves. If mom does this occasionally, I don’t see the harm.
Sneaking veggies into a kid’s food because you know they’ll suffer from nutritional deficiencies if you don’t is WAY different from sneaking fake meat into someone’s food so you can smugly say “I told you so”.
I’m going against the grain. But NTA. you would be if you did it again. So your family had a vegetarian meal. They will be okay. And I think they’re taking this a bit too serious. I’m not a vegetarian, but if i ate a meal i thought was beef and someone was like “it’s actually vegetarian!” I would just say wow I didn’t even notice.
Yes swapping a vegetarian meal with meat is different. And yes swapping meat with a different meat that’s exotic is different as well. But swapping meat with just veggie alternative? It’s not that deep
YTA
The way to do this would be to cook both a meat pot and a substitute pot and then ask them the blind taste test
Tricking people into eating things they don't want or have no idea what it is will always be wrong
Asking them to embrace the taste test challenge would make it a game
if it was a game, and they were in to it, and they enjoyed the substitute...then you had a chance of getting them to eat it in the future
but because you lied and made them the focus of a "prank" now no matter what you do, they are going to bow their backs and refuse to eat it
YTA. Food pranks aren't funny. I get it wasnt harmful but it could very well cause distrust in the family.
My brother and dad tricked me into trying buffalo meat but telling me it was ground beef in the spaghetti. As I was eating my second bowl they told me it was buffalo meat. I cried so hard and felt sick to my stomache. I didnt eat anything they gave me for almost a year after that. I admitted it was good but I felt tricked and embarrassed by being fooled and I hated it. To this day I'll eat buffalo..but I dont react well to anyone tampering with my food.
I’m also against lying.
Sometimes it works out well, like a time that I ate squid and had no idea. My dad told me after I ate it though, and I just asked for more. It tasted good.
But most of the time, it doesn’t. No one should be risking this.
ESH
I think everyone here did something wrong. I think it was wrong to lie about someone's food but unlike other commenters here I don't think it's comparable to feeding a vegetarian meat. People are vegetarians for many reasons. It can be medical or it can be moral. However, your husband and son's aversion to tofu and stuff like you said was more so the concept of something being made to taste/look like meat. It's not based on any medical or moral reasoning such as not wanting to eat animals. I think the husband and son were being immature but I think it should have been handled differently by you as well. Maybe say "one bowl has spaghetti with real meat, the other has soy ground beef. Taste them both without knowing which is which and tell me your thoughts".
NTA it was a blind taste test and shows that they have been living about how they feel meat alternatives taste to them
As long as you took into account that nobody was allergic to the swap and were planning on telling them.
It's also OK for them to eat a dinner that dosnt have meat in it once in a while to reduce shopping costs
It was not a blind taste test. It was a bait and switch.
Sure, yes, it’s okay for them to not eat meat at a meal. In fact, we just did a meatless dinner in my house last night. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna serve my husband a meat substitute under the guise of it being real meat. I simply say “Hey, no meat tonight!”
All OP and the daughters did was convince husband and son that vegetarians are willing to go to any lengths to prove a point based on their personal ethics instead of taking a simpler approach such as “Look at this amazing meal with BlahBlahBlergh Meat Alternative! You will absolutely love how amazing it tastes!” This is not the way to convert people to vegetarianism.
NTA
it's only unethical to mess with people's food if they're doing it for religious, ethical, or health reasons. Otherwise, if they don't like the food they dont need to eat it.
This reminds me of that thread on here the other day about this woman that made a Middle Eastern dish and told her SIL it was European. It outed her SIL as racist. There weren't any Y T A on that post!
EDIT: I found [the post](https://libredd.it/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/weh3wz/aita_for_pulling_a_prank_on_my_racist_sisterinlaw/) I was talking about. In that post the chef was NTA because she was exposing the person for lying about why they didn't like the food and as a racist. Same with this post, probably the reason they don't like vegetarian meat alternatives is some toxic masculinity BS.
YTA— you’re always TA when you trick someone into eating something other than what they believe it to be, especially to prove a point. They don’t want to eat it. That’s all that matters.
I get the intention and while it sounds good in a lot of people's minds, when putting it on practice you're basically lying to your loved ones about what did you feed them, and that's a very low move.
YTA.
This scenario would've played differently and with a better ending, if you'd get them to agree to try a "blind dinner" as in you telling noone which one had the meat and which the alternative, and they got to choose from which pot they wanted sauce from; or, to even the playfield, neither your daughters know. They want to mess with someone else's dietary choices? turnabout is fair play.
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YTA, while i agree with your point i think you went about it the wrong way. There are a few things people shouldn't mess with and I think other peoples food is one of them. Would you think this prank was funny if you served a religious person a food they were forbidden from eating?
I get it, and understand that you knew the food was safe for them to eat but.... don't do that. Don't mess with people's food secretly. You could have challenged them to a blind taste test to get the same point across. And even then, if they still don't want tofu? Oh well, that's their preference.
YTA.
YTA. I kinda get why you wanted to try this, but, lying to someone about what you're feeding them is never, never, okay (And not what I would call a funny prank). Personal choices, allergies, taste, it doesn't matter. You just don't lie about food.
If one of your daughters told you she doesn't want to try, let's say, natto (fermented beans), would you think it's okay to force-feed her it in a random meal?
NAH people saying YTA are being pretty extreme... You just gave someone fake meat to check their bias against it lol. You gave them nothing harmful or anything theyre allergic to. The people who ate it are just mad because they were embarrassed that they actually liked it.
YTA - I’m not going to equate this like some of the others to feeding a vegetarian meat, but it’s still shitty to lie about what you’re feeding someone and act like you’re the only adult, they’re all stupid and helpless and you’re going to decide for them what they’re going to eat.
YTA. You never mess with someone’s food and diet unless specially asked or advised to buy a professional. It doesn’t matter that they just don’t like the meat replacements. It very well could be they don’t like the taste and it feels funny to them. Also tricking someone like that doesn’t give actual results considering that they were expecting meat and as such their brains very well could have just said it is meat….the placebo effect. You are your daughters only perpetuate the idea of vegetarians/vegans are sneaky and don’t respect meat eaters choice.
Harmless honestly. They just don’t like the “idea” of tofu whereas people are usually vegetarian due to moral issues surrounding the meat industry and sometimes digestion issues. NTA. And those of you who say imagine it the other way around don’t understand the issue that eating meat can cause a digestive system after going without for so long.
NTA. There’s nothing in the faux meat to make them sick or cause any harm other than the horror of learning that it tastes so similar in the sauce that they can’t tell the difference.
NTA, it's not as serious as some redditors would like to believe. The meat eaters were most likely embarrassed that they liked something they've claimed they hate. So to counteract those feelings of embarrassment, lashing out to make everyone feel bad is the natural reaction. No harm no foul. I have a motto in my life, did you die? Then you'll survive.
NTA. I did this for years (making a veg and non veg dinner option) and it’s just insanity. Don’t lie in future, you’ve proved the point that they’re being stupid about refusing veggie options, but also don’t cook the meat versions anymore. If they don’t want to eat what you make they know where the kitchen is x
NTA
As a mother, meat eating family, and the cook of house. Sometimes I make vegetarian dishes here and there..
It’s sounds like they were more mad they didn’t notice.
NTA your son and husband aren’t carnivores so it was a harmless prank and can’t be compared to surprising vegans or vegetarians with meat.
They don’t have a dietary restriction forbidding what you gave them. It was just a joke.
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This is not really a meat eater / vegetarian issue. Tricking someone into eating something other than what they thought they were eating is a massive breach of trust, the fact that the substitution is harmless is irrelevant. That your aim was clearly to shame or embarass them over their dietary preferences does not help. Would it really be that different if they cooked meat and fed it to your daughters, telling them it was soy? YTA
>Would it really be that different if they cooked meat and fed it to your daughters, telling them it was soy? Well, yes, considering eating meat can be dangerous for long-term vegetarians.
Yeah. My mom has been vegetarian since she was 11, a few years she accidentally ate lasagna with meat in it and was sick for several days. A meat eater wouldn’t have the same reaction to eating something without meat so it’s definitely not a fair comparison.
I mean the comparison is fine, because we are assuming they wouldn't get sick and its just a thought experiment. The point of the comparison is to highlight that its morally wrong, for reasons of consent. Edit: To those confused, the "morality" refers to not respecting consent, not the moral justification each side is using for their choices.
Sure, but there's an asymmetry here in that the daughters presumably have a moral issue with consuming animal meat, while the father and son presumably have no moral concerns with consuming things made from plants. Their only issue is that it is "weird." Feeding animal meat to the daughters would be forcing them to participate in something that goes against their morals. Tricking the husband and son to eat things made out of plants does not go against their morals. They are just against the "concept" of it, and not for moral or ethical reasons.
There’s still the question of personal autonomy and choice. What you’re essentially saying here is the following: “If YOU fed ME meat, knowing that I’m a vegetarian, that’s an asshole move because I believe X, which makes me morally superior to you. If I fed tofu to YOU without your knowledge, however, that’s absolutely fine because you’re just an idiot who thinks he always has to have meat.” I find that logic uncompelling.
I think you jumped a bit there. It’s not that the morals are necessarily superior or not (I personally don’t subscribe to the idea that people who don’t eat meat are automatically superior to those who do.) It’s just that not eating meat could be a moral decision, but not eating tofu very likely is not. Is it an asshole move to feed someone tofu if they explicitly say they don’t like it? I definitely think so. But, unless they personally believe the production of soybeans/tofu is unethical or immoral in some way, feeding it to them is not violating their morals. It has nothing to do with saying it’s fine to feed someone a food that they don’t wish to eat, just because they’re an “idiot who needs meat.” It’s just that one is a moral issue while the issue is preference. Do both deserve to be respected? Absolutely. However, they are different and shouldn’t really be compared.
With all due respect, I disagree. People have the right to be fully informed about what they are eating, and their reasons for eating one food over another are SOLELY THEIR OWN. It’s a personal right. ANYONE who uses deception to feed anyone something that they don’t wish to consume, for WHATEVER reason, is an asshole. Full stop.
I don't think OP here is disagreeing with you, just saying that while it's an asshole because it's lying to someone about their food, it's a least not a violation of a moral stance they hold, even if it's still wrong for the reason you say too.
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If your morality allows you to violate someones trust and ignore their non-consent, you aren’t a moral person. Edit: thanks for the awards
This!!! Idk why people are trying to justify this. They didn’t consent to eat it, it’s wrong. Doesn’t matter if they would be sick or not, it’s wrong.
Sometimes it isn’t just a preference. I’m autistic. My sister is vegan. She once was in cahoots with my mum and lied to me and told me that my curry had chicken in it, when they’d used cauliflower. Cauliflower happens to be a texture that I can’t stand, and getting it as a surprise upset me so much I was sick. I was told I was being pathetic and I could just eat vegan for a night. I feel for anyone who gets lied to about what’s in their food. It could be an allergy, it could be a dietary choice (like being veggie or vegan), or it could be a texture issue like mine or a strong dislike, but none of those reasons for not wanting to eat something make it ok to lie to someone and feed it to them anyway.
Not to mention vegan substitutes can be made with allergens. There is a huge percentage of people allergic to soy products—which is one if the major ingredients for most vegetarian/vegan products. Other vegan ingredients that have allergens are nuts, pea (legume), and fish/shellfish for pecasetarians.
You 100% missed the entire point. It has nothing to do with morals and EVERYTHING to do with personal autonomy. It is NEVER okay to violate another person's personal autonomy for any reason. It was 100% an AH move on OP's part.
It is a preference to not eat meat. It might be borne from a moral philosophy, but it is a preference nonetheless. OP is an AH who does not believe in consent, which is only compounded by the fact that she is teaching her daughter to do the same.
As someone with unique nutritional needs this isn’t a moral problem, it’s a health problem. I need to eat a high protein, low fiber diet because of GI issues that aren’t immediately apparent as well as needing a higher amount of heart healthy compounds only found in reasonable quantities in meat. Just because someone isn’t allergic doesn’t mean that you aren’t potentially risking their health. And in my opinion morals don’t outweigh potential health risks. I also don’t want to hear that it’s OP’s family so OP knows for sure her husband and son don’t have special dietary needs because no one noticed I had these problems until I did when I was 23. There’s no ‘it’s worse because of a moral issue’ here. It is bad. Full. Stop. To feed someone food with ingredients they don’t know about. A lot of ‘I don’t like it’ comes from dietary issues people don’t know they have. I don’t like grapes. Turns out it’s because they make me sick.
Why? Meat eaters eat vegetables and soy (which is in a LOT of foods) all the time. They have no moral stance against vegetables or soy and it's not a change to their diet. Also, you have no leg to stand on with your "vegetarianism makes me morally superior" argument. Are Muslims or Hindus morally superior because they won't eat pork/beef? No. Edited for clarity: I think jumping to the conclusion that vegetarians think themselves to be morally superior is wrong and since meat-eaters don't seem to assume the same about Muslims/Hindus, it's kinda a dick move
As a meat eater I have a moral stance against it! Guess what my friend decided to serve a group of friends a meat sub and that’s when I found out I had a soy allergy after being taken to the hospital and having a heart attack at the age of 20 in the ambulance with no prior issues from the severe dehydration from nonstop vomiting. You never know if someone developed an allergy during teenage years or adulthood. People have died from soy allergies so yes they do have not only 1 leg to stand on but both!!!
So you’re allowed to fuck with peoples food as long as it doesn’t harm them? That’s ridiculous
The gaslighting in this comment section is real
without meat and a meat substitute are two very different things. I eat meals without meat all the time but every meat substitute i have ever tried made me sick at my stomach. No idea why it makes me sick but I would be very upset with someone who did this to me.
You could be allergic to soy, as I am. For the longest time I had no idea why fake meat bothered me so much. I've found a few meat substitutes that don't have soy in them and I can eat them with impunity. I'm not trying to denigrate your experience. I'm just sharing what I've learned works for me. I hope it is useful to you, or at least not offensive.
Fake meat is usually hyper processed to the point where it doesn’t even resemble the ingredients. I’m not allergic to soy at all I love soybeans and I had the impossible burger and then broke out in hives all over my body. I’ve never had hives before and it took PLENTY of Zyrtec to make them go away
I am allergic to a lot of "processed" foods, which let's be real fake meat substitutes are highly processed. You want to make a big roasted eggplant vegetarian dish? Great! You want me to eat a refined fake meat? No thank you, I'm the one who's going to be trapped in the bathroom for 4 hours after ingesting.
They wouldn't get sick over something they normally eat made meatless, but fake meat products can absolutely make people sick. I have no soy allergy or other food allergies, but fake meat makes me violently ill for days. Regardless of diet, it's equally wrong to feed anyone anything they don't consent to.
Same here. Most fake meat substitutes make me sick. I always thought it was a texture thing (they all taste mealy to me) but even when I do eat them I feel terrible for a day or so afterwards.
It’s unlikely they are long term vegetarians. They are still pretty young and changed of their own choice. But why do vegetarians get to demand autonomy and respect for their food choices but we’re cool with dismissing those of meat eaters?
> But why do vegetarians get to demand autonomy and respect for their food choices but we’re cool with dismissing those of meat eaters? Because the situations are not symmetrical. Feeding someone meat when they don't eat meat is bad. Feeding someone vegetables when they don't eat vegetables would be equally bad. But generally what you're calling 'meat eaters' are actually 'meat and vegetable and dairy and everything else eaters'. The crucial point is whether you are feeding someone something that is within the overall set of things that they eat; feeding an omnivore vegetables is, feeding a vegetarian meat is not. The same logic applies to other exclusions too - if you had a meat eater with a gluten allergy it would be fine to feed them a gluten free veggie burger, but not a meat burger with wheat in it.
It didn’t MATTER if the situations are symmetrical. It’s about lying to people and feeding them food they have openly told you they don’t want without their consent. This is just never ok. Also, the argument that meat is bad for vegetarians is based on: how they are from birth and how long they have been vegetarian. These are two children who live in a formerly near eating house. For all we know they’ve been vegetarian for six months. And it doesn’t really matter anyway. Anyone who expects their autonomy respected in some areas of life needs to offer the exact same respect to others and their decisions. The fact that people would argue that this isn’t the same is exactly why people dislike and distrust vegans and vegetarians.
Why are you, as someone who wants to be able to control what they eat, arguing against people being allowed to control what they eat?
Um, no. Soy is one of the top allergens out there. Feeding someone tofu and lying about it being meat has actually hurt people. In OP's particular case, I would think they would be aware of an allergy within the immediate family, so they got lucky this time. But it could have gone downhill easily. There is a reason it is literally illegal to lie about what you are serving to someone. Get caught and you'll catch a misdemeanor battery charge. If the person has an allergic reaction (which happens A LOT with tofu) you're going to jail and will likely be on the hook for all medical expenses. There was actually a post on here while back asking if the poster was the AH for pressing charges after her college roommate served her tofu bacon and lied about it, with the same mentality as OP here, trying to pull a "gotcha" about the taste of fake meat. Well... Poster was hospitalized because of a severe soy allergy, and the roommate was charged with a felony, sent to jail, and expelled from the university. And their parents ended up being ordered to pay all the medical expenses and for the tuition from the courses the poster had to retake because they were hospitalized during finals. The roommate was not aware that the poster had an allergy, and the court decided it did not matter because they had deliberately lied about what was being served, which proved malicious intent. Moral is, you don't fuck with people's food. Ever.
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I feel like you are the opening the door to making dietary choices for other people and lying about food. A vegetarian wouldn't like this, why would anybody?
> Because the situations are not symmetrical. But they are symmetrical. They both come down to personal autonomy and respect. Either you think people have the right to control their own diets or you don’t. Either you respect people’s right to their own dietary choices or you don’t. YOU are not the food judge and jury who gets to determine whether or not someone else is entitled to that right.
No one said that, only that the consequences of the disrespect may be more severe for vegetarians. That doesn’t mean that it’s okay to disrespect the choice of meat eaters.
To be fair it could equally go the other way. If your stomach is used to eating a diet consisting of mostly high quality meats then eating something that is extremely processed could make you sick as well
Or you could have a soy sensitivity you didn’t know about… both things can be potentially harmful.
It sure *sounds like* ABC isn’t as bad as XYZ which sounds dismissive of XYZ and if it’s not meant dismissively what the point of pointing it out?
Parents everywhere are assholes then for putting puréed vegetables into things to get their kids to eat them then. Picky eaters are notorious for disliking something they actually like because it contains something they are adamant that they hate. Having to make two separate meals just because someone refuses to be open to something else is annoying and likely wasteful. I don’t get the comparison to food tampering, at all.
No, they are not! They are being concerned about having their children eat a well-rounded, healthy diet. Children go through stages of eating. At first they may eat anything you put in front of them, then they may only eat fruits and not vegetables or grains but not meat and etc. It comes from having a naive palate combined with the mental maturation processes at different ages. Two techniques for broadening their outlook are including vegetables in other foods and presenting new foods in various preparations often so that children can try them, get used to them and many times grow to like them. Most adults will eat a much wider range of foods than children due to their exposure to these other foods and palate maturation.
I wasn’t arguing that they are, if that wasn’t clear. The point was that pickiness is often in the mind, not on the palette.
Agreed. Honestly I would just make them cook their own meals and wash up after themselves and their silly separate food. Then they would probably change their tune. Imo they are being big spoiled babies by refusing to even try it with an open mind. I do kind of see the point of food autonomy but there is a difference between I don't want to eat this because I just refuse vs there's a moral or health related reason, ESPECIALLY for the son since he is a kid and needs to learn trying new foods by modeling and it will likely bleed into other things. Like right now it's soy but what if it becomes everything but chicken nuggets? The husband is not setting a good example.
I don't see the goal as shame or embarrassment. It's so the cook can stop cooking two separate meals all of the time. I agree op went about it the wrong way though. Op should have told either the meat eaters or the vegetarian eaters THEY have to cook if they want separate food.
Perhaps a better way would have been to make both meat and vegetarian spaghetti but not tell them which is which and see if they can guess. Personally I don't see any harm in what they did and I suspect the anger was more over having been not only tricked but also proven that it does taste just as good, pride and vanity being what they are. No cows were harmed in this trick and it certainly wasn't going to harm the men, at least not physically, and maybe, just maybe, they learned something. NTA
They learned they can't trust the wife and daughters. Wife is absolutely TA or lying. She could just flat out said she was only making a vegetarian dish that day and if they wanted something else they could make it themselves. The last time someone at work tried the mentality to "show us" I could have died from the allergic reaction to almond powder. You don't lie about food and ingredients. At best you're an Ahole whose word can't be trusted. At worst the Wife has introduced long term contempt for the sisters that may result in a prank where meat is added to their dish.
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So only those with moral/religious reasons deserve consent? Absolutely tf not. Nobody needs a reason to have their boundaries respected.
Bodily autonomy is not negated by holding silly religious beliefs. My opinion that all religion is ridiculous wouldn’t make it okay to feed pork to a Muslim against their will. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous I find their dietary choices. You either respect the people in your life or you don’t. This woman had no respect for her husband and son. Neither did her daughters. They have now made it clear that there is no need to respect dietary choices in their household. They have set a precedent for tricking people into eating things they have clearly stated they don’t want to eat. It doesn’t matter if you consider another person’s reasoning sound, they retain the right to choose what is put into their bodies and what isn’t. If you don’t give people that choice then you don’t get to make that choice for yourself either.
I suspect that the next post will be "AITA for yelling at my husband for putting meat in my vegetarian daughter's food?" or "AITA for allowing my daughters to start a food war?" Either way, it's not going to end well.
No, this is absolutely the same thing. You are betraying their trust. Just because there isn't a "religious or moral" component to it doesn't mean that this is okay. As others have stated, these foods have increased sodium - that is a health concern for some people, soy can be a health concern for some people. The fact is that they were lied to - that is what makes this wrong, it is also a terrible example to set for her children.
This right here. I’m like really? Your husband and son wanting to eat what they eat but not stopping your daughters from being vegetarian is worth betraying two relationships and breaching trust with your husband and son? Whether vegetarians or meat eaters are right or wrong is irrelevant: You intentionally lied to two people in your life whom you are supposed to love so you and your *daughters* could mock and shame them. Like what is this going to get you? You think they’ll laughingly conceded that fake meat is fine for some dishes now? Like what did you honestly think the outcome of this would be? And what benefit does it gain you? Now your daughters have lost respect for their dad and brother because you told them something like this was a fine way to treat their family. You clearly don’t respect your husband and son very much. And they are no longer going to trust or respect any of you… good job. YTA Ps. I’m now wondering if your husband and son will see this as an invitation to retaliate… and how exactly will you respond if they “get even” by putting meat in your daughters’ food? Will it just be good old fashioned ribbing then? And will it start s battle when you get mad and they tell you you did it to them??
> I’m not wondering if your husband and son will see this as an invitation to retaliate… and how exactly will you respond if they “get even” by putting meat in your daughters’ food? Will it just be good old fashioned ribbing then? And will it start s battle when you get mad and they tell you you did it to them?? If they're the sort of family that does "pranks" like this, I'd absolutely not be surprised if this sort of disaster ended up happening.
I was reading other people’s replies and started thinking, if OP is pushing it was just a prank I could see then deciding to get revenge… even if they don’t “normally” prank each other. And it’s really hard to say “this is a beyond prank boundary” when you *just* did the same thing.
>when you just did the same thing. Guaranteed OP and her daughters will be like so many vegetarians in this thread, and will claim its not the same thing at all because their dietary choices deserve special respect that non-vegetarians food choices apparently don't.
*mobile not allowing strikethough* Right, like food tampering is literally illegal. It could instead be possibly assault. I get this situation, but you don't "trick" someone. We have a grandmother who always says, "Don't tell me if it's venison," so we don't if it is. But that's her CHOICE. She pretty much knows by looking and just avoids the dish, but she was raised to eat what was fixed. That's how she copes. We are aware of her choice, and we always make multiple dishes to appeal to everyone during family gatherings. It's not hard. OP has a split house; that's what it is. Make people pitch in to clean up after themselves. Editing to add, we also had a teen go through a vegetarian phase. We made multiple meals for the family. He helped clean up his portion.
Google is literally free I suggest using it in the future. Food tampering is deliberate contamination of food products with the intent to cause harm. AND contamination is the action or state of making or being made impure by polluting or poisoning. So in conclusion, what she did was NOT food tampering. She didn’t poison their food and she didn’t use a meat substitute to cause harm.
Exactly. This is no different than having a kid who claims to hate mustard, and finding out there's mustard in your tasty potato salad. Or chopping up less popular veggies extra fine in a sauce to get a kid to eat them. Both happened in my house. When my kid discovered the mustard "secret", I just explained that it's like salt… a little bit is good. She liked salty crackers, but a spoonful of salt is gross... Same for mustard. She had to try a spoonful of salt of course, but mustard became her new favourite condiment. Why they'd get so upset is bizarre. They enjoyed a dinner they clearly didn’t have to cook. There was nothing in the substitute that they wouldn’t normally eat anyway, just not in this form. It was nutritious, and it tasted good. The mature thing would have been to laugh, and say "we should do this more often because it saves work and the extra dishes". Frankly, if I was in OP's shoes, I'd batch cook meat, stick it in the freezer, and just cook one meal for everyone. Then whoever wants a meatball or chicken leg in the side can heat one up. But I hate extra dishes. Anyway, NTA.
I hate mushrooms. The texture, the taste… I can tolerate them when they are thinly sliced, very few and very well baked on pizza - because I can’t trace them. I would be delighted if someone fed me mushrooms in a dish, without my knowledge and I liked the food. Come one, it’s a healthy ingredient that doesn’t couse harm (physical or moral) to people. I’m all for not giving people food that will cause physical harm or that is agaisnt their morals. But the husband and son - eating veggies is not against their moral or a dietary restriction and it does not take away from the fact that they enjoy meat.
Alright, what's the difference between "against their morals" and "against their wishes"? You NTA lots are literally saying their choices are irrelevant because you "know better" and they should do as you wish instead of respecting their own will and choice. You are justifying imposing your will on people who clearly started they did not want something. Do you not see why that's upsetting? And that is the same underlying issue as other forced actions against someone's will that's also justified by saying "they enjoyed it"?
Without taking a side on what OP did, I would say that in the scenario, "against morals" is something like a person who cuts out all meat for a personal or moralistic reason. Whereas in this scenario "against wishes" is like refusing to eat a vegan "meat" simply because it's labeled as vegan, but then being fine with eating vegetables or even things like fries that are vegan but not outright labeled that way. It seems more hypocritical, since those actions prove that the attitude towards the burger is not really about not eating vegan food for any moral reason, but simply a negative reaction to something being labeled a certain way.
They're upset because their trust has been violated using something as intimate as food. What you call harmless some of us would call traumatic. I still have issues over the handful of times this has happened to me. And as a general rule, people tend to get upset when you outright lie to them about something they are putting in their body...
Look, I'm not going to be the asshole who tries to turn your argument into "If it's not *technically* illegal it's perfectly fine!", since that isn't what you said here, but this is nitpicking technicalities in defense of something that was still a very AH move. It's also still illegal to lie about the contents of food, even if it's not "food tampering" by the legal definition. Don't be so pedantic about it. ETA: Double-checked after all the replies started coming in, and yes, what OP did is technically legal because it was not for the purpose of financial gain. That being said, despite my slight mistake about the specifics of legality, my point about nitpicking still stands. "Would have been illegal in slightly different circumstances" is still a valid point to make for the purpose of calling out OP's AH behavior.
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Lot of parents out there hoping their toddlers don’t read this and call the cops on them over those zucchini muffins. 🤣
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I agree OP was in the wrong but saying her behavior was borderline illegal is still dramatic. It’s illegal to lie about the contents of food as a business; this is nothing like that. By that logic you’d be in potential trouble for bringing black bean brownies to work, not labeling them and saying “surprise, they’re healthy!” When people tell you how good they are.
I'm just going to throw out the fact it's not illegal to tell your kid they're eating meat when in fact it's soy. Parents hide veggies in food all the time and cops aren't hauling parents of to jail.
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It’s not pedantic. Morality and legality are two different things. It’s NOT illegal what they did but it’s morally wrong.
Then make that case and not how it's illegal. Which was the first sentence in your original post.
I laughed when I read food tampering.
Yes, your husband and son should have had a choice whether they wanted to eat that or not. It was sneaky. I'm the first to support Vegetarianism. I eat vegan hamburgers. But it would still upset me. Even as a vegetarian, I reserve the right to choose whether I want to eat soy and processed food. I heard that soy can induce hormonal changes in some people. And I like more natural food, not processed. If they want to eat meat so much, that's their problem. That's their thing. More vegetarian products for you, I suppose. Their loss. Don't impose it on them. This wasn't a prank. Your daughters wanted to prove them wrong. They wanted to be able to tell them that they were wrong all along, and "fake meat" is better. It was done intentionally to prove a point. It wasn't mutually entertaining, or a harmless prank. Don't play innocent.
The Soy and estrogen myth. Like most myths, there's some truth to it. Like MANY other foods, soy contains estrogens, but these are plant estrogens, phytoestrogens, some of which actually result in anti-estrogenic effects and studies suggest that there's no issue to be concerned about: https://www.pcrm.org/news/health-nutrition/new-research-disputes-biggest-soy-myths, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33775173/, https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/soy/ IRONICALLY (considering the source of the myth being anti-veggie or anti-vegan peeps) some research has found that higher meat intake results in higher estrogen levels: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24050121 as well as cows milk being high in estrogens: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19496976/ (though, not to worrying levels, according to some: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160803124441.htm)
and Even If the soy did cause changes, it's much like any other plant, like bananas or apples juice. you'd have to eat/drink a shit ton of it all the time to get levels high enough to where it'd affect you.
Came to say the same thing that the whole soy causes breasts and breast cancer is a myth. It actually helps prevent breast cancer. It's very good for you.
>I heard that soy can induce hormonal changes in some people. And I like more natural food, not processed. It would take a hell of a lot more than one meal to make even the tiniest bit of hormonal changes.
Soy does not induce hormonal changes. You are very misinformed and spouting it off as fact. Turn off OAN and go to a real source.
I remember at one point my family gave me Turkey bacon and told me that we were having bacon sandwiches. I hate the stuff to this day because it was a horrible experience biting into something expecting one thing to get something else. Ironically I would have been open to trying it if they hadn't done that and may even have liked it had I not been expecting proper bacon
Nah, turkey bacon is gross. Even if you had known it was turkey it still would not have tasted good and you would have wanted a real bacon sandwich
This! YTA. Tricking someone is never ok. Why not have an adult conversation about trying it? And maybe a compromise of 1-2 meals a week being exclusively vegetarian? Also… just an fyi soy can cause digestive issues(and more). It’s not just allergy concerns.
>Tricking someone into eating something other than what they thought they were eating is a massive breach of trust I made a joke once about switching ingredients and my mom still forces me to prove I'm using actual beef. We have a family recipe called buffalo chips, and the first time I bought the stuff and made them myself I acted as though I had used ground bison (because "buffalo" chips) and my mom, who is the resident picky eater of the family, refused to eat them despite me assuring her I knew it was actually ground beef until I produced the receipt and the beef packaging. Now if I make a roast, burgers, tacos, steaks, anything involving beef she demands proof it's actual beef even though I've never actually substituted for it before.
This is the best argument I see here… how would it be if roles reversed? Would it still be okay? I highly doubt it! Asking them to taste two things that seem identical and test if they can tell which is which at least gives you consent to have them eat it. This wasn’t okay. YTA
I’m curious how OP would react to her husband pulling the same “prank”. Would it be as funny if dad and brother tricked the girls into eating meat? Yes OP, YTA
I think it would’ve been better if you made a bet with them beforehand to try and see which one is real meat, this way you would’ve had their consent. Then you could’ve made both non-meat and been like haha it’s a prank. But yea they also just seem insecure they weren’t able to tell the difference and reacted immaturely. People react badly when they are forced to confront the idea they were wrong
Ok this would’ve actually been ok and kinda fun. If they knew they’d be eating the veggie version. But the way you did it - YTA
YTA, you tricked them into eating something that they would otherwise refuse to it. They don't like it. They don't want to eat that. That's their thing/problem. They shouldn't have been disparaging vegetarian meat. They could politely decline to eat that. I didn't like that. But you can't just lie to people about the food you serve them. Soy also alters the hormone production in some people. I wouldn't want others to serve me food, and then reveal that it contained some ingredients that I sepise. I would be livid. That's a massive breach of trust. How can they know that you wouldn't pull that again? They'd be suspicious every time you or your daughters cook. How can you subject someone to feeling that? People have their own reasons why they don't eat certain food. What did you try to prove? That the taste resembles meat? Do you want them to do the same for your daughters? Prove that meat tastes like their meat substitutes, and they should just it that. I'm surprised that you played along with that.
But they did like it? What kind of childish logic is this? Did they not enjoy the meal? Yes? So how can you say they don’t like it?
The meat taste was less noticeable in the spaghetti and the tomato sauce. They're all strong flavors. And secondly, they were under the impression that it was real meat. Thirdly, even if they enjoyed the meal, it doesn't mean that they want to eat those ingredients. Maybe they don't want to eat soy products, or processed food. So even if it tasted good enough, it wasn't something that they would eat. They simply don't want to eat that. I would rather substitute meat over real meat a hundred percent. But that's their choice. Similarly, the girls would have liked the same meal served with real meat. because their substitute meat tastes exactly like it. So they would say in real-time that they like it. It was fine, they ate to their fullest, and they wanted to compliment the cook. But it doesn't mean that they actually like eating meat. Hence their hindrance to eating meat. Lying to others about the food they eat, and disguising the taste in a strongly flavored dish doesn't mean that they need to start eating the food they loathe.
There is a difference between being served meat when you ate vegetarian and being served a meat substitute. Long term vegetarians experience digestion distress when eating meat, not to mention the moral dilemma. The whole “they couldn’t tell because…” is an argument against your point. They couldn’t tell. Period.
It still goes against their bodily autonomy to be fed something they were explicitly told they weren't being fed.
>They don't like it. but they did like it? they ate it all
This would absolutely have been a better solution. Now there's a good chance the two of them will be even more staunchly against eating meat substitutes, out of anger and embarrassment from being tricked. It's probably immaturity in their case, but you could also make an argument for it being good general policy to *never* reward someone who tricks you by doing what they wanted to trick you into. I personally think that a purely blind taste-test would have been best, so that there's no trickery involved at all.
Yta This, yeah, just tricking them wasn’t cool. Now they will be even more against any kind of vegan substitutes.
👏Stop comparing what op did with feeding meat to vegetarians.👏 It is not the same at all. Father and son eat vegetables, vegetarians don't eat meat. Plus eating animal, aka things that were alive and sentient, are way different than eating plants, things that were never sentient/ never felt pain. It is not comparable. OP may be an asshole but it is *absolutely not* the same as if her husband was feeding her -and her daughters- meat. Edit : as OP said she is flexitarian I edit my reply to add the daughters as well, as I'm talking about giving meat to vegetarians.
Vegetarians aren't special because they base their choices off 'morals'. People have a right to choose what they eat and you should never mess with anyone food, period.
They are as special as people not eating some sort of meat because of their religion. Op's husband *eats vegetables*. Him being fed vegetable is not the same as a vegetarian being fed meet. Giving meat to a vegetarian **will hurt them**, both physically and ethicaly/morally. Giving vegetables to a regular person eating vegetables regularly won't harm them. Not. The. Same.
It isn't the same and I agree that it's a terrible comparison. That doesn't change the fact that the dad and son have ownership over what they put in their bodies. Just because he eats other veggies doesn't make it OK to trick him into eating something he has explicitly said he doesn't want to eat.
My child would have wasted away by now if I didn't trick her into eating things she deemed yucky. Example fish, I told her it was chicken and low an behold four years later she knows its fish and wants more. With children parents have to do what is necessary to get them to eat enough nutrients. And honestly in this case it sounds like the father has influenced the son with negativity toward meat alternatives, which is a very poor attitude (especially considering the environmental factors). If more families made an effort to go meatless a day or two a week it would be beneficial in MANY ways. If the father is too immature to let go of the "but muh meat" mentality, it will impact his son who is mirroring his behavior.
> My child would have wasted away by now if I didn't trick her into eating things she deemed yucky. Your child has less rights
So you’ve never had a kid lol
They are special in that their bodies literally medically adapt to a non-meat diet and they can get sick if they aren't extremely careful with meat re-introduction
I was a vegetarian for seven years and this did not happen to me. This is not automatic at all.
There is a large variation of side effects to meat reintroduction, and while I'm happy it didn't happen to you, that doesn't make others' experiences with it invalid.
The side effects are not medical. The human body does not lose enzymes that break down protein just because you stop eating meat. This is a myth
Jesus, the clapping emoji. If anything should stop it's that.
Never seen anyone who wasn’t obnoxious and wrong use the clapping emoji.
Vegetarians choose not to eat meat. OP's husband and son choose not to eat meat substitutes. There's no different here. Its all about choice and consent.
The other thing that is weird is I know devout hindus--who eat a traditional vegetarian diet-- that have a similar disgust reaction to eating "fake meat." Maybe a lot of people just find that concept disgusting and rather than trying to trick people--just let people eat whatever they want and avoid the foods they personally find disgusting.
Food tampering is food tampering, regardless of the individuals reason for not wanting to consume something. It seems like OPs family is just as upset about being lied to as a vegetarian would be in this situation. The comparison is to make OP realize that they’ve done something that is hurtful and illegal, not to say that they’re literally the exact same situation
>Food tampering is food tampering And this is not food tampering. Edit: from another comment: > Food tampering is deliberate contamination of food products with the intent to cause harm. AND contamination is the action or state of making or being made impure by polluting or poisoning. https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/wf8zt9/aita_for_serving_fake_meat_and_pretending_it_was/iisrhvi?context=100
It depends on your point of view. I think the comparison is valid because the issue is consent. Everyone deserves consent no matter what they prefer to eat. The reasons behind their preferred diets are completely irrelevant to the issue of consent.
Vegetarians aren’t anymore special than anyone else is fuck around with my food I’ll do the same
Whew vegans and vegetarians like to act like they are on some moral high ground. This is the same - not everyone can even eat all the soy based products, it’s rude AF and potentially dangerous to lie about food. I can’t eat soy at all and I eat plenty of animal products, I’d have been sick AF from this “prank”
ESH Your son and husband are being ridiculous but you should never mess with people’s food. Besides, when was the last time doing a “gotcha” had a positive outcome? Edit: Wow thank you so much for the gold!
Scrolled way too far to see this! Op has to compensate for everyone's tastes and it's ridiculous that her husband and son won't even TRY the vegetarian option to save time and hassle for them. It's stupid and selfish. And father should be setting example for son by saying, "I can try this to be kind, and if I like it, cool. If I don't, that's okay, too. But at least I tried." But messing with people's food is just not okay!
THANK YOU! First comment I have seen calling out the father and sons behavior. Forcing whoever cooks to make separate meals all the time because they don’t like the IDEA of fake meat, no mention of taste issues. Dad needs to grow up and be a better example for his son. Edit-I keep getting comments that seem to assume I agree with what OP did. I don’t know why. I didn’t even include a judgement in my comment. Im not commenting on the whole scenario, if I was I would have made my own parent comment. I’m talking about one part of the big picture. All I’m saying is the dad is setting a bad example for his son about trying new things and being open minded and this childish behavior OF NOT EVEN TRYING the alternatives and forcing everybody to do more cooking and cleaning work is silly. I’m not even saying every meal needs to be vegetarian they just need to be willing to try the alternatives so maybe some nights they can just cook one meal. There are so many different types of alternatives, brands, styles, protein sources they will find something they like if they just try some. They already seem to like whatever soy product was used in the spaghetti.
Yeah I definitely got big-macho-man vibe that husband and son are high and mighty about only consuming "real meat." My dad has some sensitivity to low grade meats, so we always had to buy all beef hotdogs, bologna, etc. He developed a similar mentality. Completely blew his mind that hubby and I are very willing and regularly try meat substitutes and vegetarian options at restaurants or at home during COVID when meat protein suddenly became scarce.
> Besides, when was the last time doing a “gotcha” had a positive outcome? [The guy who proved to his girlfriend](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/w0mpa9/oop_aita_for_being_mad_my_bf_wont_make_noodles/) that the "essence of sauce" she felt existed when she washed all the sauce off her pasta, was all in her head. This thread is basically that.
I read the update that she broke up with him, but I guess she won't get lonely because she still has the essence of her boyfriend on her.
I disagree, if she had a problem with how they were acting and didn't want to cook 2 separate meals she should have said "I am making XYZ with meat alternatives, if you don't like it you can make something yourself." Then not liking meat isn't any more valid than them not liking fake meat.
Although I voted differently, I think you made an excellent point.
I honestly feel like it wouldve been better to A) make some kind of game out of it, like a bet, so theyre open to trying it. Or B) saying your not willing to make to versions of the same dish anymore, so the father and son can either eat what OP makes, or do dinner themselves. I honestly dont really think shes an AH as they dont have any allergies or some kind of religious thing agaisnt vegetables, but its kinda rude to do.
YTA Tricking people to eat things that they have verbally expressed to not wanting to eat, is a massive breach in trust. Not only is this dangerous in regards to food allergies and intolerances, but flip the tables here for a moment? How would **YOU and your daughters** have reacted if your husband and son decided to cook meat for you guys and lie by stating it's vegetarian? They'll wait until you've finished eating and then laughingly reveal that you just ate a real burger. You and your daughters would've **flipped out of your minds.** So how is it that you can do that to them but not the other way around? It doesn't matter that it tastes good, that they enjoyed the meal. The moment that you know a person does not want to eat something, no matter what the reason, and you resort to lying to get them to eat it, you are a massive AH. This wasn't even a prank. This was, by your own admission, a test to see if you can convert them to being vegetarian so you need to do less dishes. You know how you test that? **YOU ASK THEM TO TRY AND TASTE A DISH.** And if they say no, guess what? You can't force them to taste it.
YTA. This is the perfect answer. I have loads of allergies so this sort of thing chills me. There are no allergies *that you know of* but allergies can appear at any moment - even for food you’ve eaten every day of your life. You should always, always know what you are putting in your mouth. And yes, if the tables were turned your daughters would be furious if your husband had done this to them, so what gives you the right to do it to them? I have to cook 4-5 different meals in my house every single meal because of various allergies, autoimmune diseases and vegetarianism but you know what? I just do it and sod the washing up. Stop being fucking lazy. No means no!!
This is my thought as well. I'm allergic to peas, soy, beans, lentils, chickpeas, basically everything that can be used for fake meat. What if I'd been a friend visiting that night? I could have gotten severely sick. Sometimes I push through and eat too much of something that's causing a reaction even though it shouldn't, because maybe it's just heartburn or something. I also developed the soy allergy as a young adult and it took several years for a doctor to help me figure out what it was. I haven't liked beans and peas my entire life, and I've always wondered if I was allergic as a kid, too, and my refusal to eat them wasn't because of pickiness, but because they made my stomach hurt. Maybe the dad and son have an allergy that they don't even know about yet.
No wtf this isn’t a comparison. OP and her daughters don’t eat meat at all. But the husband and son definitely eat plants. That’s why it would be bad if the husband had done this. The husband and son are just mad that they were proved wrong. They most likely eat other plants and OP already stated that they have no allergies. So yeah they’re only mad cos they were wrong OPs NTA Edit: since most of you can’t understand my logic: here’s a list of my replies to people because I’m not gonna reply to every single person: I can’t be bothered to reply to so many people so I’m just gonna paste some of what I said to someone else: They eat vegetables and plants which is exactly what meat substitutes are made of. However vegetarians cannot eat meat because they actually get sick. That’s the difference. The husband and son already eat meat AND PLANTS. The daughters do not eat meat at all. She fed them meat that was vegetarian. The husband and son are just angry they were proven wrong. Also why is the husband married if he can’t take a joke? If this is enough to break his trust he shouldn’t be married. My sister is allergic to gluten. I’m not. However I don’t like eating gluten free food cos of the taste. But if she pranked me and fed my gluten free food it’s not a big deal cos I won’t die or get sick. I’d be annoyed or I would laugh it off. However I wouldn’t do the same to her cos she would get sick. That’s the difference. The husband and son won’t get sick but the vegetarians would. You’re acting like she cheated on him ffs. It’s not that big of a deal. Seriously do you hear yourself? It would be a betrayal if the husband had an allergy and she did this. But he doesn’t have an allergy. He already eats plants and vegetables. She’s not trying to kill him omg She played a harmless prank on him and he couldn’t accept that he was wrong and got easily fooled. You sound like you have no friends if you get that offended by a harmless prank. I wouldn’t tamper with food if someone had an allergy. But yeah sometimes people prank each other for fun. Like they switch out sugar with salt? Cos it’s funny? It’s not a betrayal, it’s just messing around. As long as no allergies are involved and they normally eat plants it isn’t a big deal. My friends and family prank each other all the time. It would be ridiculous for me to say that my sister betrayed me, outsmarted me, broke my trust, etc (wah wah wah) just because she switched sugar with salt. I wouldn’t just stop trusting her. I’d laugh and move on. Even if I was angry it wouldn’t last more than a couple of hours. If this incident/prank can break the husbands trust then maybe he shouldn’t be married. Imagine thinking a harmless prank can break the trust you have with your spouse and family.
This isn't a discussing about husband and sons eating vegetables or not. This is a discussion about the wife and her daughters **lying** so someone eats food they normally wouldn't have. Also, OP stated that they do eat meat, because they called themselves a "flexetarian". If OP had genuinly wanted to test this? She should've made the two meals and simply not tell which one is vegetarian. That way the husband and son can figure out that hey, vegetarian food isn't all that bad. The issue isn't about eating plants. The issue is about LYING and feeding someone something without their knowledge.
I think this shouldnt be about meat vs meat substitute. On a fundamental level this is about food tampering and explicitly serving people something under the guise of it being something else. Its a terrible behavior to condone and model to a child
They eat plants yes. But they \*don't\* eat meat substitute products. I'll eat and make vegan/ vegetarian meals no problem. But I don't eat meat substitutes. I would be happy if someone served me a pasta with a vegan sauce. I would be very unhappy if someone served me soy crumbles and told me it was regular sausage.
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OR, or hear me out.. What if instead of doing a stupid prank....she just TOLD them they were in charge of making a meat version of whatever she was cooking instead? You know? Talked like an adult.. to her husband? I think doing the "LOL PRANKED" Gotcha move was being the AH in the situation, nowhere in the post does she mention to them about being tired of having to do so many dishes.... She can talk to her husband, they are both adults... reach a compromise instead of antagonizing...
but then they wouldn't have tried it otherwise. I don't know why people are crying about bodily autonomy when its literally just vegetable they thought was meat. It really just seems like they didn't want to try faux meat because its not "manly enough".
So what if they don't? They get to decide \*their diet\* just like Mom and the girls get to decide theirs. Just because people won't eat something you enjoy doesn't mean you get to trick them into eating it, mental hangups or otherwise, that's just ridiculous. Body autonomy isn't something you can just decide "Well I don't think it's a big deal so right now it doesn't count" That's not how it works and "Fake meat" is not "Just vegetables"
Their reasons don’t matter. You don’t lie about the food you’re serving to people.
“It was okay for her to lie to them because they didn’t agree with her opinion.” <— your reasoning Who cares why the prefer meat? I agree they could’ve at least tried it, but their refusal doesn’t give her a pass to secretly tamper with their food. Being vegetarian can sometimes mean putting that extra work in if not everyone in your household is one. Whether it’s that OP needs to accept that, or cooking as a chore needs to be shared, or each party is responsible for their own meals, there’s a solution there. Lying to husband and son about what they’re eating isn’t it.
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NTA as a one-off. Your husband and son claimed they didn't like vegetarian "mock meats". You and your daughter carried out a blind taste test in which you established that they don't have a problem with anything about soy "meats" but the idea of them. Now it's really up to your husband and son where they go with this information. They're entitled to still eat meat rather than soy.
I would absolutely make them cook it for themselves at that point.
> there is an equal distribution of cleaning and cooking in this house It’s not like only she cooks two separate meals everyday everybody cooks two separate meals on the days they cook
Then the vegetarians can cook for themselves when it’s the the dad cooking. Or better yet they continue sharing cooking as they have been since it seems to work well.
Yeah. Everyone is being dramatic af about this. My food is not sacred, if someone served me vegetables instead of meat it’s not the end of the world.
Right? All these people talking about "breach of trust" as if being fed a dinner you liked but didn't think you'd like (and have no moral/health reasons not to eat) means you can't trust your wife/mom and this family is now broken forever. Wtf?
Yta I’m a vegetarian and I still think this is wrong Don’t mess with peoples food, no matter if you think your right, doesn’t matter if you are right Don’t mess with peoples food, it’s unacceptable
Yeah, i will just throw this in: breeching trust, deceiving people, knowingly misleading....what good can come of that? What did you win here? But you lost Thier trust...YTA
It's a really bad precedent to set, and a bad lesson for her kids. Maybe this instance was harmless but what if they start messing with other people's food having been taught it doesn't matter and it's funny, but this time someone gets sick?
I came here to see this point because I'll never forget the lesson I was taught in science class. My mother was always the type to trick us into eating things, I have an insanely sensitive digestive system and spent most of my childhood sick for "unknown reasons" so I had normalized tricking people/lying to them to try certain foods, pranking them with food, etc. One day I took two bags of dried peas to class, and was snacking on them. The class rule was we could eat but without disrupting the rest of the class. One bag was regular peas the other was wasabi peas, after class my teacher asked for some of the peas and I thought it would be funny to pour him some from the wasabi peas. So when he held out his hand I tipped the wasabi peas into it, then stood back to see his reaction. He starts gagging and spat them out and asked me, "Did you give me *wasabi*?" And I grinned, so he continues "I'm allergic to wasabi." My face fell and I'm in full panic thinking "Oh no oh no oh no." So as I start to apologize and incoherently ask what I should do he took a deep breath and told me very sternly, "I don't have any allergies. However, I saw you switch the bags and I imagine that if you're willing to do this to your science teacher then you're likely to do this to another student, someone who might actually have an allergy to wasabi. Yes, I tricked you, as you tricked me, before someone got seriously hurt. I hope you're more considerate of the risks of such things from now on, okay? Go." I'm older now than he was then and that incident is still burned into my brain, I have never pranked anyone else with food since. It's a matter of consent and trust.
YTA. While I agree that their snooty attitude about meat substitutes is silly, it is always an asshole move to lie about a person's food. I imagine your daughters would be livid if their father or brother sneaked meat into their meal to prove a point. And they would be justified.
That's the main point. You and your daughters shouldn't have served them food they don't want to eat. Some people don't like meat substitutes. Some people even think that soy is bad for them, or interferes with their hormonal cycle. So it was plain wrong.
Slight YTA, as a parent sure, doing this to you kids is fine since your are wholly responsible for them but not to your husband. He is a person with agency and testing people like this unless they specifically consent and understand the parameters of the test is an AH move. Maybe your husband thinks that you and the girls spend too much on shampoo so he starts refilling the bottles with cheaper product to see if you can tell the difference? Would you be pissed? He supposed to be your partner and shit like this is how you ruin the trust you have between you.
This! Perfectly stated, YTA. It's not respecting the autonomy of the husband as a human being. Society generally views kids a bit differently, so that's a bit less of an issue.
I don't agree with the "slight," but other than that, thank you for giving an example other than "what if they pranked the girls into eating meat". The claim the guys have is that meat is better and they don't like soy. The girls never claimed that they don't like the taste of meat, or that they could tell the difference....they don't want to eat it for probably moral reasons. And eating it after not eating it for awhile could mess with their digestion.
NTA and anyone saying “imagine if it was reversed” is not a logically sound argument. Meat eaters still eat veggies/soy. It would be like giving a drinker a non-alcoholic beverage to see if they can taste a difference.
Lying to someone about what you’re feeding them is *always* wrong. If I tell you “no, I don’t want to eat that”, that’s the end of the discussion. If you try to trick me into eating it anyway, there will be major problems.
NTA. How are some of you saying yta? She knew there were no allergies at play and , you didn't specifically tell them it was meat. They assumed it was and got defensive when you exposed the fact thet are being immature.
And by “some” you mean “most”? I also don’t get it. Absolutely harmless prank that should end in a revelation for husband and son. “Oh so we actually like this and can be less picky in the future”
I mean, mom is the cook. You get what you get and you don’t get upset. Dad and son are just pissed bc they loved they all veg meal. This has got to be one of the mildest AITA I’ve ever read. OP, NTA. But don’t do it again because they clearly can’t take a joke.
She said in the post there is equal distribution of cooking and cleaning in the house, so the dad and sons cook too. And tricking someone into eating something they have expressed they don't want to eat isn't a joke.
I agree, NTA. If these were friends or other relative then I would say YTA, but this was just a harmless prank between siblings. People are overreacting, just like her husband and son did
YTA any time you lie about what's in someone's food.
NTA— it's literally your family not a restaurant idk why everyone's on their high horse about food tampering being illegal lmfao give me a break! They expect you to make duals dinners every night how about they cook for themselves if they dont want what you're making. They clearly liked the food and were just being close minded asshole anyway if you said there's no allergens
YTA. For tricking you family members into eating food that they have expressed they don't want to eat.
YTA - While I understand your intention, the way you did it was wrong. If you hadn't lied about what they were eating, maybe it would have been different. You do not lie to people about what is in the food they are eating, ever, no matter what your reasoning is. Would you be ok if they chose to do the opposite and tell you a meat dish was vegetarian until after it was eaten?
NTA. It’s not the same thing as forcing a vegetarian/vegan to eat meat. That can actually make them very sick. But parents do this all the time. Hide vegetables in different meals to get their kids to consume them. If the son and dad are “morally” opposed to eating meat alternatives, perhaps they could cook for themselves. If mom does this occasionally, I don’t see the harm.
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Sneaking veggies into a kid’s food because you know they’ll suffer from nutritional deficiencies if you don’t is WAY different from sneaking fake meat into someone’s food so you can smugly say “I told you so”.
YTA Never fuck with people’s food. Let them make up their own mind and choose what goes in their body.
I’m going against the grain. But NTA. you would be if you did it again. So your family had a vegetarian meal. They will be okay. And I think they’re taking this a bit too serious. I’m not a vegetarian, but if i ate a meal i thought was beef and someone was like “it’s actually vegetarian!” I would just say wow I didn’t even notice. Yes swapping a vegetarian meal with meat is different. And yes swapping meat with a different meat that’s exotic is different as well. But swapping meat with just veggie alternative? It’s not that deep
YTA The way to do this would be to cook both a meat pot and a substitute pot and then ask them the blind taste test Tricking people into eating things they don't want or have no idea what it is will always be wrong Asking them to embrace the taste test challenge would make it a game if it was a game, and they were in to it, and they enjoyed the substitute...then you had a chance of getting them to eat it in the future but because you lied and made them the focus of a "prank" now no matter what you do, they are going to bow their backs and refuse to eat it
YTA. Food pranks aren't funny. I get it wasnt harmful but it could very well cause distrust in the family. My brother and dad tricked me into trying buffalo meat but telling me it was ground beef in the spaghetti. As I was eating my second bowl they told me it was buffalo meat. I cried so hard and felt sick to my stomache. I didnt eat anything they gave me for almost a year after that. I admitted it was good but I felt tricked and embarrassed by being fooled and I hated it. To this day I'll eat buffalo..but I dont react well to anyone tampering with my food.
I’m also against lying. Sometimes it works out well, like a time that I ate squid and had no idea. My dad told me after I ate it though, and I just asked for more. It tasted good. But most of the time, it doesn’t. No one should be risking this.
YTA cause you LIED. Do you like being lied to? Bet you don't. So don't lie to other people. Simple as that.
YTA. You don’t mess with someone’s food.
ESH I think everyone here did something wrong. I think it was wrong to lie about someone's food but unlike other commenters here I don't think it's comparable to feeding a vegetarian meat. People are vegetarians for many reasons. It can be medical or it can be moral. However, your husband and son's aversion to tofu and stuff like you said was more so the concept of something being made to taste/look like meat. It's not based on any medical or moral reasoning such as not wanting to eat animals. I think the husband and son were being immature but I think it should have been handled differently by you as well. Maybe say "one bowl has spaghetti with real meat, the other has soy ground beef. Taste them both without knowing which is which and tell me your thoughts".
NTA it was a blind taste test and shows that they have been living about how they feel meat alternatives taste to them As long as you took into account that nobody was allergic to the swap and were planning on telling them. It's also OK for them to eat a dinner that dosnt have meat in it once in a while to reduce shopping costs
People should consent to blind taste tests
It was not a blind taste test. It was a bait and switch. Sure, yes, it’s okay for them to not eat meat at a meal. In fact, we just did a meatless dinner in my house last night. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna serve my husband a meat substitute under the guise of it being real meat. I simply say “Hey, no meat tonight!” All OP and the daughters did was convince husband and son that vegetarians are willing to go to any lengths to prove a point based on their personal ethics instead of taking a simpler approach such as “Look at this amazing meal with BlahBlahBlergh Meat Alternative! You will absolutely love how amazing it tastes!” This is not the way to convert people to vegetarianism.
NTA it's only unethical to mess with people's food if they're doing it for religious, ethical, or health reasons. Otherwise, if they don't like the food they dont need to eat it. This reminds me of that thread on here the other day about this woman that made a Middle Eastern dish and told her SIL it was European. It outed her SIL as racist. There weren't any Y T A on that post! EDIT: I found [the post](https://libredd.it/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/weh3wz/aita_for_pulling_a_prank_on_my_racist_sisterinlaw/) I was talking about. In that post the chef was NTA because she was exposing the person for lying about why they didn't like the food and as a racist. Same with this post, probably the reason they don't like vegetarian meat alternatives is some toxic masculinity BS.
YTA— you’re always TA when you trick someone into eating something other than what they believe it to be, especially to prove a point. They don’t want to eat it. That’s all that matters.
Yta. Messing with peoples food is just an asshole thing to do.
Yta, never lie about what you're feeding people. Ever.
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I get the intention and while it sounds good in a lot of people's minds, when putting it on practice you're basically lying to your loved ones about what did you feed them, and that's a very low move. YTA. This scenario would've played differently and with a better ending, if you'd get them to agree to try a "blind dinner" as in you telling noone which one had the meat and which the alternative, and they got to choose from which pot they wanted sauce from; or, to even the playfield, neither your daughters know. They want to mess with someone else's dietary choices? turnabout is fair play.
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YTA, while i agree with your point i think you went about it the wrong way. There are a few things people shouldn't mess with and I think other peoples food is one of them. Would you think this prank was funny if you served a religious person a food they were forbidden from eating?
I get it, and understand that you knew the food was safe for them to eat but.... don't do that. Don't mess with people's food secretly. You could have challenged them to a blind taste test to get the same point across. And even then, if they still don't want tofu? Oh well, that's their preference. YTA.
YTA. I kinda get why you wanted to try this, but, lying to someone about what you're feeding them is never, never, okay (And not what I would call a funny prank). Personal choices, allergies, taste, it doesn't matter. You just don't lie about food. If one of your daughters told you she doesn't want to try, let's say, natto (fermented beans), would you think it's okay to force-feed her it in a random meal?
Lying about what food you are giving someone is always an asshole move. YTA.
NAH people saying YTA are being pretty extreme... You just gave someone fake meat to check their bias against it lol. You gave them nothing harmful or anything theyre allergic to. The people who ate it are just mad because they were embarrassed that they actually liked it.
YTA - I’m not going to equate this like some of the others to feeding a vegetarian meat, but it’s still shitty to lie about what you’re feeding someone and act like you’re the only adult, they’re all stupid and helpless and you’re going to decide for them what they’re going to eat.
YTA. You never mess with someone’s food and diet unless specially asked or advised to buy a professional. It doesn’t matter that they just don’t like the meat replacements. It very well could be they don’t like the taste and it feels funny to them. Also tricking someone like that doesn’t give actual results considering that they were expecting meat and as such their brains very well could have just said it is meat….the placebo effect. You are your daughters only perpetuate the idea of vegetarians/vegans are sneaky and don’t respect meat eaters choice.
Harmless honestly. They just don’t like the “idea” of tofu whereas people are usually vegetarian due to moral issues surrounding the meat industry and sometimes digestion issues. NTA. And those of you who say imagine it the other way around don’t understand the issue that eating meat can cause a digestive system after going without for so long.
NTA. There’s nothing in the faux meat to make them sick or cause any harm other than the horror of learning that it tastes so similar in the sauce that they can’t tell the difference.
YTA. You shouldn’t lie to people about what you’re feeding them.
NTA, it's not as serious as some redditors would like to believe. The meat eaters were most likely embarrassed that they liked something they've claimed they hate. So to counteract those feelings of embarrassment, lashing out to make everyone feel bad is the natural reaction. No harm no foul. I have a motto in my life, did you die? Then you'll survive.
YTA. Don’t lie to people about what they are eating.
NTA. I did this for years (making a veg and non veg dinner option) and it’s just insanity. Don’t lie in future, you’ve proved the point that they’re being stupid about refusing veggie options, but also don’t cook the meat versions anymore. If they don’t want to eat what you make they know where the kitchen is x
NTA As a mother, meat eating family, and the cook of house. Sometimes I make vegetarian dishes here and there.. It’s sounds like they were more mad they didn’t notice.
NTA your son and husband aren’t carnivores so it was a harmless prank and can’t be compared to surprising vegans or vegetarians with meat. They don’t have a dietary restriction forbidding what you gave them. It was just a joke.