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Author, chef and TV personality, Anthony Bourdain is known to have a special dislike for vegans and vegetarians.
In his book Kitchen Confidential, he wrote “Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, and an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.”
Apparently, he’s still doesn’t get it. In a brand new interview with Playboy Magazine he had this to say about vegetarians:
“They make for bad travelers and bad guests. The notion that before you even set out to go to Thailand, you say, “I’m not interested,” or you’re unwilling to try things that people take so personally and are so proud of and so generous with, I don’t understand that, and I think it’s rude. You’re at Grandma’s house, you eat what Grandma serves you.”
Of course, he has even worse things to say about vegans. Bourdain proclaims “I don’t have any understanding of it. Being a vegan is a first-world phenomenon, completely self-indulgent.”
How unfortunate that a seemingly intelligent person can be so ignorant about the devastating impact that animal agriculture has on animals, public health and the environment.
Dear Mr. Bourdain, in the age of information, ignorance is a choice; you’re hating on the wrong people.
Image Source: Neeta Lind/Flickr
Bourdain was right: It\’s incredibly entitled to go to grandma\’s and not eat her food because you are some vegan/vegetarian. living your life in extremes is absurd.
and i would argue it\’s incredibly entitled to take another life for what would be no more than a 30 minute meal, despite the fact you could have a delicious, nourishing dinner without and live just fine. it\’s entitled to assume someone would compromise their morals just because you didn\’t bother to check with your guests for any restrictions first (as per standard hosting etiquette), especially since they could very well get sick from consuming your concoction (which happens after you eat meat or dairy after cutting it out for long enough). it may be extreme to you, but vegans don\’t consider it as such and consider your /need/ for animal products to live a happy life an extreme.
if dear ol granny cooked up a nice entree of dog (which is not all that odd of a practice in korea and china, for the record), would you consider that rude to turn down? no? because you\’re /used/ to the consumption of beef, pork, fish, and poultry. it\’s so ingrained in western society that you consider abstaining from those things an "extreme". and that\’s absolutely absurd.
Anthony is spot on in regards to vegans.
Obviously, most of you detractors have not traveled much. Being a vegan/vegetarian is a "first world" luxury for the most part….with the exception of places like India that are set up for it and have done it for eons. Most countries could not sustain themselves without animal protein.