Columns Dec 30, 2010 at 4:00 am

I Regret Making You Eat Your God

Comments

1
If you fly to America, land of the hamburger, and aren't cautious about what you put in your mouth, liberal white people should not have to feel guilty about feeding you cow.
2
That guilt sounds a bit like Catholic guilt to me.
Good I Anon though.
3
wtf ? you all-ready did this one. why is it up again you retards.
4
Fuck em. It's the customers responsibility to determine what they are about to eat first not the server or cook. How the hell are you to guess what may be a no go for someone based upon how they look or sound? By all means if you're working for tips lie your ass off and make them feel good so long as it won't kill or make them ill.
5
Well, at least you felt bad about it. That shows that you're a decent human being!

In general, here's a good rule of thumb:

If somebody looks and sounds like they've come straight from India, DON'T feed them anything cow related unless they TELL you it's okay to do so. India is FULL of Hindu-practicing people, and it's best to err on the side of caution.

6
@4: Maybe someday you'll travel outside of Federal Way and not speak the language fluently. And maybe someday a waiter will bring you a dish with poop in it, because you ordered the feces sandwich without knowing it.

Heaven knows you will have had it coming.
7
Wow, if this is real - that's all kinds of fucked.

If this is fake, (and it sounds like it is) congrats - you made it into The Stranger.
8
If it was real and you fed beef gravy to Hindus who are honest vegetarians, they probably got really, really sick that night. Like, exploding from both ends sick. Your lie probably didn't resonate.

Great I Anon. (and I am so sick of every I Anon being called "BS" or "is that the best you got?")
9
Regret nothing...eat everything. Moooooo.
10
Someday, the cows may start eating US. that will be our Karma(or perhaps just our "Cow-Ma".)
11
@8: that's such a myth. I went from 7 years of vegetarianism straight to cheeseburgers and steaks with nary an explosion. Not even a hiccup. (And I'm not even an Indian with super-power-type 3rd world gut flora.)

I mean, I did gain like 30 pounds, but that's a different story now isn't it?
12
Best case scenario? They found out what they've been missing out on because of their silly superstitions.

Worst case scenario? Mmmmmm.....graaaaaaavvvvvvyyyy....
13
Best case scenario? They found out what they've been missing out on because of their silly superstitions.

Worst case scenario? Mmmmmm.....graaaaaaavvvvvvyyyy....
14
Hello Racism! @1 for assuming the poster was white. Yes he or she is clearly co-opting white liberal culture by feeling bad about this, but still, you is racist.
16
Several years or more on a super-strict vegan diet (not just cow-free) might leave you without the right tummy flora to digest animal proteins, and in that case you could get pretty awful sick from beef gravy.
Short of that... bullshit.
Eggs? Cheese? Fish?
If you can digest those, you can digest beef.
17
PS - if you are devout enough to weep actual tears over the spiritual ramifications of your dietary choices, you don't eat first and ask questions later.
18
When I saw the headline I thought this was going to be about a Catholic person.

At least they don't worship gravy.
19
@5 - Many people who "look or sound like they come from India" - and who do in fact come from India - are Muslim. They will have no problem whatsoever eating beef. Don't be presumptuous. Not even if you think you're doing the right thing.
20
as a former victim of "dehli belly" i hope they had the flaming shits for at least a week. serve them right !
21
This is my wife's story. 100% true. She called me the day it happened and asked me to write it up. We've had it in a word file for a few years and forgot about it until I was deleting unused files a few weeks ago. Why make something up to get onto I anon? It's anonymous after all, so it's not like we can show the clipping to people for some ill gotten fame. XDD
22
Okay, two comments.

First, don't feel TOO bad about that, they were probably trying to tell you but it was an honest mistake. Just own up to it if it ever happens again so they can choose whether they want to keep it down or not.

Second, I've been an eggs and cheese eating vegetarian for 13 years and recently started eating fish again. There was no exploding, but it took weeks before it stopped giving me a terrible stomach ache. Maybe it doesn't happen to everyone, I don't know, but I certainly had problems.
23
Weird stuff happens. Also, when people travel, they usually make assumptions based on where they are from.

If they lived their whole lives in an area where there's never cow on the menu, they might be shocked when they go out and it's an all cow menu.

I deal with French and Australians and Brits that absolutely refuse to take their Passports with them despite the fact that they have been told specifically that they cannot get into bars without ID.

I have a billion stories along these lines.
24
As to the "honest vegetarians" comment...

Hindus aren't actually obligated to be strict vegetarians or vegans. They're just not allowed to eat beef(it's the same with other religions not being allowed to eat pork, or Mormons not getting to drink coffee, etc...)

This is why most Indian restaurants have an extensive list of poultry, lamb and shellfish dishes.
25
Oh, and Cartman, if you actually physically resemble the cartoon character whose name you post under, there are countries where they would roast you on a spit. And you'd have it coming(although you most likely would cause a massive spike in the cholesterol levels of any resident of New Guinea who had a plate of you).

26
If one eats their God do they then gain super powers? If so I want to eat a God.
27
If I eat animal protein, or get a dose of animal fat (say something has lard in it), I get horrible flu-like symptoms, including a hellacious headache, and stomach cramps with nausea that makes me think both ends need to try to share the toilet! And I still eat some poultry and seafood! I think it is an individual's makeup that determines your reaction.
28
I've been vegetarian for 10 years now, so when I say people probably get sick if they are true vegetarian, I'm speaking from my own experiences and from those of my veggie friends.

Going to a wedding and eating the vegetarian option.... that used chicken in the sauce. I threw up and had diarrhea.

Eating Mexican that listed their beans as vegetarian on the menu but on the website admitted there was pork in there, explaining my all night vomitting.

Ordering Thai with tofu, only to realize that tofu is never that thick and getting sick by the side of the road about 2 hours later.

Being stuck in an airport for three days waiting for a snow storm to subside, ended up eating a "vegetarian" egg roll that made me explode from both ends and I'm guessing was probably full of pork (because it tasted odd as fuck, real greasy and not natural).

Now, maybe this is also because I'm a medical vegetarian rather than an animal rights vegetarian, but my vegetarian and vegan friends have similar stories of being forced to eat food we didn't prepare and getting sick because of it.

And that's why I never eat out unless I can't help it, such as travel or weddings.
29
yes, but they were ALREADY EATING IT. Diarrhea, if it was in the cards, was already on its way. She at least saved them a spiritual crisis.
30
Come ON. I don't eat pork or shellfish, so I make a point of asking BEFORE I even order.
31
Somebody ordered an item with brown gravy and was surprised that it contained beef? Maybe it would have been prudent to ask what made the gravy brown before eating it rather than after the fact.
32
@21 why make this up? because that's what people do.

hell my friends & I have made up hundreds of these things over the years just to see if we get picked.

It's called an inside joke my friend.
33
@24 Most Indians are vegetarians, strict vegetarians. It is actually rare to come across Tandooris, who will serve eggs, chicken, lamb and goat at their restaurants, and who come from the northern part of the sub-continent. Likewise, Muslim Indians still generally refrain from eating shitloads of meat.

This is a cultural thing, and it is a matter of practicality. Just like you seldom eat beef in most of East Asia because raising cattle is not an efficient way to manage your land. Growing rice, on the other hand, is highly efficient.

This has been a Dravidian cultural trait for thousands of years, and you can see it expressed in the traditional mores of the Vedic and Sramanic religions: Jainism; Vedism; Buddhism. When I have observed Indians who have mistakenly eaten meat products they haven't gone all psycho-vegan (whacked-American). Instead, they felt uneasy and a bit sad about it...rather honorable, I would say. Perhaps we should learn something form them.
34
aw, it's ok! Several members of my family never ever eat pork or shellfish, and they still make a mistake and eat the wrong thing once or twice in their lives. It happens.
35
Rings fake. A vegetarian in a generic diner would let their waiter know that they were vegetarian. Just like someone who orders a cheeseburger at red lobster and is allergic to shellfish will let their waiter know.

If it really did happen, it's not your fault. But what the hell, American gravy is generally meat-based so what did they THINK they were eating?
36
@35 it depends on if they came to America very often. I live in Singapore and in Little India they just don't serve beef or any beef products anywhere. I'm guessing in India proper that's even more true. If someone doesn't know that America is beef central and hasn't had to be so scrupulous about food choices in the past then it could be completely true.
37
To all of the people saying that they should have asked and it wasn't the waitress's fault, I believe her point was that they did ask but she failed to understand them or find out what they were trying to say because their accents were so thick.
38
mmm, feces sandwich
39
@1 and EVERYONE ELSE - what is wrong for apologizing? It is no skin off I, Anonymous' back. Did it cost her/im an F-ing cent? Honestly, think how much nicer the world would be if people realized the power an honest apology. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do it but I am sorry you are hurt" is such a foreign concept these days. I hear from people "I didn't mean that (insert thing that cause hurt here) so I'm not going to apologize." Well damn, that makes you an asshole, and you do clearly mean to be an asshole so try apologizing for that! Yay Anonymous, you are not an asshole!
40
If it you feel any better, the cow isn't a God, it's sacred, big difference. Cows weren't always sacred in Hinduism, it's a custom that seems to have come about so that farmers wouldn't kill their cows in lean times and therefore deprive themselves of the cow's milk and plow labor.

There's not much chance whatever cow you served them was going to provide sustenance for them over the coming years, so it's probably not a big deal.

Also, I don't know where people get the diarrhea bit, but if they are generally eaters of animal protein such as lamb, beef isn't going to give them diarrhea. Duh.
41
Eh, whatever, god doesn't exist and a little cow won't hurt them.
42
Satty@2,
Hey, don't worry about that Catholic guilt....
You guys are the ones who eat your God every Sunday, right?
43
What could possibly be more delicious than deity?
44
Yeah, don't beat yourself up too bad.

Do you know how many Hindu's own Subways?

You can apparently profit from the slaughter and sale of your god so long as you yourself don't consume it.

Fuck nuance, right? Gotta get yours where you can get it.

45
I don't care about the dude who says it's his wife's story - this totally rings BS. And the headline is insulting, editors. Nothing like promoting redneck-style misconceptions about people's religions.
46
WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW? IN MAH BELLEH!
47
Note to #11 - I read somewhere that a vegetarian can get the proper enzymes needed to manage a meat diet from kissing a meat eater. A lot. Do you kiss a meat-eater? A lot?
48
Who knows whether they were vegetarians? I stayed for two weeks with an indian family, in Mumbai. They were fairly devout Hindi (no, I don't know what 'type' of Hindi they are) and they ate plenty of meat - just not beef. The Mom only ate meat on certain days of the week, but the rest of the family ate it any time. And most of the restaurants we went to had meat dishes.

The largest vegetarian presence I remember was that every restaurant had about half meat and half vegetarian dishes, but meat was pretty common.

So there's my two rupees.
49
Who knows whether they were vegetarians? I stayed for two weeks with an indian family, in Mumbai. They were fairly devout Hindi (no, I don't know what 'type' of Hindi they are) and they ate plenty of meat - just not beef. The Mom only ate meat on certain days of the week, but the rest of the family ate it any time. And most of the restaurants we went to had meat dishes.

The largest vegetarian presence I remember was that every restaurant had about half meat and half vegetarian dishes, but meat was pretty common.

So there's my two rupees.
50
It's interesting how disrespectful people are to other people's religion! I mean seriously, just because a lot of you fuck heads in the pacific NW have no religion, does it really mean that you have to display such a lack of class and decency?? You don't have to like or agree with a religion to not act like a heathen whenever someone mentions doing or not doing something for religious reasons! What a bunch of fucking douches!
51
@45 - not that it matters, but I'm not a dude. My wife and I are both biological unaltered women. You're free to keep your skepticism. I don't know why you're so skeptic of someone accidentally eating something they didn't mean to, especially since most people don't make their own food from scratch so it's hard to know exactly WHAT any of us are eating but to each his or her own I guess. XD
52
@11: whenever I've fallen off the veg-only wagon (by choice or by misadventure), I've been in the bathroom paying out the @ss.
'Course, I've been like that my whole life, hence the veg-diet, at least in part. That and the cute animal factor.
My sis, on the other hand, eats all the cute animals she can get her hands on and is never ill.
Go figure.
53
A cow isn't a god--it might be a former human who fucked up, and had already mooved on to greener pastures.
54
Uh, people saying "I'm VEGAN/VEGETARIAN/(RELIGION THAT DOESN'T EAT X, Y or Z HERE)" -- tell me, do you also make sure that your food doesn't contain horse? Or that it's not been prepared with grubs? Or that it doesn't contain any number of other things that are commonly eaten in other cultures, but not here?

Of COURSE you make sure that you don't get served those things - because they are the NORM in our society; if you grew up in a society where it just wasn't normal to eat beef, you'd probably not be checking to see that everything you were served didn't have beef in it.

So. Way to not recognize your privilege.
55
I'm a Hindu and I'm with #24. No obligation to not eat other meats, but in most of India, it's pretty frowned upon.
That said, most westernized Indians do eat everything but cow. My parents never ate cow, but they took us to McDonalds and always told us the choice was ours. Nine years ago I gave it up of my own volition. Nobody danced with joy and there were no "I'm proud of you"'s. My choice, it made me no better or worse a Hindu.

Look, you feel bad about it, which is nice...as one early poster said, it shows some human decency. But it happens, and I'm pretty sure God knows it wasn't given or eaten with intent, so (s)he will be down with it.

As for getting sick, everyone's system is different, but I'm sure if anything happened it's long done by now.
56
And I regret having made you eat your cod.
57
Hiding out for twenty minutes just because you thought you made a mistake is just cowardly. However if you knew what was wrong, apologizing is the only right thing to do. Besides, it wasn't their God, it was just a sacred symbol. Most Christians eat the body of Christ on a somewhat regular basis anyway.
58
Get it right, people!

@33: Tandoori is the type of cooking done in a tandoor oven, not an ethnic group.

@48: Hindi is the name of a language, not the PC version of 'Hindus'.

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