r/vegan•
Kasseev

Moral Dilemma: You order vegan version of food A for delivery or at a restaurant, they mess up and give you food A with non-vegan ingredients. What do you do?

I have been a vegan for about a year, and I was a vegetarian before that for many years (Hindu family). My veganism is primarily ethical (redundant statement, yes), with a secondary understanding of the positive environmental impact. My philosophy on this dilemma is that sending the food back, or asking for them to make me a new plate would be a waste of food no matter which way you slice it. If they remake it from scratch, waste. If they take off the meat and throw it, waste. Only if they take the meat off and feed it to someone is it not wasted - but this is unlikely in the modern age. When the food is wasted, what happens in my view is that you will precipitate the usage of more food materials, vegan or not, in the preparation of the replacement. Now even if they get it right the second time that is still some loss of life due to unavoidable casualties in agriculture - and of course a waste of energy.

It seems to me the only moral option is to eat the food (as long as you aren't too disgusted as to throw up), thus eliminating waste.

Interestingly if you asked me this question when I was a vegetarian I would have rejected the food in a heartbeat - I guess a vegan outlook kind of focuses the mind on the impact of every decision.

Posted Dec 2, 2011, 3:33 AM UTC

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