Redditor anonymous1038576292 and their family have a somewhat unique philosophy for eating.
The Original Poster (OP) and their family are homesteaders who process their own butter, buttermilk, cheese, etc.
They have historically purchased a cow with friends for its meat.
Recently their eating habits caused some drama between a friend. This drove the OP to subReddit “Am I the A**hole?” (AITA).
They asked:
“AITA for refusing to eat one friend’s meat but not another’s?”
They went on to explain:
“My husband [35-year-old Male] Jake, and I [30-year-old Female] have a group of friends from his college.”
“Bee [35-year-old Female], Gee [35-year-old Male], and Lou [35-year-old Female]. Bee is jealous of Lou because Lou dated someone who rejected her.”
“Lou, Jake and I live far from Bee and Gee, 2 hours from a tourist city on what we call our homestead.”
“We have a garden, chickens, a dairy cow and we don’t eat store-bought processed foods (except on special occasions).”
“My family never eats meat or dairy unless we know where it came from. Since I am a SAHM [stay-at-home mom] I make things from scratch…”
“…including butter, buttermilk, farmers cheese, cream cheese, etc.”
“Lou lives a similar lifestyle. We will trade eggs or canned goods from our garden for goat cheese or things she grows.”
“Her neighbor raises beef cattle so we have met the cows before. We split a cow with Lou’s family this past year.”
“Bee and Gee were visiting the city not too far so decided to have a dinner at my house. I made pasta with garlic bread, butter, chicken parmigiana.”
“Our eating morals aren’t something I talk about, so Bee and Gee weren’t aware.”
“Lou hadn’t been by in a while, so when she got to our house, she brought a bag of her frozen meatballs that we had traded for.”
“My kids were all raving about them as they really are so good and Bee gets a look asking what is so special about them.”
“I told her Lou must have some secret sauce because I can never compete with them. Dinner goes well outside of that.”
“Bee and Gee planned to stop for dinner on their way home. Lou and I were making dinner when they arrived. Bee was holding a tray of meatballs that looked to be homemade.”
“She was smiling and walked in asking everyone to try them. I don’t force my kids to follow the ‘know your cow’ thing but my daughter asked her what cow the meatballs were from.”
“Bee laughed and said it was just grocery store meat and to try it, she would like it. My daughter said no thanks.”
“Bee went around trying to get people to eat them but my family and Lou’s family all said no thank you.”
“Gee was eating them trying to save the situation but she came into the kitchen looking like she was going to cry and started yelling at Lou and I.”
“Saying how we really turned our families against her and are refusing to try her food out of spite.”
“I explained we don’t eat meat or dairy unless we know the animal. She laughed and told me to stop lying.”
“She brought up the meal at my house had cheese, butter, chicken and milk and there’s no way I knew the cow that Lou’s meatballs had came from.”
“I explained that we did know that cow, our dairy cow and Chicken. I said we call ourselves vegan when we are out.”
“She just said ‘right, how convenient that when it’s Lou it’s fine but not me.’ She grabbed Gee and they left.”
“They haven’t said anything to us besides one FB post Bee made about fake vegans who are only vegan when it suits them for attention.”
“Which makes me think we should have just tried her meatballs.”
“Edit: we use ‘know your cow’ with our children, but we mean vet your source/rancher. This has confused a lot of people. We aren’t hanging around with cows and using their full names.”
“Edit 2: we were having prime rib and twice-baked potatoes for dinner with a smoked salmon dip as an appetizer. Eating meatballs right before prime rib is a bit weird IMO.”
“Bee copies things Lou does literally every time we are all together.”
“She didn’t bring meatballs because she thought they’d go well with our prime rib, it was because of her internal competition with Lou.”
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors decided:
“NTA – she only made meatballs to try to compete with the ones Lou made.”
“You guys were preparing dinner when they arrived with the meatballs so I assume she wasn’t asked to bring food…”
“…if she had said she was bringing food, you would have told her of your restrictions.”
“It isn’t something you need to advertise and talk about when you are providing the food so understand why you didn’t bring it up when they had dinner previously.”
“And I understand why it is just easier to ‘be vegan’ when eating out.” – deathandtaxes2023
“From Bee’s perspective, YTA.”
“You’ve never mentioned this flexible ‘rule’ of yours, they’ve tried to do a nice thing by getting involved since it looks like you’re all cooking for each other…”
“…and despite being friends for what I presume has been many years now, you’ve never made clear your ‘rule?'”
“You said yourself you will eat processed foods on ‘special occasions’ – and Jake having his friends from hours away on a rare visit, making a meal for you guys, isn’t special enough?”
“Edit: Thank you OP for more information – I think it’s a NAH situation borne out of an understandable lack of communication.”
“Bee isn’t handling it well, but without them knowing the additional backstory OP supplied I do understand why Bee would feel slighted this way.” – Fearless_Spring5611
“I feel terrible for Bee. She had no reason to know your weird ‘know your cow’ rules if you never told her.”
“She went to a lot of effort to make meatballs and you all treated them as though they were radioactive. You say you do eat other food ‘on special occasions.’ This was a special occasion.”
“Congratulations on your so very high ‘eating morals.’ You’ve patted yourself on the back for them enough. Your friendship morals, however, are lacking.”
“YTA” – WheelPurple835
“Honestly ESH you all sound exhausting” – sweet_caroline20
The OP went on to update their original post:
“So my post got a lot more attention than I thought it would but I wasn’t allowed to update post. I was deemed NTA but many people told me I was an AH just for eating the way we eat.”
“It’s a d*mned if you do d*mned if you don’t situation in my mind.”
“A bunch of people called me pretentious for eating this way and a bunch of people told me I should tell everyone in our lives how we eat to avoid this happening again…”
“…but also berated me and called me an idiot for eating this way. We don’t tell people because it doesn’t affect them; we aren’t doing this for clout like we have been accused of.”
“People accusing us of treating it some big secret, Reddit literally proved people riot and treated you worse because of your diet, be it vegan, vegetarian, whatever…”
“…we aren’t going to tell people unless we have to still.”
“People also said we sound like rich elitist white people living in mansions… we are not rich (our area is called trashy), we are not white, our house is literally less than 1500sq ft…”
“…and there are five of us but ok. We vax our kids and pasteurize our milk; not everything is the stereotype you think it is.”
“Onto the actual update:”
“I did NOT apologize to Bee. Mostly because we found out she was screwing Lou’s husband for YEARS.”
“Lou and her husband, Pou [39-year-old Male], lived near Bee and Gee until about four years ago when they moved by us.”
“Apparently, when Bee was in town, she made some vague comments and threats to Pou about exposing that they were having an affair for around four years (that ended when he moved).”
“Pou told Lou proactively in an attempt to save their marriage. Lou is currently staying with us while she decides how to move forward (she is most likely going to file for divorce).”
“Gee has also reached out to Jake talking about the whole affair. He knew Bee struggled with jealousy over Lou…”
“…but didn’t know how extreme it was until after the ‘meatball incident’ and their drive home where she continuously ranted about how much better she was than Lou in every aspect…”
“…and how no one could see it. Bee did NOT come clean to him about the affair, Lou told him. I haven’t heard anything about what Bee and Gee are doing.”
“I showed Lou this post and she laughed a bit at some of the responses to people getting so upset about what we eat.”
“Soo yeah many people said Bee probably had good intentions with the meatballs but I guess I just didn’t describe the level of jealousy well…”
“…although we weren’t expecting she’d take it so far (not that she’s solely to blame, Pou is equally at fault).”
“Pou did say she was flirting with him and coming onto him for months before he ‘caved’ not that it matters.”
This was definitely a tricky situation. We do appreciate the drama-filled update from the OP.
Wishing them all the best on their homestead.