Interdietary Dating
Fri Feb 15, 2008 at 10:16:34 AM PDT
Cross-posted on Fussbucket
Should dietary preferences dictate love? According to this article in the NY Times, some people simply can't make a relationship work without a meeting of the minds (or stomachs) over food.
Sharing meals has always been an important courtship ritual and a metaphor for love. But in an age when many people define themselves by what they will eat and what they won’t, dietary differences can put a strain on a romantic relationship. The culinary camps have become so balkanized that some factions consider interdietary dating taboo.
People do take their food rules seriously. Some maybe too seriously.
No-holds-barred carnivores, for example, may share the view of Anthony Bourdain, who wrote in his book "Kitchen Confidential" that "vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans ... are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit."
It's hard to imagine Bourdain shacked up with a PETA activist. And likewise.
Returning the compliment, many vegetarians say they cannot date anyone who eats meat. Vegans, who avoid eating not just animals but animal-derived products, take it further, shivering at the thought of kissing someone who has even sipped honey-sweetened tea.
I could see how someone who feels strongly about being a vegan or a vegetarian could be opposed to dating a meat-eater. It's a political and moral thing. I look at James Carville and Mary Matalin and I can't for the life of me understand how they do it.
Food has a strong subconscious link to love, said Kathryn Zerbe, a psychiatrist who specializes in eating disorders at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. That is why refusing a partner’s food "can feel like rejection," she said.
As with other differences couples face, tolerance and compromise are essential at the dinner table, marital therapists said. "If you can’t allow your partner to have latitude in what he or she eats, then maybe your problem isn’t about food," said Susan Jaffe, a psychiatrist in Manhattan.
"There’s this feeling that if we eat the same thing then we are the same thing, and if we don’t, we’re no longer unified," Dr. Zerbe said. She and Dr. Jaffe said sharing food is an important ritual that enhances relationships. They advise interdietary couples to find meals they can both enjoy. "Or at least a side dish," Dr. Zerbe said.
When my husband and I first met we were both vegetarians. Well, actually I was a pescatarian, which means I ate fish but no other animals. Soon after we started dating, he decided to add fish back into his diet. We lived that way for a stretch until I got pregnant and wanted to eat meat on occasion. He didn't, but he didn't care if I did.
Then we had the baby and moved across the country to Seattle where the food is yum-yum. Somehow in the chaos of parenthood and moving, our no-meat policy went out the window. Now we eat everything and enjoy it, although we do try to limit our meat consumption to local and/or organic meat. Don't get me started on the meat industry.
So all that's to say, my husband and I have stayed pretty well on track with each other food-wise as our relationship has progressed. I think it speaks to a quality in each other that we both admire, which is flexibility. Neither one of us typically digs in our heels. So maybe there is something to this idea of food as a barometer for relationship success.
What do you think? Would you date or marry someone whose eating habits are really different from yours? How important do you think this is in a relationship?
