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If you’ve ever planned a wedding, or a big event with food, you’ll know that dietary restrictions are more common than you might have initially thought. Of course they can be the butt of some tiresome jokes, but vegetarians and vegans are ever increasing in number, and you should be glad that they are, since they are doing their bit to protect the planet as it lapses into an ever more extreme climate crisis, all while doing their best to preserve the lives of defenseless animals of course.

But morals aren’t the only reasons for dietary restrictions. Plenty of people simply cannot eat, or in some cases, even be near, certain foods because of allergies or intolerances, and then there are folk who aren’t technically allergic but absolutely cannot stomach a certain food. And at the same time, there are plenty of religious reasons for avoiding or eliminating certain foods.

Regardless of their reasoning, the truth is that if a person has dietary restrictions of any kind, these should be respected and not joked about. And the woman in this story was doing her best to respect her friend’s dietary restrictions, but in doing so, ended up hurt herself.

Read on to find out what happened.

AITA for telling my Muslim friend that her food isn’t halal?

I (24, female) am vegetarian and an atheist.

My friend, Sally (24, female) is Muslim and avoids eating pork, non-halal meat, and animal by-products, including gelatine. For example, she will pick the marshmallows out of a hot cocoa packets before mixing it into the milk, because marshmallows contain gelatine.

Since I am a vegetarian, I am aware that some certain foods contain animal byproducts. I saw Sally reaching for fruit snack gummies and let her know that they contain gelatin.

Another time, she wanted to order fries from McDonald’s, and I told her that they contain beef flavoring. As a vegetarian, I like to know these things before consuming. So, I thought Sally would too.

But it turned out that Sally wasn’t as appreciative as she might have thought.

A while later, our mutual friends told me that Sally was annoyed that I told her about the fruit snacks and fries. She’s annoyed that she “can’t” eat them anymore since she now knows.

I thought I was being helpful and considerate, but I can see how it might annoying. I think she avoids looking up food information so she can blame eating non-halal food on ignorance.

I am not judging anyone (I am an atheist), but I am genuinely curious if trying to be ignorant is good practice for a Muslim.

Should I not have said anything? Going forward, I won’t mention this stuff to Sally again. Should I avoid it with vegans, other vegetarians, other Muslims, etc. as well?

AITA?

Really, unless she was pointing these things out in a judgmental kind of way, this woman was really only trying to be helpful and make sure that her friend didn’t accidentally consume anything that she wouldn’t have been comfortable with eating.

Unless she knew that Sally was using this kind of ignorance practice, there is no way she should have known to hold back.

She was just trying to help, as all good friends would.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit thought about this.

This person agreed that she had been doing the right thing.

While others explained that her friend’s restrictions weren’t hers to judge.

Meanwhile, this former butcher had found himself in similar situations.

It really sucks that all this time this woman had been thinking that she had been helping her friend and supporting her religion, as any good friend would, but at the same time that friend had been complaining about her behind her back. She might have even thought that their dietary restrictions were a thing that they had in common and could share tips on, but her friend clearly didn’t feel the same way.

It would be easy to feel a little resentful toward Sally in this situation – and really, she should have had the conversation face to face rather than behind her friend’s back. But instead, perhaps a little understanding could come from the fact that vegetarianism (especially as an atheist) is a choice, whereas religion – whilst also being a personal choice – can be more of a family and community prescribed thing.

So a person brought up with a certain religion is observing the diet not just because they want to care for animals, like many vegetarians, but because their religion requires it. And that kind of sacrifice can be difficult to make. And if Sally is finding her religious diet difficult anyway, she might prefer not to know if her favourite foods aren’t halal, rather than finding out and having to restrict more things. Who could blame her, really?

It’s not ideal, but it’s understandable.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who doesn’t want to go to the amusement park with her friend anymore, because the friend can no longer ride most of the attractions.