Vegan Family's Threatening Note To A Neighbor For Cooking Meat Goes Viral, And The Internet Has Thoughts

There are a variety of cuisines or even just ingredients that end up smelling unpleasant to someone. The durian fruit is notorious for its pungent aroma and some people greatly dislike the smell of seafood. But most of us wouldn’t even consider going up to someone and telling them what they can and can’t do in their own kitchen. Most of us.

A woman shared a somewhat strange note left by a neighboring family. As vegans, they stated, the smell of cooking meat coming from the open window was too much and they were threatening to “report” her for it. They also took offense to the BBQ she had hosted, no doubt due to a similar aroma.
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While maybe often associated with modern trends and environmentalism, veganism goes back thousands of years, to roughly 3300–1300 BCE, where the residents of the Indus Valley abstained from eating animals for spiritual reasons. While likely closer to modern vegetarianism than veganism, in that the prohibition was more about the life of the animal than the use of its products, it does cement it as a belief system that surpasses most. More commonly known Greek thinkers also at times expressed a desire to avoid any killing in the pursuit of food, for example, Pythagoras, of triangle fame, ordered his followers to not eat meat and not even associate with hunters and cooks.

The actual number of vegans is on the rise, with at least one in ten Americans stating that they are at least vegetarian. This number is set to grow as plant-based alternatives become increasingly available. This is particularly true for areas where familiarity with plant-based products is growing. One doesn’t have to be vegetarian just to try beyond meat or an oat-milk-based pudding. This is all to say that attitudes towards meat are likely to shift. But, on the other side, this does not give one the right to actually interfere with what a person does inside their own home. There are a large number of food crimes documented online that you can check out here and here. But this doesn’t mean I can walk into these folks' kitchens and slap the spatulas out of their hands.

This particular story comes from the land down under so it may be helpful to explore whether the vegan family actually has a foot to stand on in this discussion. After all, a stench, just like loud noise, is often regulated. Well, Australian law will punish the emitter of an odor only in a few cases. If the smell is chemically harmful, like a pollutant, or causes health issues, then the emitter would be at fault. The law also states that “The Act defines ‘offensive odor’ as an odor that, due to its strength, nature, duration, character, quality, time of emission or some other circumstance, interferes or is likely to interfere unreasonably with the comfort or rest of a person who is outside the premises from which it is emitted.” So there is some degree of interpretation regarding what is “unreasonable,” however it seems doubtful that meat would fit the bill.

Part of the popularity of this post that ended up going truly viral is that there is a deep-seated veganphobia in many people. Some of the responses, which you’ll find below, argue that the note really wasn’t that inflammatory. It is an unreasonable request, there is no doubt about it. But it’s possible that many people’s initial distaste for vegans ended up coloring their interpretation of the story. After all, the vegan neighbors did ask nicely first, they did not actually do anything inflammatory, and honestly, who doesn’t like a handwritten note these days? Yes, they are in the wrong, but all things considered, it can’t hurt to at least ask.