Venting a little bit

I’m at Matt’s parents’ house doing laundry.  Since there was nothing interesting on TV, I was flipping through channels and stopped on Lifetime’s Wife Swap (which I think is one of the stupidest shows on TV).  However, I kind of got sucked in because Family A was your good ol’ American working-class, shoot-their-own-deer, regular Joe family.  Family B was a vegan, hippie-type family.  They swap the moms for two weeks, right?  So, as you can imagine, there was a little bit of strife when it came to meal planning.  Mom A tried to force family B to start eating meat.  She also made their teenage daughter throw away all her PETA protest signs and then told her to start thinking for herself.  THEN, when family B started trying to explain, yet again, their belief structure, Mom A got all worked up and started crying because they wouldn’t eat meat.

Anyway, it made me mad.  Mom A gets hurt and upset because Family B says everyone should be vegetarians — Mom A points out that her family can’t afford to NOT hunt for meat to supplement their meals.  She says their house payment is pretty much the same as their paycheck.  And then she goes off crying.  And the next morning, she’s trying to force the family to eat meat again.

First of all, it’s better to hunt for your own meat than to buy it.  Secondofly though, why all the animosity towards vegetarians??!!?  It’s like it’s unpatriotic or something!!  I mean, regardless of my desire to live in Europe (not so much Greece), where is it written in the annals of Being American that you have to eat meat???

Okay, I’m done venting.  Just this last question: why do people have to be so damn narrow-minded?