History Main / MeatVersusVeggies

* ''LightNovel/GoblinSlayer'' has Dwarf Shaman for the meat side and High Elf Archer for the veggies side, as part of their ElvesVersusDwarves dynamic.

-->-- ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans2003'', "The Sum of His Parts"[[note]]This is especially hilarious considering that Raven's voice actress, Creator/TaraStrong, is vegan in real life.[[/note]]

** Her sister-in-law, Deanna, has more legitimate concerns about April's vegan diet, since she had seen a friend lose her hair due to going on a vegan diet and was worried about the same thing happening to April. However, once April shows Deanna that she's done enough research into the matter to make sure she's getting the proper nutrients, she goes on to support her and even buys her a few vegan cookbooks.

* In ''Series/ParksAndRecreation'', Ron is a staunch meat eater to the point of disgust at fruit and vegetables, and he considers fish meat "practically a vegetable". Chris is a health nut who does eat meat, but is so fixated on vegetables he acts as a stand-in StrawVegetarian. The two tend to butt heads when it comes to food and in one episode have a burger cook-off: everyone thinks Chris' fancy veggie burger is delicious, but ''even Chris'' admits that Ron's totally plain beefburger is the winner.

* ''Literature/FengshenYanyi'': pretty much all Taoist characters, especially the Immortals, are vegetarians by choice and sometimes even mention their choice of food (wild vegetables, fruits, cereals and vegetarian wine) during their songs. Laymen instead can eat meat, though the Taoist fighter Huang Tianhua gets scolded (and implicitly loses some of his powers) when he indulges in a meat lunch. By contrast, some of the evil Jie Taoists, obsessed with showing off their magical skills, have no problem with eating meat, with one of them, Ma Yuan, being a full blown cannibal with a thing for raw hearts.

* Taken to intentionally ridiculous extremes in ''Radio/{{Nebulous}}'', in which K.E.N.T. investigates a 'vegetarian colony' as if it were an extreme PlanetOfHats with an inscrutable alien culture. The vegetarians are [[StrawVegetarian physically feeble]] [[EvilVegetarian brainwashed malevolents]] controlled by a MadScientist overclass, while K.E.N.T. struggles to understand what vegetarianism ''is'', can't resist smuggling in chicken even though they'll likely be killed, are shown to become angry and shout at people who don't eat meat, and finding soy-based substitute meat ("Soylent Beige") significantly more repugnant than cannibalism, which they find totally normal. This is all a deliberately ludicrous inversion of several ''Series/DoctorWho'' AuthorTract stories promoting vegetarianism (such as "The Green Death" and "The Two Doctors").

** The UrExample has to be the Literature/BookOfGenesis, where the two sons of Adam, CainAndAbel each present their sacrifice in thanksgiving to the Lord. Genesis 4:1-9 tells the tale of how even God himself disdains vegetarian food. This causes such discontent to Cain, the farmer, that he murders Abel his brother, the meat-eater:
---> 2 Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil.
---> 3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord.
---> 4 And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favour on Abel and his offering,
---> 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favour. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.
** In the Literature/BookOfDaniel, Daniel and his friends persuade the guards to let them have a vegetarian diet instead of the rich Babylonian food the other captives are served. As a result, they turn out healthier and stronger than all their meat-eating colleagues. Of course, the intended {{Aesop}} probably has less to do with the virtues of going veggie than with avoiding animal products being the easiest way to [[UsefulNotes/{{Judaism}} keep Kosher]].

* In ''VideoGame/DigimonWorldNextOrder'', this is taken to the extreme, with the Digimon living in the Ohguino Wastelands managing to turn the debate into a full-on war. Interestingly, in the digital world, meat [[GrowsOnTrees literally grows from the ground]], so the whole war was started over something as petty as personal preference.

* In the ''WebComic/{{Walkyverse}}'', for a while Joyce didn't want to eat meat while she was pregnant with Bobby, and wonders if maybe he's vegetarian. This annoys Walky, who loves meat so much he suggested they put steaks on their wedding registry. [[spoiler:Literally the next day, Joyce starts craving steak. Badly.]]

* [[http://whatthefuckshouldimakefordinner.com/ whatthefuckshouldimakefordinner.com]]'s personality is extremely abusive to everyone, but originally, if you clicked the 'I DON'T FUCKING EAT MEAT' button it would switch to insulting you about your diet instead of just generally swearing at you. It has since switched to giving actual vegetarian options. All part of the fun, of course.

** Beast Boy is a vegetarian (or a vegan; he doesn't seem to eat eggs or dairy, but is still referred to as a "vegetarian" in canon) due to the fact that he's "[[{{Animorphism}} been some of those animals]]." He frequently encounters conflict with Cyborg because of his dietary preferences (making scrambled tofu instead of scrambled eggs, at which Cyborg was ''not'' amused). In one episode he tries to persuade Raven to eat one of his tofu-dogs; her response:

* ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'': In "And They Call It Bobby Love", Bobby Hill dates a classmate who's a vegetarian, which initially frustrates his father Hank, since as a propane and propane accessories salesman, he loves to grill meat. But when Bobby's girlfriend dumps him, he gets back at her by eating an entire 72 oz. sirloin steak within an hour, with everybody, including ''his ex-girlfriend's parents'', cheering him on.
* Played with in ''WesternAnimation/GreenEggsAndHam'': Sam-I-Am is, of course, obsessed with the eponymous meal and convincing Guy to try it. So when he learns that Michellee is vegan (and what a vegan actually ''is''), it looks like it's setting up a conflict, especially when he's dubious at the prospect of tofu green-eggs-and-ham substitute. But when Michellee points out he can't know he doesn't like it if he doesn't try it, he's the ''last'' person who's going to argue with ''that''.

* ''Film/SuperMarioBros'': Daisy, despite being a human descended from dinosaurs, is a vegetarian, but is fed meat as a captive by the aggressively carnivorous King Koopa. She asks a Goomba to bring her steamed veggies instead, which he fails to get to her before she is rescued.

* In the 1987 movie ''Film/DateWithAnAngel,'' the angel responds rather poorly when the main character offers her a burger...she does, however, eat the French fries.
* The 2005 low-budget film ''Film/ShootingVegetarians'' focuses on the main character, a vegetarian, being forced to go and work in his father's butcher shop. HilarityEnsues.
* Willy Spino, a meat-eater, and a vegetarian blind woman have a minor spat about their diets in the ''{{Film/Apocalypse}}'' film series movie ''Revelation''.
* Creator/{{Sinbad}}'s character in ''Film/{{Houseguest}}'' finds out too late that the person whose identity he's borrowing is a strict vegetarian, so he has to sneak meat in whenever he can while his hosts aren't looking.
* In ''Film/BedtimeStories2008'', this is one way Skeeter Bronson and his sister Wendy are at odds with each other. Wendy raises her kids on a strict vegetarian diet, as evidenced by a gluten-free wheatgrass cake that nobody eats at her daughter Bobbi's birthday party. When Skeeter tries to make breakfast for the kids using various foods in her kitchen, he asks in exasperation "Doesn't your mother have tastebuds?", and he later gets them burgers for dinner as they stay with him at the hotel where he works.
* ''Film/TheHobbitAnUnexpectedJourney'' has a [[Funny/TheHobbit rather humorous]] scene where the company, who are mostly Dwarves, are invited to attend a dinner party in Rivendell. Much to the Dwarves' chagrin, their Elven hosts have prepared a variety of green foods and salad for them, and the Dwarves aren't entirely sure what to make of it. Dwalin takes a fist of the green stuff and demands meat, and Ori asks if they have any chips [[note]]as in British chips, French fries to any Americans reading this[[/note]]. In a later scene, they're roasting food over a fire, including a sausage and some of the leftover lettuce.
* One of the first challenges in ''Film/WouldYouRather'' invokes this trope. During a high-class dinner party, when the main course of foie gras and prime rib arrives at the table, one guest politely informs the host that she's a vegetarian. Said host, in turn, offers her $10,000 in cash to break her veggie ways. After a moment's hesitation, she does.
* In ''Film/SuperMarioBros'', Daisy, despite being a human descended from dinosaurs, is a vegetarian, but is fed meat as a captive by the aggressively carnivorous King Koopa. She asks a Goomba to bring her steamed veggies instead, which he fails to get to her before she is rescued.
* In ''Film/CheaperByTheDozen2003'', when the Bakers' dog jumps on their new neighbor, Tom jokingly asks if the neighbor had a cheeseburger with her. She states that she doesn't eat meat, to polite-but-disapproving silence.

Bob is a born and bred "meat and potatoes" type of guy. He counts meat-related foods as his TrademarkFavoriteFood and staunchly believes that RealMenEatMeat, and in extreme cases will willingly become a BurgerFool just to be close to the burgers. Chicken, pork, beef, fish, lamb, goat--if it's meat, he'll eat it without any qualms, and he's not afraid to be a [[IncrediblyLamePun Large Ham]] about it.

* Much of John Pinette's comedy revolved around food, and his subsequent attempts to eat healthier. He talked about a clash he had with one dietitian who was vegetarian and tried to get him to only eat salads, which led to the quote below. To his credit, however, in the same routine, Pinette acknowledges that he has no beef (pun intended) with vegetarians on principle and doesn't look down on them. He even kept up some of the practices the same dietitian recommended, like juicing (taking fruits and veggies through a special blender and drinking the resulting mixture), he just ''really'' doesn't like salad.

* [[http://whatthefuckshouldimakefordinner.com/ whatthefuckshouldimakefordinner.com]]'s personality is extremely abusive to everyone, but if you click the 'I DON'T FUCKING EAT MEAT' button it will switch to insulting you about your diet instead of just generally swearing at you. All part of the fun, of course.

* ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'':
** Cordelia comes from Beta Colony, where all the "meat" is actually vat protein. When she marries Aral and moves to Barayar it takes her a long time to get used to meat from actual animals.
** From a remark by one of the Koudelka sisters in ''A Civil Campaign'': Cordelia still insists on vat meat at Vorkosigan House, thirty-some years later.
** In ''Memory'', Miles tells how as a boy he used to bring home fish caught from the local lake, which Cordelia would dutifully eat. He stopped when he realized his mother was not enjoying it.
* In the novel ''Elizabeth Costello,'' the eponymous character's vegetarianism is just one of the many issues she has to contend with in the world she lives in.
* In the ''Literature/GarrettPI'' series, vegetarian Morley and steak-lover Garrett constantly mock each other's eating habits. Interestingly, ''Morley'' is the one who's a stone killer by profession.
* In the ''Literature/BabySittersClub'' series, Dawn and her family were vegetarians (though this [[DependingOnTheWriter varies from book to book]]; sometimes they simply avoided red meat, and sometimes they, especially Dawn, were devout vegetarians). This was especially played up after Dawn's mother married Mary Anne's father, with three vegetarians and two meat-eaters in the same house having to make peace with one another's diets.

* The UrExample has to be right at the very start of things, when the two sons of Adam each present their sacrifice in thanksgiving to the L--D. Genesis 4:1-9 tells the tale of how even G-d himself disdains vegetarian food. This causes such discontent to Cain, the farmer, that he murders Abel his brother, the meat-eater:
--> Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil.
-->3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord.
--> 4 And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favour on Abel and his offering,
--> 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favour. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.

-->Boykies don't eat anything but meat. They just graze meat. that's it. Salads? They think nothing of salads. MEAT!

Simon, on the other hand, is a vegetarian. As such, he's a supporter of the all Soy diet and would thus thrive in a {{Veganopia}} environment, and literally DoesNotLikeSpam. He'll probably eat FantasticFruitsAndVegetables, or jump at the CallToAgriculture. Maybe he'll advocate ArtificialMeat, the type that's made from plants and fungi, such as tofu, mycoprotein, or gluten steaks, and he might well assure you that it TastesLikeChicken. Perhaps at one point he used to eat meat, but switched camps after [[LetsMeetTheMeat meeting his food live and in person.]] Or perhaps he doesn't eat meat because it's [[AgainstMyReligion against his religious beliefs]] to do so. If the creators of the work dislike veggies in general he will probably be a StrawVegetarian, often of the SmugStraightEdge kind.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* Frequently referenced on ''Series/NoReservations'' - Tony falls squarely into the meat camp, many of his personal favourite FoodPorn moments involve huge piles of sizzling animal parts and he rails against vegetarians or vegans with political motivations he finds ridiculous and who don't actually know how to cook vegetables properly. He will grant points to the (generally Buddhist) vegetarian cooks of places like India and China, however.

* In the ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' audio "The Holy Terror", Frobisher (a [[VoluntaryShapeshifter shapeshifter]] who uses a penguin body) is introduced playing with an alien fish, tormenting it before he eats it. The Sixth Doctor, a vegetarian, catches him doing this and is appalled, telling Frobisher that what he's doing is unnecessarily cruel and that there's a whole room on the TARDIS full of canned tuna if he's hungry. Frobisher snaps back that the need to do this is part of his nature as a penguin, and it's not ''his'' fault the Doctor prefers salad. Then the Doctor finds out that the fish isn't even a real fish - it's created artificially by the TARDIS, and Frobisher's bullying of it has caused the TARDIS itself to go on strike.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'': There's a ''very'' disturbing example with [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3240 SCP-3240]], a phenomenon that causes predatory animals and humans to engage in {{Autocannibalism}} while giving them a HealingFactor to replace lost flesh. Humans under this phenomenon form a cult that's at odds with a being they call Pan, who's associated with plant life and herbivores. When the SCP Foundation managed to neutralize SCP-3240's effects among humans, [[spoiler:it caused anomalous levels of plant growth and herbivore reproduction from said plants]].

** Beast Boy is a vegetarian (or a vegan; he doesn't seem to eat eggs or dairy, [[YouKeepUsingThatWord but is still referred to as a "vegetarian" in canon]]) due to the fact that he's "[[{{Animorphism}} been some of those animals]]." He frequently encounters conflict with Cyborg because of his dietary preferences (making scrambled tofu instead of scrambled eggs, at which Cyborg was ''not'' amused). In one episode he tries to persuade Raven to eat one of his tofu-dogs; her response:

* In ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'', Bubbles was sort of an odd case, at least continuity-wise. She claimed to be a vegetarian in some early episodes (being a FriendToAllLivingThings, it made sense) and actually, no-one in-universe objected to it. In some other episodes, however, she seemed to abandon this philosophy entirely, having no problem with the Professor's sloppy joes. (Most likely, this was a case where it was DependingOnTheWriter.)

* In ''Film/CheaperByTheDozen'', when the Bakers' dog jumps on their new neighbor, Tom jokingly asks if the neighbor had a cheeseburger with her. She states that she doesn't eat meat, to polite-but-disapproving silence.

[[folder:Film]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/IceAgeDawnOfTheDinosaurs'', Sid and the Mama T. rex compete with what to feed their kids. Sid tries to feed the baby Rexes huge vegetables, but Mama T. rex wins out, as her kids adore the meat she brings them.

-->-- ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'', "The Sum of His Parts"[[note]]This is especially hilarious when you remember Creator/TaraStrong in real life is vegan.[[/note]]

* In ''Film/BedtimeStories'', this is one way Skeeter Bronson and his sister Wendy are at odds with each other. Wendy raises her kids on a strict vegetarian diet, as evidenced by a gluten-free wheatgrass cake that nobody eats at her daughter Bobbi's birthday party. When Skeeter tries to make breakfast for the kids using various foods in her kitchen, he asks in exasperation "Doesn't your mother have tastebuds?", and he later gets them burgers for dinner as they stay with him at the hotel where he works.

Basically, this trope is about the kind of conflict that goes on when a meat-eater and a vegetarian have to share the same dining space. There will be no middle ground.

* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' has a minor moment of this, when the [[FanNickname Gaang]] arrives to the Fire Nation: Sokka is overjoyed to eat meat at last, while Aang gets a little sick thinking about eating meat, and decides to stick with the veggies. In general, the Water Nation had meat as a major part of their diet (being from a part of the world where food was scarce), and the Air Nation was a vegetarian society being a race full of [[FriendToAllLivingThings Friends To All Living Things]] (doubly so for Aang, being the Avatar). But since the Gaang are TrueCompanions, Aang, Katara, and Sokka get along fine.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': between Lisa and Homer in "Lisa the Vegetarian", where Homer is throwing a BBQ around the same time as Lisa has just converted to vegetarianism. Lisa ends up sabotaging the BBQ, Lisa goes searching for others who share her philosophy; when she finds them in the form of Apu and [[PaulMcCartney Paul and Linda McCartney]], they point out that though they share her values, she's actually being an intolerant jerk. Lisa is particularly surprised that Apu doesn't eat cheese.