Decide to eat the vegetarian option at dinner and say, this soup tastes like it has chicken broth in it, did you put chicken broth in? Or, I can taste bacon in this, is it actually vegetarian?
Act clueless and tip MIL and your vegetarian family member off at the same time.

I would not tell on MIL because she will probably deny, if she is the type of person who serves vegetarians animal containing dishes on purpose, it won't end well.

I would give your MIL the chance to tell your SIL about the meat products before you say anything. Be transparent with your MIL. Tell her that it is important for your SIL to know the truth about this and that you believe it would be better for everyone if MIL is the one to tell her. If your MIL refuses or tells you that she will and then doesn't, only then would I say you should tell your SIL. This will give your MIL a chance to apologize and to save some face once you let the cat out of the bag.

Anonymous wrote:Hmmmm. I told my SIL who was a vegetarian back then, when she came to visit my mom and grandma, who made her dishes but with broth and such. She didn't care at all. For example separate dish made with rice filing only, but cooked with meat, she said it was fine. Broths in mashed potatoes, she was fine. She was fine with it all. She is generally a nice person who doesn't' make a fuss. For all I know, you would be creating WWII or this is how some vegetarians are.

We had a vegetarian neighbor who didn’t mind when her veggie burgers were put on the grill after the regular burgers because then they had more flavor. It sounds like OP’s SIL is way less laid back than either your friend or my neighbor, especially if she’s so controlling with her husband.

Anonymous wrote:Hmmmm. I told my SIL who was a vegetarian back then, when she came to visit my mom and grandma, who made her dishes but with broth and such. She didn't care at all. For example separate dish made with rice filing only, but cooked with meat, she said it was fine. Broths in mashed potatoes, she was fine. She was fine with it all. She is generally a nice person who doesn't' make a fuss. For all I know, you would be creating WWII or this is how some vegetarians are.

Her MIL is clearly trying to sneak it in from how it’s been explained. Why cover it up then?

Hmmmm. I told my SIL who was a vegetarian back then, when she came to visit my mom and grandma, who made her dishes but with broth and such. She didn't care at all. For example separate dish made with rice filing only, but cooked with meat, she said it was fine. Broths in mashed potatoes, she was fine. She was fine with it all. She is generally a nice person who doesn't' make a fuss. For all I know, you would be creating WWII or this is how some vegetarians are.

Anonymous wrote:

* "I would also like your blessing to discuss this matter with my husband, because I would like to understand his views on sensitive matters like this. If he was raised by the code that 'What you don't know won't hurt you,' and if he still lives by that code, I need to know that so that I can think about how to protect myself in the future. I live by the code that we are indeed hurt even by things we may not know, if our loved ones think it is okay to deceive us and disrespect us. I don't mean any disrespect to you by saying this. There are certainly many people who can give reasonable support for the concept that what we don't know doesn't hurt us. I just happen to feel differently and very strongly about it, and I hope you can understand and respect my feelings about it. I don't see any need for my husband to speak to any other family members about it. I just need us to have a clear understanding about our own relationship and the foundation on which it is built."

If I ever said anything this overdramatic to my MIL about chicken broth she would burst out laughing.

+1 this post with all these points is way too much drama over broth. And hug it out at the end...LOL

Have a case of vegetarian broth shipped to MIL’s house.

* "I would also like your blessing to discuss this matter with my husband, because I would like to understand his views on sensitive matters like this. If he was raised by the code that 'What you don't know won't hurt you,' and if he still lives by that code, I need to know that so that I can think about how to protect myself in the future. I live by the code that we are indeed hurt even by things we may not know, if our loved ones think it is okay to deceive us and disrespect us. I don't mean any disrespect to you by saying this. There are certainly many people who can give reasonable support for the concept that what we don't know doesn't hurt us. I just happen to feel differently and very strongly about it, and I hope you can understand and respect my feelings about it. I don't see any need for my husband to speak to any other family members about it. I just need us to have a clear understanding about our own relationship and the foundation on which it is built."

If I ever said anything this overdramatic to my MIL about chicken broth she would burst out laughing.

The situation isn't that complicated. Black and white situations are rare and this is one of them. One person is intentionally deceiving and causing harm to another person. Knowingly violating another person's ethical or religious beliefs is harmful. Besides, maybe SIL is having physical effects that are showing up a couple hours later and she just doesn't want to talk to her in-laws about GI distress or what not.

The fact that MIL would do something like this intentionally says something about her as a person. Why would you want to make life easier or mitigate the severity of her actions for this type of person? Besides, you can't control what other people do, only what you do. MIL could very well ignore OP and continue doing what she's always done. Even MIL agrees to stop, that doesn't change what she did in the past.

I understand that the first time that OP found out, she was shocked and she froze. That's a human reaction. But now, OP has an ethical obligation to tell her SIL as one human being to another.

It seems to me that a lot of people here are missing the bigger picture as it concerns OP - which is OP's family relationships.

Some people are saying MYOB. Some people are agreeing with MIL basically that what SIL doesn't know won't hurt her. But both of those arguments are missing the point. Even the vegetarians who are saying, "I would definitely want to know" (whom I agree with) are missing the relationship point.

Some people are saying that OP should basically give MIL an ultimatum that she needs to tell SIL or else OP will. Well, that is going to be a relationship killer. It is not really OP's place to lecture MIL, just as it is not SIL's place to lecture the whole family about their eating choices.

But the real problem is that MIL has broken trust with a family member and now expects OP to break the same trust... indefinitely. OP is stuck between wanting to be respectful of her MIL (and not rock the boat) and wanting to be respectful of her SIL, and not wanting to break anyone's trust. She feels bad enough that she was complicit at the last family meal.

So it seems to me that OP needs to have a heart-to-heart talk with MIL, not in a rush if she arrives early during preparations for the next family meal, but well ahead of the next meal. The main points from OP to MIL would be these:

* "I find myself in an uncomfortable position because I want to keep your trust and I also want to be someone my SIL can trust. I also want to have a completely open and honest relationship with my husband. I felt very uncomfortable during the last meal, keeping your confidence but breaking SIL's confidence."

* "Trust once lost is hard or impossible to regain. If SIL is told about the past meals when her trust is broken, she might never trust you or me again. I'm not sure any good could come from that. It would probably be harmful to family good will. So I don't know that we need to hurt SIL and the family by letting SIL know what has happened in the past. But I do not want to have anything to do with breaking her trust again going forward. I hope you can understand and respect my feelings about this."

* "My suggestion about future family meals is that you take care of some of the the meat dishes / salad / fruit / rolls / desserts or other dishes where there can be no ambiguity about whether any meat byproducts might be included. I will take care of any soups, stews, beans, legumes, vegetables, or vegetarian-friendly side dishes, or we can ask other family members to help with those. In this way, neither of us needs to fret about needing to swap out favorite ingredients or needing to break trust."

* "I would also like your blessing to discuss this matter with my husband, because I would like to understand his views on sensitive matters like this. If he was raised by the code that 'What you don't know won't hurt you,' and if he still lives by that code, I need to know that so that I can think about how to protect myself in the future. I live by the code that we are indeed hurt even by things we may not know, if our loved ones think it is okay to deceive us and disrespect us. I don't mean any disrespect to you by saying this. There are certainly many people who can give reasonable support for the concept that what we don't know doesn't hurt us. I just happen to feel differently and very strongly about it, and I hope you can understand and respect my feelings about it. I don't see any need for my husband to speak to any other family members about it. I just need us to have a clear understanding about our own relationship and the foundation on which it is built."

And then a hug...?

Definitely tell your SIL, OP. Your MIL is a crappy person, with serious control issues, to do such a thing intentionally.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just found out that my MIL intentionally sneaks meat products into her "vegetarian" dishes and does not tell SIL about it. She'll tell SIL that she used vegetable broth when she really uses chicken broth. She'll cook things in bacon fat or add some bacon fat for flavor. She isn't sneaking a steak into a smoothie or anything but she's been serving quite a few vegetarian meals with meat products. MIL things being a vegetarian is stupid and she is already being gracious enough to pretend to accommodate SIL.

If I tell SIL, MIL will know it was me. I'm on the fence about whether to say anything or not.

NP here. I wouldn’t lie directly like this, but I use chicken broth in a few no-meat dishes I make and it wouldn’t occur me to warn people it has 1/4 cup of chicken broth in it.

Really? If you were making a meal for people who straight up told you they are vegetarian, it "wouldn't occur to you" to tell them that it has meat in it?

Because it's not meat, no. Some people really don't think of the broth as meat in that sense.

I've been vegetarian my whole life and have never drawn a distinction between chicken broth (made of chicken) and any other part of chicken. If I told you I was vegetarian before coming to your house for dinner and later found out that you'd made something with chicken broth and told me it was vegetarian because chicken broth "isn't meat in that sense", I would feel extremely disrespected.

I truly don't understand why this is hard for you. It's CHICKEN broth. Why on earth would you consider that to be vegetarian?

i'm not this person, and I see that chicken broth is nonvegetarian. But I also can understand why you wouldn't even think about it. For many people, chicken broth is more like slightly flavored water. For example, I use it instead of water for rice, but it's so automatic, it's like water. If you're not vegetarian yourself, you're just not thinking so hard about that line between vegetarian and nonvegetarian. It's an oversight, but I could see it happening.

+1 broth doesn't automatically trigger thinking meat for non-vegetarians. My daughter is vegetarian (I'm not) and when I started cooking for her I made the mistake once. I also did it with refried beans...I just had no idea that lard was used in a can of refried beans. If you're not vegetarian, you don't think about stuff like that. Now I do because I'm used to cooking for her.
Anyways, doesn't really matter because it sounds like MIL is well aware.

How often is SIL eating your MIL's food? If it is only once in a while I wouldn't tell SIL however, would remind MIL that it isn't nice to trick SIL. How would she like it if she didn't like something and you deliberately put that ingredient in because you think it is silly? It is better for MIL to admit making vegetarian food is not possible and then SIL can decide if she wants to eat meat or make other arrangements.

Short answer: Talk to MIL about how wrong it is and get her to either stop or have her tell SIL she can't make it .

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:


And I can't believe how many people think it's ok to use chicken broth in a dish and then claim it's vegetarian. At least be upfront about it and let people decide if they want to eat it.

How many people? I saw one post from someone who wouldn't think to mention it. I didn't see anyone claim it's fine to use chicken broth and claim it's vegetarian. Did I miss a bunch of people making that claim?

It happens all the time to me IRL. I’ve been vegetarian for 15 years and know to always ask if soups or fancy French fries have meat (including chicken broth) in them. I can sometimes but not always tell if it does by taste. Even my son who is also vegetarian knows to ask at a restaurant if something is vegetarian and he’s not sure! You’ve got to tell SIL - it’s her battle with MIL, not yours. But she needs to know!

I see. I thought you meant in this DCUM post.

No. Vegetarians are weird. We need meat. I would MYOB.

/fitness trainer, yoga teacher, animal lover, and high school strength and endurance coach.