People bow down and genuflect in their presence. I am diabetic, but I still have to explain every time I turn down a cake or something that the sugar rush is a bit too much.
People still think I should eat the cake at the work morning tea despite the fact I tell them every time we have a morning tea that I can’t eat cakes because I’m diabetic. Few, if any, listen to my suggestions of putting on more fruit at work morning teas. An important part of controlling diabetes is maintaining dietary vigilance.
I am not diabetic by choice. Vegetarians are vegetarians by choice. They get far more respect than I do for having to turn away food offered in good cheer.
What annoys me is people apologise to vegetarians when they are offered the meat. People are far less deferential to diabetics were they offer them sweet foods we would love to eat but for a chronic debilitating illness.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
Mar 27, 2015 @ 23:53:04
interesting…for me its the opposite. I am a type 1 and I can enjoy sweets occasionally so long as I take extra insulin. And yet people always tell me “oh, you probably can’t have this” as I’m reaching for something at morning tea!
Frank
http://www.type1writes.com
LikeLike
Mar 28, 2015 @ 00:07:23
Thanks for the comment.
A friend who is Type I has the same experience.
As type 2, I must maintain dietary control to keep my weight down. Central to that I find is abstaining from biscuits and sweet things.
see too https://utopiayouarestandinginit.com/2014/04/23/peeta/
LikeLike
Mar 28, 2015 @ 00:21:13
well done for maintaining a strict diet – its extremely difficult, however on the upside I’ll bet you no longer crave sweet things as much!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mar 28, 2015 @ 01:00:35
Thanks. The craving for bikkies does not ho away
LikeLike
Mar 28, 2015 @ 05:55:06
I think the answer to your question is that many vegetarians, and at least some non-vegetarianism, see being a vegetarian as a moral choice made at some cost to the chooser. He is giving up the pleasures of bacon and sirloin steaks in order not to be responsible for the killing of innocent animals. Viewed that way, it seems like something others should admire and defer to. Not eating sweets because you are a diabetic, or avoiding peanuts because you are deathly allergic to them, is reasonable behavior but, from the standpoint of others, morally neutral.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mar 28, 2015 @ 19:59:27
Thanks David, vegetarians and diabetics come from different samples of population with different genetic endowments, both in terms of health and personality traits.
Vegetarians come from a part of the population that is stout and self-disciplined. I wonder what the unemployment rate is of vegetarians versus non-vegetarians as a proxy personality traits favoured in the labour market.
Diabetics come from a wide sections of the community and succumbed to a disease of both environmental and genetic components.
Most of all, vegetarians can give up their vegetarian diet at any time with no personal consequence. Diabetics pay severe health consequences of not following good diets.
Vegetarianism is a gesture. Diabetes is a chronic life threatening disease.
LikeLike