Dawn's vegetarianism

[ringdings]

To actually defend Dawn, if I were a vegetarian, I'd be pissed if my omnivorous friends kept taking me to restaurants where my options are limited to salad.

To put it another way, say your friend is allergic to seafood. It wouldn't be fair to her to always go to a seafood restaurant knowing that she can't eat 90% of the menu.

Yeah, Dawn can be outspoken about her views on eating meat, but I think the other girls can be a little more flexible sometimes. Gee, try something new for a change. It ain't going to kill you.

[greer]

I was a vegetarian for four years and went out to restaurants all the time. Most restaurants have plenty of options, like pasta. You can always order a dish and ask for no meat. I am actually a very picky eater myself and have a famous hatred for dill, which Russians put on everything that is not dessert. I would go out with my friends to Russian restaurants, since nobody else wanted to eat non-dill food all the time, and then simply go to McDonalds or whatever afterward. I think Dawn went overboard a lot of time forcing eight people to eat like her, especially if she wasn't the one paying.

Dawn could also try something new herself, and stop making menu guardwalls or whatever when other people eat the way they like, like in Stacey vs the BSC. It's one thing to eat a certain way or have a special diet, but it's a whole different thing when you try to convert everyone around you and make obnoxious comments every time someone has a hamburger.

[booboobrewer]

And the girls did try new things, like when Claudia, Mary Anne, and Kristy ate the macrobiotic food that Mr. Schafer brought home in Here Come the Bridesmaids. I would think that would be a big step for Claudia, eating stuff with all-natural flavors and no salt or sugar.

[ringdings]

I'd forgotten about those incidents. Now that you mentioned it, they actually enjoyed it. Was Dawn always that obnoxious about her diet, or was it one of those things that happened as the series progressed?

[greer]

I think she was much more laid-back (like her character description!) in the beginning of the series. It's hard to pinpoint when it happened, because it might depend on the ghostwriter. Maybe Lerangis exaggerates her character (he wrote bsc in the usa), although I know that Stacey's bad girl arc was written by Suzanne Weyn.

[ringdings]

Between the menu wall and the spying, I think Dawn's behavior may have been the most bizarre in that one. Maybe way more out of character than the Dawn I used to know and love.

ETA: I just remembered she also spied on Travis, so nevermind.

[zoar3]

I should probably say that Dawn is my least favorite BSC character and her attitude toward food is the main reason why. I am a vegeterian (I'm working toward becoming vegan) and am such because I do not believe in exploiting or killing animals in anyway. Dawn's beliefs on the other hand at times definitely seemed rooted in simply wanting to get her own way or putting everyone else down--not a positive (or the smartest) way of encouraging/educating others to try veg food! Yes, I do eat sugar and junk food. Actually, my eating habits aren't the healthiest and I could take a lesson from Dawn in that respect but not in the way she goes about teaching it.

Yeah there were books such as one of my very favorites, Super Special 4, BS' Island Adventure where she and Jeff at fish. I guess "fish" aren't animals to her? Apparently as someone else said chicken isn't either. Then of course, there was her description in Mystery #7, Dawn and the Disappearing Dog's where she flat out admitted she did not care about the lives of animals that were taken for food! This gives her the right to as someone else said always choose where to eat. Also, wasn't there a book when she and Mary Anne were baking (or ordering)a cake for a party for Kristy, not for Dawn but for Kristy, lol, and Dawn insisted that the cake be carrot? How is that "for Kristy?"

Unrelated but, was anyone else suprised by Dawn's lack of concern over Jeff's healthy eating demise in "Dawn and Too Many Sitters," where he and the Pike triplets pigged out on Claudia's junk food? I was under the impression that Jeff other than chocolate cake, french fries and hash browns, (SS #7, I believe) only ate healthy foods?

Anyway, her character should have been a positive role model for choosing to be vegeterian and/or that it can be fun to try new foods.

[booboobrewer]

I always thought Jeff ate just as much junk food as health food...how he was crazy about chocolate cake, ice cream, etc. Liked the healthy food he grew up with, but liked junk just as much.

Good point about Dawn being a positive vegetarian role model.

[icequeen]

In the beginning Dawn was just very health conscious, not eating sugar (very often) and red meat. She would tease Claudia about eating junk food, but it was more in good fun. However soon Dawn became a giant caricature of herself in the sense that her love of health food and of the environment became an obsession and anyone that dare had opposing views were lectured Dawn-style (obnoxiously). For example "And you're serving the traditionally brutally massacred, decapitated, and scorched bird carcass?" a comment by guess who to mary anne in #102.
Dawn was my favourite character until the ghosties changed her into this. I dont think Dawns vegetarianism was ever originally meant to be about cruelty to animals it was just a healthy lifestyle.
Another thing that gives me the shits about Dawns character changing is that now all the fanfics that label her as a stoner in "high school." In the early series she called eating sugar "poisoning her body" why would she poison it with drugs?
Eh, people change from mildly interested to obsessive in real life too so i guess it isnt that far fetched. I just agree that the later characterisation of Dawn sucks, but she always kinda had obnoxious tendencies.

[greer]

^All that MJ might make her relax about poisoning her body. And it's totally organic. It's not like weed contains refined sugar or anything.

[tiff85]

Dawn's vegetarianism seemed so unrealistic for a 13 year old. Then again, I don't think that being a vegetarian is wrong. I might become one sometime soon. After seeing how animals are treated, it's no wonder Dawn chose that path.

[wenonah4th]

The most zealous people are often the young ones who've just come to a conclusion,

[starrynight]

I think Dawn and Jeff ate fish in SS#4 because they didn't want to starve....

[booboobrewer]

In Mary Anne and Camp BSC, MA says, "Dawn is practically a vegetarian" in Ch. 2.

[sugarmonkey]

Weird. Where ya been MA? Daydreaming about Cam Geary?