Shame on Sarah!
/s
We have a vegetarian in our office, and accomodating him for meetings is a big pain in the butt for the caterers - nothing is good enough for his “special” tray. Once they only brought steamed vegetables for him - HOW SILLY IS THAT, to bring veggies for a vegetarian? He scoffed at them as if they were the most ignorant people in the world. Screw him.
I am not a vegetarian but have learned to cook for vegetarians over the years. This guy might be overbearing, but the real problem is that it sounds as though your caterer is an idiot. I have never been to a good restaurant where the chef could not prepare a decent meal for one of the vegetarians in the crowd on short notice even though nothing appropriate was on the menu. And no, you don't just steam up some raw vegetables for a vegetarian, any more than you would just steam up a piece of beef chuck for a carnivore and expect him to be happy about it.
Have the facilities staff keep a bag of lawn waste. Next time vegan "man" bitches about what the caterers whip up, give him a big ole plate of grass clippings instead.
I went vegetarian in college for a semester, as the dorm had a great salad bar, but the meat was, shall we say, suspect.
There are different kinds of vegetarians. Some do it for health reasons; others do it as a political statement, and some do it to attract attention to themselves. The first kind aren’t a problem. The one you have in your office is doing it as a way to say, “HEY! Look at me!!!!!” If the food is that big a deal, he should bring his own.
A close relative, militant far leftist that she is, will routinely walk into restaurants and ask the waitress, in a voice just loud enough for everyone to hear her, "Excuse me, I'm a vegetarian. Do you have anything here that I can eat?"
My opinion of the majority of vegetarians is that they could care less about the eating of meat and (humane) killing of animals for meat. They just want something to feel superior to other people about.