Having your food tampered with is terrible.
But is it worth going to the police over?
That's the question one woman is asking after a night drinking with her friends ended in a food-tampering "prank" that left them mocking her all over social media.
The woman has been a vegetarian since she was about three years old and a vegan for at least the last ten years. This is no secret to any one of the people she was with the night of the "Nugget Incident", as we will call it.
In fact, her lifelong commitment to not eating animal products is what set her friends to target her in the first place.
While at a party, the woman admits that she and her friends got drunk. She felt safe, she wasn't driving, she let her guard down.
Her friends offered her some nuggets because nothing goes better with drunk than snacks. Trust us, we're experts on this one.
Even in her drunken state the woman was sure to ask if the nuggets were vegan and was reassured that yes, they were. Her friends even told her what brand of vegan nuggets they were giving her.
Trusting them, she chowed down. According to her they tasted strange, but she assumed it was because she was more intoxicated than she thought.
She was, as she dubbed it, "white girl wasted."
She felt weird but slept it off and spent the next morning throwing up.
She figured she just had a hangover and thought nothing more of it. Until her sister told her to check the social media posts of the people she had been hanging out with.
Turns out all was not as it seemed. Her friends videos told the story from a different perspective.
Seeing that she was drunk, they decided to play a "prank."
The first video was them showing the food package to the camera. These were not vegan nuggets and they knew it.
The next few videos showed her asking for confirmation that the nuggets were vegan, them lying to her, her eating the nuggets and then proceeding to mock her by acting out her pretend reactions when she found out they were meat.
To her friends, this was hilarious and worthy of being posted online so that all of their followers could laugh at her too. To the woman, this was food tampering, cruel and potentially could have left her even more sick than she got.
So off to the police she went.
After talking to authorities it was decided that charges were appropriate and now three people involved that night are in trouble. Those three people, though, feel that the woman is way over-reacting.
So she took her story to Reddit to ask if people thought she was the a$ in this situation.
Here is her full post:
"Throwaway for anonymity sake in case this does go further."
"To preface this, I (24F) am vegan, and have been for a good 10 years. I have not eaten meat since I was roughly 3-4 years old when I found out where meat comes from (spoiler alert: there were a lot of tears)."
"This is no secret and everyone in my life knows and respects this—or so I thought."
"Four nights ago, I was at a party and I will admit, I got white girl wasted. My friends thought it would be funny to feed me chicken nuggets as a prank. I checked with them before chowing down 'are these vegan?' To which my friends replied 'yeah, they're sunfed' (a type of vegan chickenless chicken). They tasted off to me but I figured it was just because I was drunk. I was wrong."
"I found out the next day when my sister sent me a message telling me to check my friends Snapchat story. The story was them showing the nugget packaging, and then showing them giving them to me (including the conversation where I asked if it was vegan). And then later them mocking me and pretending to be me when I found out I ate meat (things like fake crying and yelling 'the CHICKENS!!!')."
"I took a screen recording of the video and took it to the police, on the grounds of food tampering, and now 3 of my (ex) friends are facing charges."
"They all think that I'm overreacting to a 'harmless' prank, so Reddit, [Am I The A$hole] (AITA)?"
"In my view, they took advantage of my drunken state, tampered with my food, and publicly humiliated me. In their view, it was just a prank" - VeganThrowaway192847
She updated later stating that she was sick and vomiting the whole next morning, but assumed that maybe she just had a hangover. She couldn't be 100% sure what her body was having a poor reaction to.
Reddit got so heated about the issue that the thread eventually needed to be shut down by moderators. Clearly people are passionate about their nuggets.
Most people voted that no, she was not an a$ for her reaction.
"Not the a$ (NTA), especially since you hadn't eaten meat since you were so young. Often times vegans and vegetarians get very sick after eating meat if they hadn't for years before that. I know you didn't mention anything, and maybe everything was fine, but if you had of had a bad reaction to the meat after not eating it for many years, it would have been on them. It's ridiculous and rude and although I might not have pressed charges, I think it's your right to do so." - [account deleted]
"One, what they did was malicious as f*ck. They took advantage of your inebriated state to lie to you and trick you into doing something you're morally against. What the f*&k. Two, you've been vegan/vegetarian for a long time. I knew a girl who hadn't eaten meat since she was like...christ , maybe four? She accidentally ate my chicken patty sandwich instead of her 'chik'n patty' sandwich and within an hour she was vomiting because her body wasn't able to handle the meat because she hadn't eaten any for over a decade. She didn't know about the switch and like emotion barfed, her body literally just couldn't digest it." - nononoohgodno
"Also how dumb do you have to be to record yourself committing a crime, and share it so the victim sees? Op teach them a lesson." - vflavglsvahflvov
"I think pressing charges is a little extreme, depending on what the fine/whatever is determined to be by a judge. But you absolutely have the right to press charges and doing so does not make you an Ahole. Going as far as you have at the very least scares them and makes them realize the severity of their actions. This is comparable to lying to a Jewish person and feeding them pork without their consent. That would be religious persecution and cyber bullying. What you look at it that way, it doesn't seem like you are overreacting at all!" - JDorian0817
A decent amount of people, however, decided that everyone involved—including the women—pretty much suck as human beings.
"What they did was vile and I would seriously reevaluate my relationship with someone who treated me this way. However, they didn't serve you non-food or contaminated food so I would be surprised if this fell under the contaminated food statutes." - chulbert
"Your ex friends are the most a-holes, but by involving law enforcement you are screwing with their futures in a real, extreme, and permanent way. This was a horrifying prank, but no one deserves to go down over a drunk (and let's be real non-harmful) prank. A talking-to and unfriending would have been sufficient and not heartless. You are a major a$." - disco-bloodbath
"They are crappy friends for betraying your trust and giving you meat. They don't deserve to be in your life. However, you are pressing charges against them which could affect they rest of their lives - job prospects, potential earnings, potential jail time (food tampering is a FELONY) - over chicken nuggets. If I was your other friends I would be immediately distancing myself from both the crappy friends (that prank was dumb) AND you. I would be worried about you going nuclear on me if I ever screwed up." - valaranias
"What is going on here? The tolerance for spite in this thread is alarming. You understand that filing charges successfully could end with putting human beings in cages? That was an extremely mean spirited prank to pull and I'm sorry that happened to you. Pursuing the route of the criminal justice system is not as simple as most of the responses here seem to think it is, it tends to breed a great deal of misery for all those involved both directly and indirectly. Finding the strength to forgive is much harder than seeking retribution, but I hope it's what you pursue." - I_Believe_In_Myself
"They humiliated you and did something horrible to you but assuming this is the US to go to the police for that is a massive overreaction. Like how privileged do you have to be to run to the police for something this small." - Anew12
"Jesus how do people on reddit survive in the real world? Every single one of you sucks here. Yes they are idiots for doing that, and yes i understand not wanting them to be your friends anymore. But pressing charges... cmon grow the f up. They knew it wouldn't endanger you and despite it being against your morals, it's just a fkin chicken nugget. Charges are way too extreme and frankly, I think its quite pathetic." - Albert1300
Consent is a thing, people. And it doesn't just apply to sex.
Maybe if the friends hadn't put their prank on social media or had apologized for drunken stupidity, the police wouldn't be involved.
Forcing someone to do something—knowing they'd say no if asked—isn't funny. Think before you prank.
The cookbook Why Vegan is the New Black: More than 100 Delicious Meat and Dairy Free Meal Ideas Your Whole Family Will Love is available here.
******
Have you listened to the first season of George Takei's podcast, 'Oh Myyy Pod!'?
In season one we explored the racially charged videos that have taken the internet by storm.
We're hard at work on season two so be sure to subscribe here so you don't miss it when it goes live.
Here's one of our favorite episodes from season one. Enjoy!
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