Mary wrote:
> Anyway, I was at the park today  with a friend of mine who is a pharmacist
> and she was asking what Larry was eating and I told her. She launced into a
> spiel about how dangerous it is, how people have died on it., etc and blah
> blah blah.
>
> [I think she may have been referring to a  high PROTEIN not high FAT diet,
> right?]
>
> What do you guys do when people do this?

It depends on how well I know the person, and what I think of them. If a
relative stranger were to start preaching ultra low fat or veganism at
me, I would just nod and say, "Mm-hm." and then just keep eating whatever
I'm eating. This tactic quashes an argument pretty quickly, I find.

If it is a friend of mine, but for whatever reason I don't think discussion
would be productive, I try to avoid the subject. I have a friend in this
category. He's very intelligent, and is hard-core vegan. He knows I eat meat,
and I think he has an inkling of my nutritional leanings, but we both refuse
to bring up the subject with the other. It works out well. If he were ever
to start preaching, I would probably just be passive, and say, "Maybe you're
right." and let the subject drop. I would do this because he's so hard-core
that I don't believe the discussion could be productive. Neither one of us
could possibly change the other's mind. I think of this as my "Ferengi
mode": if there's no profit in it, why bother?

However, if a friend who I thought had an open mind were to admonish me,
I'd probably just engage in the discussion. Ask them exactly what they
believe, why they believe it, and what their evidence is. Tell them
what I believe, and so on. Who knows, maybe they'd change my mind. I think
of this as my "Socrates mode": I'm not wise, I just want to be. All I'm
really sure about is that I'm not sure about anything.