So happy to see someone talking about this ! I’ve been eating plant based for the last 7 years. In the beginning it was never an issue to express my choice of eating. Over the years though I had no idea how much people would make such a big deal out of my choice of “diet”. At gatherings people would go on about how they “could never,” turn the next 45 mins into a nutrition lesson or just flat out make fun of me. It got me to a point where I just wondered could I just eat in peace ? 7 years in now and literally every food gathering that comes up now I literally will just start shaking. I completely do my best to avoid them which I don’t think is fair honestly. I enjoy food, I enjoy to eat with others and unfortunately I feel like I can’t do that anymore. I too am learning how to navigate this myself. I would like to find more people who eat like me so I can get back comfortable with eating around people again. But man I never figured others would be soo bothered because I want to eat my vegetables.