I admit that labeling my diet isn’t necessary but after a recent encounter with a vegetarian who informed me that “people who call themselves vegetarian but eat fish really piss me off” I decided I wanted to quantify what I’m doing and why.
I’m a Lacto-ovo-pescatarian-vegetarian.
Say that five times fast.
To explain; a Pescatarian abstains from all meat and animal flesh with the exception of fish and shellfish (shrimp beware!) A Lacto-ovo also eats eggs and dairy products. Thus, I’m both.
I’m also allowing myself meat broths because of my love of soup; but sadly I couldn’t find a classification for that. I’ll have to make one up.
Lacto-ovo-pescatarian-brothavarian-vegetarian?
All I know is; it’s complicated. The Vegans (who eat nothing that ever possessed a ‘face’ or came from anything that ever possessed a face) disdain the Vegetarians for their exploitation of animals in consuming their milk and eggs. The Vegetarians disdain Pescatarians for killing the little fishies. I even had a friend tell me she once met someone that stated that if you claim to be a Vegetarian but the smell of cooked meat so much as entices you – then you’re not truly one of us.
Dang, these people are harsh.
All I want is to loose weight and have a healthy heart and no diabetes. I love the animals, I even love the little fishies, but I also really really love being at the top of the food chain.
I am the worlds most deadly predator. Fear me!
I love the furballs of the world more than your average person, and I do love the little fishies too, but damn, they taste good.
ReplyDeletePeople tend to anthropormorphize things. IMHO, that's really where the vegetarians come from. It's easy to anthropomorphize cute fuzzies, but a lot harder to anthopomorphize a cabbage.
Sure, I suppose it's possible to eat without killing *anything* (picking a fruit doesn't kill the parent plant, but then you leave yourself open for the whole "contraception" arugment...geez, this *is* complicated...) but I don't think you'd be very healthy. And I notice there aren't many vegetarians that bother with that. In that, they show me they haven't really thought their philosophy through. Why is the life of a plant any less worthy than the life of an animal?
Anyway, in my mind, life and death are natural parts of this existence. To feed me, something has to inevitably die. I just choose to do my killing in a way that doesn't cause undue suffering, even to plants, because I believe that's my duty as a conscious, thinking being who happens to be part of the food chain.
My .02, with apoligies to any vegetarians or other folks I may have just offended ;)