I had a discussion recently where someone accused me of not being a “real vegetarian” because I eat eggs. I know that’s kind of a grey area, and it differs for each person and their reason for being vegetarian (religious, texture, health, environmental, ethical, etc); but what do you personally eat?
For me, personally, I keep it simple. If it looks and tastes like meat, I don’t eat it (except special occasions like religious holidays). It makes me feel bad, and I dislike the texture anyway. Feels like an animal died specifically for me, and I didn’t even enjoy it. A waste of a perfectly good life. But I’m ok with “regenerative” animal products like eggs and cheese and honey and such, as long as the animals were treated with respect (hard to find dairy that meets this criteria).
Probably the most contentious is bones. Someone once gave me some ramen, and later told me they were surprised I ate it because the broth was made with chicken bones. I didn’t know, but also it didn’t really disturb me either. Those bones would have been thrown out if not put into soup; and the end result was soup, not a drumstick or something obviously meaty. If nobody told me, I wouldn’t even notice. For some reason, occasional bone broth is fine by my books. I’m not an extremely strict vegetarian in the first place though, and everyone I asked said that bones are not vegetarian.
It makes me think about Blood & Bone fertiliser. If you grow tomatoes with it, are those tomatoes not vegetarian…? Where is the line? Curious on others thoughts.
You must log in or # to comment.
I think it doesn’t have to be a gatekept cult. And fk the people who are trying to make it one. Don’t listen to them. Reducing meat is a purported way to fight climate change, anything you’re doing in meat reduction is good. If you don’t eat meat but do eat eggs, absolutely no problem. If you eat meat once in a while, whatever. Perfect should never be the enemy of good. And trying to tick every box exactly right could become so large a focus it takes up so much space and time in your life that could be spent enjoying the brief existence we get. Every time you feel like people are policing what you’re eating, remind you’re they’re probably super no fun at parties.
Do not let people gate keep who you are. Their opinions are their and sometimes an opinion sucks. You are your own person and are allowed to define and identify as you like. Are they then going to tell you that you’re not a real straight/gay/trans person because you do or do not do something?
I am a strict vegetarian that trends towards vegan. Cheese and yogurt are really the only things that keep me from being strictly vegan.
I do not cook with eggs and generally avoid using cheese at home. I will have egg incidentally (i.e. bread, etc.) but will occasionally have eggs in a diner or such when traveling. Cheese I will have fairly commonly.
I avoid anything with gelatin–that’s a hard line for me. I will, however, have honey.
I am not a particularly strict person when it comes to eating, but my main criteria are environmental impact and “how complex was the nervous system involved and how much did it have to suffer”. I admit I am pretty racist in that regard. No big cluster of neurons, no pity from me.
Honestly, who cares. Eat what you’re comfortable with. The label thing being a real or not is do assine. People doesn’t eat certain things all the time.
I’m vegetarian mostly for environmental reasons.
If the food is going in the trash if I don’t eat it, I don’t really care if it’s meat or not. I’m mostly trying to reduce eating meat, but throwing it away otherwise is dumb.
People complaining about eggs don’t know the difference between “vegetarian” and “vegan”.
As I saw the question, I was wondering if the “pro life” discussion in the USA was causing some people to think eggs are thus also not to be ‘killed’ by eating them :|
There is no vegetarian authority. If you can live up to your own standards you doing better than most of us.
Incorrect. I am the vegetarian authority.
There may not be a vegetarian authority, but God help you if you cross into vegan territory. Those guys are real sticklers.
Not to mention that reducing your consumption of animal products, whether or not it’s a total thing, is still a very good thing and is probably the single most impactful thing you can do as an individual to help out the planet and your health, especially when it comes to red meat.
This is the mindset most should have about it
Perfection is hard
People shouldn’t be giving others grief for making moves in the right direction just because it’s not as far as they’ve gone
The strange thing is that the person griefing me was in no ways vegetarian and eats meat twice a day 😂 I didn’t take it too personally
You’re doing great, king, far better than I am! Keep it up.
reducing your consumption of animal products … is probably the single most impactful thing you can do as an individual to help out the planet
I seriously doubt this
The single most impactful is to have one fewer child than you had ‘planned’.
this is dangerously close to malthusianism and misanthropy.
It’s basically true. Animal agriculture (land use, resource use, and pollution to create animal products) is a major source of pollution which competes with transportation for the biggest source of global warming.
Unfortunately the more nuanced take is that it’s not a single thing; it’s a series of choices that eventually become habit. But so is not owning a car.
I think technically the single most impactful thing you can do is to remove major polluters from the planet (though in many cases that is illegal so, in case cops are watching, I’m certainly not recommending that).
No one ever expects… THE VEGAN INQUISITION!!!
For me, the border is animal parts (meat and bones). I eat fish, all seafood (squid, shrimp, …), eggs, cheese, milk, … I know that fish and squids and shrimps are animals, but yes, eat what you want, don’t let groups with their ideology impose on you what you eat.
There is no shame in what you eat. Where I live (70% are Orthodox Christians, 25% are Muslims) religious fasting is very common. In short, Christians in certain parts of the year (and every Friday) follow a vegan diet, Muslims in one part of the year follow a diet with intermittent fasting.
I always ask them “You believe in God, the Almighty, the creator of the universe, all 2 trillion galaxies, each with 100 billion stars, countless planets, and he cares what and when you put something in your stomach?”
I’m curious why you don’t eat animal parts but squid is ok? Squid and octopus are more intelligent and show more self awareness than many animals raised for food. I am no longer a vegetarian, but still won’t eat squid or octopus any more than I would a chimpanzee. I guess it depends on your reason for vegetarianism. Please do not take this as an assault on your beliefs, just curiosity.
Initially, it was a bet with my daughter that I could go a year without eating meat. After that, I got used to it and don’t feel the need to eat meat in my diet. The second factor is the quality of the meat in the stores. Everyone brags about “organic”, but it’s very different from real farm meat. When the meat is “industrial”, I won’t eat it. Third, I’m starting to get annoyed by the greed of farms to produce and sell more meat with a longer shelf life for a lower price. They don’t care about the health of the buyers (or the animals in general). So no thanks.
Why fish, squid, mussels, octopuses, crabs? They weren’t originally included in the bet, secondly, I don’t know, my decision without any particular reason. BTW, I don’t think any animal is intelligent so I don’t have a problem with that.
Puritanism rarely helps movements.
Sounds like the person speaking to you was trying on the ‘no true Scotsman’ logical fallacy, as definition of ‘vegetarian’ clearly allows eggs.
If someone is trying to reduce their animal intake I applaud them regardless of occasional relapses or exclusions… Life is too demanding already to not be able to give yourself some leeway in circumstances when you need it or that are largely out of your control.
I did a few years as a lacto-ovo vegetarian, but I also had a carve-out for eating anything I was served as a guest. I would tell people ahead of time, but if they added bacon to the potato salad, I’d just eat it anyway because being a good guest seemed more important than strict adherence.
That’s a good motto; I try to do the same thing, to an extent. If I’m at a family Christmas party or wedding, I’ll eat some roast chicken. To refuse would be rude.
But also, I tend to find that if you acquiesce once, it’s too easy to become a habit. People will assume you’ve given up vegetarianism and serve you meat every time forever (in my experience, anyway). So I usually offend people on the first meal post-Christmas.
I read this interesting article that is somewhat related.
I was more on the “if they’re serving me roast chicken after I told them I’m vegetarian, I’m not going to be their guest anymore” side of things, but everyone in my life was very accommodating, so that’s easy for me to say.
I avoid eating humans when possible, but have no other limitations.
If any ingredient is a part of a dead animal, I don’t eat it.
How does that work for aged cheese? The cow that made the milk might already be dead.
By the way, not all cheese is even vegetarian to begin with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rennet
Okay, I laughed, I guess this circumvents this requirement. In Japan you can get a live, as in still living, fish to eat. Few restaurants still do it, it’s called Ikizukuri. I didn’t get it because it was too weird.
Yeah, I won’t even knowingly go anywhere that does that. I don’t get the appeal at all.
Anyone gatekeeping vegetarianism can shush. Do your best, enjoy.
Once you start getting into the ovo-lacto-pecto-scattered-smothered-and-covered talk it’s already academic. It might be interesting, or it might be some jerk trying to hassle you for no good reason. And none of it’s necessary.
When people used to ask me what reason i had for being vegetarian, i said “all of them”. Because there’s a lot. Economic, environmental, health, and hell yeah animal rights. Which one did they need y’know?
I don’t mind hearing people talk about why they like being vegan - as opposed to vegetarian - heck, I like it. I’m aspirationally vegan when i can. But if they want to talk about my eating habits, that’s a red flag.
I consider myself a practicing vegetarian, as I never buy meat. I hunt though. Ecology is one thing that which we can neither own nor abstain.
We will be working to amend the sins of humanity for a long long time, one of them being the exterpations and extinctions of predators; upending trophic systems. Hunting is an ecology conservation practice, and a critical one.
Ovo-lacto vegetarianism is by default what people mean by vegetarian in the US at least. Maybe where you’re from it’s different but that criticism would be strange here.
I think most vegetarians try to avoid things like bone broth (or things containing gelatin if they know about it) but people are strict to different levels. Assuming a vegetarian would be fine eating a soup that included bones would be pretty rude so it’s not weird someone might be surprised you’re less strict than others.
That’s a good point. In my area we have a lot of Punjabi Sikh people from a specific sect (? not sure if correct word), so vegetarian is assumed to be lacto, with no eggs. I don’t know a lot about their religion, but it seems pretty strict. I’d imagine most of the world assumes eggs as well, it’s probably a local regional thing here.
They have some damn fine recipes too.
Eggs are technically less cruel than lacto so it’s weird that they prefer to skip them. Tradition I guess.
Funny: in much of East Asian, “vegetarian” doesn’t really exist as a concept and the best you can get is the “Buddhist meal”, which will contain fish.
I’m not trying to be perfect, I’m just trying to make a difference. Purity ideals are for 13 year olds.
