Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, I've been vegetarian basically my whole life. Stopped eating red meat when I was 6, quit chicken at 18.

When I was in my early 30s, I lived overseas someplace where getting real veg food was very difficult. I started eating fish again. I moved back stateside and kept eating it a little.

I still call myself vegetarian, because it's easiest. I don't feel like having a long conversation with every damn person I meet about what pescatarian means, why I eat this fish and not that one, etc etc etc. Vegetarian is the easiest way to describe my diet.

I understand that there's some people on the veg side and others on the meat side who'd get snotty about me calling myself veg. But, you know what, I've had this diet for so long now that I don't feel the need to please anyone with it. It's who I am, and I actually don't care if they like my language or not.

+1 Thank you. This is exactly me. Vegetarian since 15, but started eating fish a bit when I lived overseas in my late 20's because it could be hard to find vegetarian foods. I'll explain to people who ask sincerely why I occasionally eat some fish and not others. But really, I don't particularly care if someone gets bent out of shape when I call myself a vegetarian. If I have the option, I'll eat vegetarian at a restaurant or someone's house, but I'd frankly rather have a nice filet of sustainable, wild-caught, Pacific salmon than have a side salad for dinner.

So why don't the two of you just say you only eat fish rather than that you're vegetarians?

Honestly, because it's too tiring to get into most of the time. And pointless. 99 times out of 100, I am eating all-vegetarian anyway. I eat fish extremely rarely now. It was something I started doing basically out of necessity and now mostly only do when there's nothing else for me to eat. (Like PP said, side salads get really tiresome.)

Also, I feel like vegetarian describes my ethos best. I love animals; I don't want to eat them - I am also a bit of a don't ask don't tell eater if I'm at someone's house and there might be, say, chicken broth in the otherwise veg casserole.

Like PP said, if someone is truly interested, then sure, we can talk about the nuances of my diet. And every once in a while someone is surprised to see me eating a fish taco. But frankly, what I eat just isn't that interesting to most of the world, enough that I feel the need to explain my diet in that much detail.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you eat flesh from an animal (whether it's a fish, chicken, pig, cow, goat, etc etc etc) then as far as I am concerned you are not a vegetarian, and are using the term because somehow you feel that your way of eating is superior. Why give yourself that label (vegetarian)? Just say, if asked, that you eat mostly a plant based diet, and I would understand that, but to say you are a vegetarian, when you eat seafood, is misleading and deceptive IMO.

+1 same goes for "flexitarian".

How is flexitarian misleading and deceptive?

Lots of people don't eat red mean for health reasons including myself. I don't consider myself vegetarian at all. Most people can't hack it as a true vegetarian. I read a study that said over 75% of vegetarians eventually return to eating meat.

I think it depends on where you are from and it doesn't stem from ignorance but culture.

When I worked for Customs/Immigration in Canada, we always knew with americans entering the country that we had to ask "what alcohol do you have-this includes beer and wine" because many americans didn't (don/t?) see beer and wine as actual alcohol and wouldn't include it in their declarations. They weren't always trying to lie, they just didn't see it the same way.

Anonymous wrote:If you eat seafood but no other meats, you are pescatarian.

But I agree with you that chicken and fish are meats.

Agree. In general I find it annoying if someone proclaims they are vegetarians or "don't eat meat" yet are fish and/or shellfish eaters. Further, if you're not eating "meat" for ethical reasons - they should include fish/shellfish all of which suffer / must die for you to enjoy eating their flesh.

-
A one day vegetarian who still eats meat.

PP, I guess the issue for me is more than if something is called "meat" or not. I don't want a living being to die so I can eat (please don't start with the plants as being living, I think everyone can understand the difference). When I say I don't eat meat, I'm referring to all flesh. I don't need a label.

It is a very traditional definition of proteins that included the categories: meat, poultry, seafood. If you look at many cooking resources up through the 20th century, they use this distinction. For many, this means that meat is only meat from mammals, e.g. beef, mutton, goat, venison, rabbit, etc. There are many more types of mammalian meat besides just beef. They consider any bird meat to be fowl or poultry, e.g. chicken, goose, duck, turkey, partridge, pheasant, etc. And they consider any food that lives in the water to be seafood including fish, bivalves (mussels, clams, oysters, abalone, etc), crustaceans (lobster, shrimp, crab, crawfish).

It's dropped off in frequency of use since the end of the 20th century, but it isn't that far out-of-date that it's that difficult. The common current usage of meat being any animal meat is only since vegetarianism has became more common, maybe the last 30-40 years.

I was raised Catholic, and when Lent came around, it was fish for dinner, as that wasn't considered meat. Sometimes it was from the frozen area of the grocery store, sometimes it was tuna casserole.

Chicken is meat in my opinion.

Sometimes it's faster and easier to just say "I'm vegetarian", and be satisfied with a plate of steamed veggies. Depending on who you're with and how well you know them, explaining your diet choices can be annoying.

But people who eat fish and/or fowl and actually think they're vegetarian are ridiculous.

-I've been veg, a fish eater, and a fowl eater at various points in my life

Anonymous wrote:If you eat flesh from an animal (whether it's a fish, chicken, pig, cow, goat, etc etc etc) then as far as I am concerned you are not a vegetarian, and are using the term because somehow you feel that your way of eating is superior. Why give yourself that label (vegetarian)? Just say, if asked, that you eat mostly a plant based diet, and I would understand that, but to say you are a vegetarian, when you eat seafood, is misleading and deceptive IMO.

+1 same goes for "flexitarian".

If you eat flesh from an animal (whether it's a fish, chicken, pig, cow, goat, etc etc etc) then as far as I am concerned you are not a vegetarian, and are using the term because somehow you feel that your way of eating is superior. Why give yourself that label (vegetarian)? Just say, if asked, that you eat mostly a plant based diet, and I would understand that, but to say you are a vegetarian, when you eat seafood, is misleading and deceptive IMO.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's like my husband's office, where 75% of the people call themselves vegetarians, yet eat fish or chicken. It amuses him, because his wife and kids are ovo-lacto vegetarians.

So... vegan?

Where do you get vegan from that post?

9:20 here. Yeah, not sure where I'm implied vegan. I said specifically we eat eggs and milk...we are NOT vegan.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, I've been vegetarian basically my whole life. Stopped eating red meat when I was 6, quit chicken at 18.

When I was in my early 30s, I lived overseas someplace where getting real veg food was very difficult. I started eating fish again. I moved back stateside and kept eating it a little.

I still call myself vegetarian, because it's easiest. I don't feel like having a long conversation with every damn person I meet about what pescatarian means, why I eat this fish and not that one, etc etc etc. Vegetarian is the easiest way to describe my diet.

I understand that there's some people on the veg side and others on the meat side who'd get snotty about me calling myself veg. But, you know what, I've had this diet for so long now that I don't feel the need to please anyone with it. It's who I am, and I actually don't care if they like my language or not.

+1 Thank you. This is exactly me. Vegetarian since 15, but started eating fish a bit when I lived overseas in my late 20's because it could be hard to find vegetarian foods. I'll explain to people who ask sincerely why I occasionally eat some fish and not others. But really, I don't particularly care if someone gets bent out of shape when I call myself a vegetarian. If I have the option, I'll eat vegetarian at a restaurant or someone's house, but I'd frankly rather have a nice filet of sustainable, wild-caught, Pacific salmon than have a side salad for dinner.

I just don't understand this, or why the need to (falsely) call/identify yourself as vegetarian.

I eat 100% vegetarian at home, don't eat meat unless it's served somewhere (like a dinner party), or special occasions. Meat is not a regular part of my diet, but I still don't say "I"m vegetarian" because that just isn't true. It's an incorrect label, and I think does a disservice to those who really are actually vegetarian.

Not really. Everyone has a certain level of vegetarianism that they can observe or not. Same as most Jews can observe various levels of Kashrut or not. I can say "I keep kosher" but that can mean many different things. It can mean I keep a kosher home and have separate fridges, sinks and drawers or it can mean that I don't mix dairy and meat but I still eat treif foods just not mixing dairy and meat. It can also mean I keep a strictly Kosher home but eat anything I want out of the house. Vegetarians can have the same ideas.

-A meat eater

No, it's pretty simple actually. If you eat the flesh of any animal, you're not a vegetarian.

-- an (infrequent) meat eater

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, I've been vegetarian basically my whole life. Stopped eating red meat when I was 6, quit chicken at 18.

When I was in my early 30s, I lived overseas someplace where getting real veg food was very difficult. I started eating fish again. I moved back stateside and kept eating it a little.

I still call myself vegetarian, because it's easiest. I don't feel like having a long conversation with every damn person I meet about what pescatarian means, why I eat this fish and not that one, etc etc etc. Vegetarian is the easiest way to describe my diet.

I understand that there's some people on the veg side and others on the meat side who'd get snotty about me calling myself veg. But, you know what, I've had this diet for so long now that I don't feel the need to please anyone with it. It's who I am, and I actually don't care if they like my language or not.

+1 Thank you. This is exactly me. Vegetarian since 15, but started eating fish a bit when I lived overseas in my late 20's because it could be hard to find vegetarian foods. I'll explain to people who ask sincerely why I occasionally eat some fish and not others. But really, I don't particularly care if someone gets bent out of shape when I call myself a vegetarian. If I have the option, I'll eat vegetarian at a restaurant or someone's house, but I'd frankly rather have a nice filet of sustainable, wild-caught, Pacific salmon than have a side salad for dinner.

I just don't understand this, or why the need to (falsely) call/identify yourself as vegetarian.

I eat 100% vegetarian at home, don't eat meat unless it's served somewhere (like a dinner party), or special occasions. Meat is not a regular part of my diet, but I still don't say "I"m vegetarian" because that just isn't true. It's an incorrect label, and I think does a disservice to those who really are actually vegetarian.

Not really. Everyone has a certain level of vegetarianism that they can observe or not. Same as most Jews can observe various levels of Kashrut or not. I can say "I keep kosher" but that can mean many different things. It can mean I keep a kosher home and have separate fridges, sinks and drawers or it can mean that I don't mix dairy and meat but I still eat treif foods just not mixing dairy and meat. It can also mean I keep a strictly Kosher home but eat anything I want out of the house. Vegetarians can have the same ideas.

-A meat eater

If you're a meat eater, your understanding isn't quite the same as a vegetarian's. Sorry. Just like I'm not Jewish/kosher so I have no credibility in talking about being kosher.

I agree with you OP. Words mean things.