Vegetarian? If you don't count fish as meat

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Permalink Reply by pradtf on April 30, 2008 at 7:06pm

welcome tyrone! i hope you find this site and the people here helpful.

it is technically incorrect to think that a vegetarian eats fish. fish are not vegetation.

someone who is a 'vegetarian' except for fish could call themselves pesca vegetarian i suppose just as those who are 'vegetarian' except they eat dairy could call themselves lacto vegetarian and those who are 'vegetarian' except they eat eggs could call themselves ovo vegetarian.

but you see how longwinded this gets, because someone who eats all the stuff (dairy, eggs, chicken, fish, honey) other than 'red' meat, could call themselves lacto-ovo-polla-pesco-miele vegetarian.

that really isn't what the veg in vegetarian is for.

in friendship,
prad

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Permalink Reply by pradtf on April 30, 2008 at 7:36pm

bigG,

you are right.

when we lived in buckhorn on, a lady came by our cottage wanting to sell us frozen steaks. we explained to her that we were vegetarian. she said me too! so we thought ah another veg (it's not like you ran into them too often back then out in the boonies). ya she says i don't eat meat, just stick to seafood and vegetables.

and then there was this east indian family who proudly told my mother their daughter was vegetarian (even though they weren't). it didn't seem to matter that the daughter ate chicken.

i'm sure some of these people mean well and figure they are taking some steps to being healthy (and may be even compassion to some extent), by not eating beef, but just what part of 'veg' do they not understand?

being vegetarian for some people seems to be a badge of honor and they'll proudly parade it around, whether or not they understand the etymology of the word (which is actually quite interesting) and its application.

additionally, a really irritating thing that even ar groups like peta have done is to completely convolute the meanings of vegetarian and vegan. and some people are so gungho on the compassion bandwagon, they don't even want to acknowledge the obvious benefits of a veg diet (not that good health habits really seem to matter to many in society these days).

in friendship,
prad

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Permalink Reply by pradtf on April 30, 2008 at 7:47pm

hey tyrone!

i forgot to mention you might find this link useful:
http://towardsfreedom.com/veggiechess/goVeg.html

there are the 3 pillars of veg HEE (health, environment, ethics) summarized up there as well as some links to excellent sites as well. (one of them is that vegsource which bigG recommended - it's a great site!)

glad to see you participating in the forums! sometimes they can use a boost of activity like you are providing!!

in friendship,
prad

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Permalink Reply by Tyrone on May 1, 2008 at 5:24am

Thank you all for the links.

What emotional need am I fulfilling by hooking something in the mouth? The thrill of catching them. Getting out and looking at the lakes. Each day I go out the ducks and something even the snakes :( get closer and closer to me. I'd never touch them but they seem to be very interested in touching me. They just sit and stare at me while I'm fishing as if they are keeping me company. Normally I even clean up a bit of the area. I enjoy the art of casting the pole. It's fun to me rather I catch something that day or not. I try to always use lures because fish normally suffer less from a lure than a live bait hook that sometimes they shallow. I preach catch and release unless you are truly planning on eating them.

Rather or not fish are consider to be meat depends on where your from. By it's true definition I would suppose that vegetarian's would be no difference from vegans. However, both words exist indicting to me that one who eats some type of animal product and the other one doesn't.

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Permalink Reply by pradtf on May 1, 2008 at 9:24am

hello again tyrone!

you are correct about the true meaning of the two words having no difference to a certain extent as discussed below.

the problem with words is that people misuse them in very imaginative ways. fish is meat in a scientific and biological sense since it is the flesh of a living animal. where you come from doesn't change this.

unfortunately, the term meat is used in a variety of other ways. for instance, we say nut meat to mean the contents of a nut or the meat of a fruit or even the meat of an argument. by the first two usages, you can come to the absurd conclusion that vegetarians eat meat.

this is an unfortunate tendency in language where one word ends up being rehashed in different forms - though admittedly it does provide opportunities for some good puns.

the term vegetarian was created around 1842 and its intent was to define people who did not eat meat (even though that really wasn't enough based on its etmology - which i can discuss if you want to hear), therefore eating fish was a no-no. the intent of the term was essentially that you don't eat anything which has a face (ie cause no suffering to a sentient being). unfortunately, many self-proclaimed 'vegetarians' continued to consume dairy and eggs, which is why people thought it meant vegetarians are supposed to do that (and this misuse of the word continues even on this site - notice the implication when they ask you in your profile if you are vegetarian or vegan).

in 1944, donald watson coined the word vegan to define those who would not only abstain from doing the lacto-ovo bit, but also not wear wool, leather, fur etc. in other words, it was a lifestyle in which you don't steal anything that belongs to a sentient being such as their milk or their eggs or their skin or their life.

so a vegan is necessarily a vegetarian, while a vegetarian is only vegan in the dietary sense. a vegetarian consumes vegetation fruits, plants, nuts etc not dairy, eggs, fish, honey etc.

and a vegan, avoids animal products beyond just the dietary sense.

i do not understand something you said in the above post. it seems you enjoy and respect ducks and snakes etc. yet you find it is "fun" for you to catch fish using a hook even though you know they suffer. why do you find it fun to do something when you know you are causing suffering to another being?

in friendship,
prad

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Permalink Reply by Kellie on May 7, 2008 at 4:45pm

I have never heard that vegetarians don't eat dairy, and vegans are the same but don't wear animals. I have heard that vegetarians DO eat dairy and that vegans do not.

I do not eat animals of any kind, nor will I buy/use leather, wool, silk, fur, etc.

I do *sometimes* eat eggs and honey (not together lol). And when I eat out or at a friend's house, I don't insist that there is no dairy hidden in a dish - such as in birthday cake. Having said that, I will make the choice for vegan foods most of the time.

I call myself a vegetarian.

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Permalink Reply by pradtf on May 16, 2008 at 8:47am

kellie,

it is the presently 'popular' use of the term vegetarian and has come about largely for the reasons explained above. there is an effort to reclaim the term vegetarian for its proper meaning.

here is a discussion i had with a lacto-veg on the topic:
http://towardsfreedom.com/pun/viewtopic.php?id=36
you will see from there that dictionaries provide some 'inconsistent' results.
also note that he prefers the idea of using vegetarian as a category into which we can throw all kinds of things.

here is a writeup making the term a little more precise:
http://www.friendsofanimals.org/programs/vegetarianism/index.html
in the first paragraph, this group clearly distinguishes between vegetarian referring to diet and vegan referring to lifestyle in the first paragraph.

the problem is that most people who call themselves vegetarian still do consume dairy, eggs, honey and even fish and chicken (if you can believe that!!). so if we go by usage it seems that anything goes. vegetarian is (mis)used as a blanket term.

the etymology of the word takes us to the root vegetus which means full of life or vibrant etc which is also the root for vegetation and vegetables, so even though the founders of the word had dairy and eggs, they could have either made a better choice in their word or changed their eating patterns. if you abuse the root sufficiently, a meater could claim that because eating meat makes him feel energetic and vibrant (no doubt because of the steroids), he is also a vegetarian.

unfortunately, language is full of such improper applications which really should be cleaned up. for instance, people still use the word pig to describe someone who engages in gluttony or is greedy or is chauvinistic which is not only demeaning to pigs, but is also absurdly inaccurate.

i call myself a vegetarian when talking about diet because i eat a plant diet. i call myself a vegan too when we are looking at overall lifestyle since i avoid using things that have been stolen from sentient creatures. and i like to think i'm reasonably vibrant too :D

in friendship,
prad

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Permalink Reply by Kellie on May 17, 2008 at 7:58am

Thanks for the explanation! I have found that using the words "vegetarian" or "vegan" are not very helpful when dining out. I have to spell everything out. I can't even say "no meat" because most people think that excludes chicken and fish. If I say, "Nothing that had to die for the meal" it's rude. lol I used to say, "Nothing with a face" but then I got the reply that oysters don't have a face. (smartypants!)

I also have to remind servers that this includes broth or stock - because they're quick to offer vegetable soup with no meat even though the stock is from meat!

Just the other day I was offered a ceasar salad with anchovies as a vegetarian dish.

We'll just keep plugging along, won't we? ;)

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Permalink Reply by pradtf on May 17, 2008 at 9:52am

kellie,

it is still difficult to get a lot of people to understand because they really haven't thought about it and the veg words can cause confusion ... but enlightenment is good for them :D

it is amazing what is considered rude, is it not?

i wonder if it can be argued that oysters do have a face because they have a mouth? you'd be the smart one then!
(http://www.assateague.com/nt-bival.html)

i haven't eaten at a restaurant (even a strict veg organic one) for pretty close to a decade, but when people ask what i don't eat, i have found a precise biological criteria specifically "i do not consume animal proteins" pretty well covers it (even the dullest usually know that fish and mollusks are part of the animal kingdom).

if they want to find out why, i tell them what animal protein consumption does to you (eg atherosclerosis, excema, arthritis, asthma, osteoporosis, diabetes, cancer, obesity etc etc). this usually hits home because they've got one or more. it can then lead to further discussion on environment and ethics.

the interesting thing is that if you say you are veg because of religious reasons, people won't bat an eye, because they have to show they are tolerant of other cultures. however, if they think you are veg because of ethical reasons or even nutritional reasons, then you are doing something they realize they should be doing, but aren't - and that bugs them to no end. :D

as for plugging along with these fascinating individuals who appear convinced that anchovies somehow sprout from earth (:D), you may find this summary of the HEE (health, environment, ethics) principle useful (though you no doubt already know all this):
http://towardsfreedom.com/veggiechess/goVeg.html

in friendship,
prad

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Permalink Reply by Kellie on May 17, 2008 at 7:46pm

"i wonder if it can be argued that oysters do have a face because they have a mouth? you'd be the smart one then!
(http://www.assateague.com/nt-bival.html)"

Fabulous!

You have given me much to think about in regards to dairy. I already don't eat much dairy or honey, but I have been working on cutting it back more. My goal is to cut it out completely.

One more thought about eggs - is there an argument against eating eggs if you buy them straight from a farm that treats the chickens humanely?

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Permalink Reply by pradtf on May 18, 2008 at 2:29am

kellie,

good for you! it is a good idea to cut out dairy and honey (affectionately known as bovine mammarian secretions and bee vomit respectively). cheese is the biggest problem people find because of its casomorphin content making it actually addictive!
so it's more than just the rennet:
Cheese is an especially interesting case. In our own research studies at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, we've noticed that participants moving to a vegetarian diet have a harder time giving up cheese than almost any other food. In fact, cheese's popularity may have less to do with its meltability and mouth-feel and more to do with its addictive qualities.

Several scientific teams have shown that the principal protein in cheese, casein, breaks apart during digestion to produce abundant amounts of morphine-like compounds called casomorphins. Biologically, these opiates appear to be responsible for part of the mother-infant bond that occurs during nursing.
http://www.pcrm.org/news/commentary030519.html

as for eggs (affectionately known as poultry menstrual excretions), there are some problems beyond the nutritional issues. first, free-range can mean pretty well anything and there really aren't any enforced regulations:
http://leilanifarmsanctuary.org/Eggs.html
http://leilanifarmsanctuary.org/Freerangeanimals.html
the latter article suggests that the term 'cage-free' is more appropriate.

however, let's consider your specific question and accept that you have found a farm where hens are treated humanely. as far as 'stealing what doesn't belong to you' goes, i don't think there is any ethical dilemma since hens would lay those eggs anyway and not being fertilzed there is no life involved. given the strong likelihood that the hens probably enjoy living at this farm (rather like those rescued ones at the leilanifarmsanctuary links above), there seems to be no issue with taking their eggs (assuming they don't want them - sometimes they do, btw, because they like to eat them apparently).

there is another problem though. unless this farm is a sanctuary, it is reasonable to assume that the farmers keep the hens to make a profit. in fact, it is likely they breed them and feed them supplements to increase egg production. so the question comes up, as to whether it is morally correct to use sentient beings for ones own purposes. treating them humanely is merely a minimum requirement and it is hard to argue against this being an exploitive (though obviously not an abusive) operation (one may wonder what happens when they stop producing eggs though).

sometimes these issues become clearer if one substitutes some form of human for the animal. so would it be moral if we kept a few children from say an orphanage to work for us - we'd feed and treat them good! how about keeping some women around as surrogate mothers - no pay, but we'd look after them well from the profits we make. some slaves were actually treated really well in the usa - so much so that one of them wrote a song "carry me back to old virginy" which became the state song for viginia after they changed a few of the original words because some folk found it demeaning to have the virtues of slavery extolled so jubilantly.

i think providing a good home for another sentient being is a great idea. however, when one does so to recupe more than the expenditure, there may be issues other than the apparent 'humaneness' of the situation.

in friendship,
prad

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Permalink Reply by Kellie on May 18, 2008 at 8:36am

Once again, thank you. I love your "affectionate" names! LOLOLOL

I didn't know that about cheese - wow! It was hard for me to give it up. But what was very interesting was that I cut back to an extreme in the name of losing weight. Once I was "cheese free" for about three weeks, I stopped craving it. I could see it sitting out on a plate and not be tempted.

Now, I live in an area known the world over for fine food and wine. So I'm talking about amazing, gourmet cheese!

I don't even like eggs all that much and that's another interesting thing. I used to LOVE eggs. But the longer I went without eating them, the less I wanted them. A couple of weeks ago I went out to breakfast for my favorite, huevos rancheros. I asked for one scrambled egg and even then, didn't really enjoy it much.

I don't know if I'm changing due to something in my spirit or my palate. I know that my initial desire to be vegetarian was definitely a spiritual endeavor, so perhaps I'm just continuing on the journey.

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