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.
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There is no vegetarian authority. If you can live up to your own standards you doing better than most of us.
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.
No one ever expects… THE VEGAN INQUISITION!!!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Eggs are technically less cruel than lacto so it’s weird that they prefer to skip them. Tradition I guess.
I’m not trying to be perfect, I’m just trying to make a difference. Purity ideals are for 13 year olds.
I feel like a meat eater choosing to eat less meat makes more of an impact tham a vegetarian choosing to move closer to vegan, regardless of the specifics.
Personally, though? I’m a vegetarian who eats eggs and dairy, and occasionally whem dining out I’ll go for seafood. And I had chicken once last year in a super specific and special case (revisiting an Indian restaurant in Dublin that I had visited years before when I was only avoiding “red meat”, the chicken 65 was so incredibly good that I gave in). And I tried one small bite of blood sausage in Finland while visiting a good friend in Tampere who ordered it.
Basically, at home, ovo-lacto. Dining out, occasional allowance for pescatarian. Maybe once-every-few-years I might consider trying some meat thing if it’s super, super compelling for whatever reasons.
And I hate leather, I go out of my way to avoid it when buying a car.
I would feel better about myself if I went full vegan though.
It doesn’t make you sick when you eat meat after not eating it for a few years?
I don’t think that happened to me, no
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 not vegetarian or vegan but in my mind eggs have always been fair game for vegetarians. It’s just vegans who skip animal by-products as well as meat.
If it tries to run away, I don’t eat it.
Take it by surprise, got it.
quickly shoos the family dog into the other room
Mrs Lovett agrees. Them pussy cats is quick.
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 :|
Someone knew you were a vegetarian, served you chicken broth with out saying anything, and then later acted surprised you ate it anyway? Wtf?
Yeah they forgot I was vegetarian until later lol. I’m not sure why they thought I could magically detect the stock in the broth though
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 don’t eat flesh. I do eat eggs, honey, and sometimes but rarely dairy. It is not a health condition, so if I end up accidentally eating something with meat in it I won’t get sick and if it was an accident I also won’t get upset with myself or anyone who gave the food to me.
Same here. I do eat eggs, honey and cheese.
I’m level 5 vegetarian with couple of missionary badges and gold stars for public protest. Next year I hope to adopt couple of old chickens and ascend to level 6.
Making a vegetarian dish for your friends without telling them and having all of them enjoy it and none of them go “Is this vegetarian?” Earns you a blackbelt.
I had people think there was legitimately crab in this recipe even though I told them before there wasn’t: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkVc5dN0eQ8
How much XP does it take to reach level 5?
This changes from guild to guild by mine follows the Old Denomination rules of Southern European Vegetarianism (Spanish branch) so it’s 75k points.
We had a re-birthing ceremony in my friend’s hot tub. I am now a Level Five Laser Lotus in my Reformed neo vegetarian community.
I can only speak for myself.
For me, it’s about harm reduction so not being perfect is OK with me as long as I’m trying. Now personally, that means if my cousin gives me eggs from her spoiled hens, that’s probably OK, but I don’t eat egg dishes when i go out (but paradoxically, I will eat a bun that has egg in it if there is not an alternative).
I eat cheese occasionally, but not if it has animal rennet in it. I rarely drink, but avoid clarified wines since they use isenglass in the processing.
I don’t eat gelatin or meat stocks or bullion. I also avoid leather in my clothing and prefer plant-based clothes over wools.I limit my dairy, not just for moral and environmental reasons but also since my tolerance for it has diminished with age. Before I went veggie I would drink a gallon of whole milk every week. When I stopped I felt so much better, my acne cleared up, my hair got less oily and my intestines were way happier with me.
I also take B12 supplements because I will often go long periods without having any animal products in my food.
TIL swim bladders from fish are used in the production of some alcoholic beverages. Thanks!
To me a everything that’s not part of or made from a part of an animal’s body is vegetarian. So no meat, bones, liver, gelatine etc. I would consider vegetarianism to be first and foremost a diet.
Veganism on the other hand is more like an ideology. It is the belief that no human has the right to exert control over another animal. So obviously a vegetarian diet that also excludes products that are obtained from animals, like eggs, milk, honey, leather, wool, etc. But also being against zoos, pets, working animals (such as police dogs) and other stuff like that. I think though that veganism is an ideology that requires nuance. It’s going to be basically impossible to be a “perfect” vegan and most probably wouldn’t go so far as to reject everything I listed, or would agree that compromises can be made for the greater good (for example I don’t believe police dogs should be a thing, but I wouldn’t want to take away a blind person’s dog and I can’t help but like pets).
tl;dr: If you eat meat or bones sometimes you’re by definition not a vegetarian and probably nobody is actually 100% vegan. It’s perfectly understandable that you’d call yourself a vegetarian to keep it simple, even if it’s only 95% true though. I certainly call myself vegan, even though it’s definitely less than 95% true.
