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.
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.
Thanks for the explanation. When I started being a vegetarian it was a similar situation; not a bet, more of a “let’s see if I can do this”.