Pescetarians are not vegetarians?

Question

I am a pescetarian. I have done many many hours of research! Pescetarians are not vegetarians, and I can honestly say that. I respect vegetarians choice for no meat. I personally think, fish's brains are too tiny to even know what's going on...(even though I only eat shrimp and scallop, no fish) I have never, and will never call myself a vegetarian. I guess my question is, what do you guys think about the situation?

I am glad there are people who don't get mad at my choice. I am proud of being a pescetarian, because it's who I am. :]

Answer 1

pleased for you, please try to help the other precetarians understand they are not vegetarians, they don't listen to us.

I've no problem with whatever people eat so no need to ask for my opinion on it.

Once again, today i've been slagged off by yahoo message for saying a fish eater wasn't a veggie - some people have so much to learn. I hope they do so from you.

Personally, i also have also done research and feel that suffocating to death in a ships hold is not the way to die. Just me, some people think its ok and if they are cool with it, 'tis up to them. I've also seen fish landed on a hook and its obvious they are in pain or feel fear, why else would they tense up and writh about. But, like i say, if you can live with it, good on ya.

"Vennette"...are you also "glad" that 10 people gave you thumbs down, or are we choosing to be selective today to meet our own needs ?? Its a shame that you haven't enabled your email because we could send you all the evidence you need to make an informed decision on whether vegetarians eat fish. But if you do get to read this, try seeing what THE world recognised leaders on vegetarian issues ahev to say about it.....http://www.vegsoc.org/fish/

Answer 2

Fish are animals. Vegetarians do not eat animals. Is you eat fish but no other meat, you are pescetarian. You are NOT vegetarian. If you're not feeling 'weak' either you're not eating a balanced diet or there is some other problem. You can be perfectly healthy on a pescetarian, vegetarian or vegan diet - it just depends on whether you're eating properly or not. Just eat plenty of fruit and veg, grains and legumes. It's not difficult at all to get all your nutrients on a pescetarian or vegetarian diet.

Answer 3

I'm glad you realize you aren't a vegetarian. Thank you. I've come to terms with the word "flexitarian," but I still prefer meat reducer to describe someone who only eats certain types of animal flesh and/or is trying to reduce his/her consumption of flesh foods.

That said, fish may have teeny tiny brains, but they do feel pain. And someone else pointed out the bycatch and the devastation of the oceans caused by seafood consumption. If you eat farmed seafood, it's even worse, as many of the seafood "farms" are contaminated by the waste of the animals. Many types of seafood may also be tainted by mercury and other industrial poisons.

I haven't seen many, but there are faux seafood options around. I know that Worthington makes canned fake scallops, and I've eaten fake shrimp (made from yam protein) at a few restaurants.

www.vegieworld.com also has fake shrimp and other faux meats. I haven't tried any of them, so I don't know how good they are.

And www.veganstore.com has the Worthington "Skallops," along with tons of other cool vegan items.

Answer 4

Well, I think it's good you know the difference between vegetarians and fish-eaters, and that you've reduced your meat consumption to the extent you have. Woo! I also think the confusion stems from a big mixed-up history of etymology, including several meanings of the word "meat". I'm vegan myself, and now even that's starting to get misused. I'm hoping the misinformation lessens as time goes by and people do more research.

Answer 5

I am glad that you are choosing to cause less harm in the world (and not falsely calling yourself a vegetarian) but have you really thought your decision through?

Bycatch is a huge problem. When they are fishing for shrimp other animals are caught as well. I heard the ratio is 14 bycatch creatures for every 1 shrimp caught. Often the bycatch are sea turtles.

Overfishing is devastating to the oceans. We are removing all the food for other creatures such as seals, dolphins and sea birds who need it and have no other choice unlike humans.

Plus shrimp is loaded with cholesterol and that vein you pull out of them before you eat them is not a vein at all but their digestive tract. Even though I am not sure to what extent they feel pain I would prefer to err on the side of caution and just not eat any animal.

Sorry - I know this isn't what you were looking for when you posted this question but I just couldn't help myself. You are SO close to vegetarian - you should just go for it! :)

Answer 6

I'm happy to see someone who eats fish (or in your case shellfish) and has the brains not to call themself "almost vegetarian" or "vegetarian, but I eat fish". I never understood how people thought they could get away with calling themselves vegetarians when they still ate fish. It's as if they think its a low enough life form for it to be included with plants?! Wtf?

Anyway, thanks for calling yourself pescetarian and not vegetarian.

Answer 7

well, even though it is not an all-or-nothing type of thing, pescetarians are not vegetarians (in my opinion, at least), and i'm glad you're intelligent enough to not just going around calling yourself one. i've met "vegans" who eat meat sometimes because they're hungry. bull. but, to conclude my mini-rant, i'm glad you're at least doing something for the animals/enviroment/yourself. =)

Answer 8

i think it is really great that u call urself by the proper term. im vegetarian and i dont believe in eating fish but i think its good that u stopped eating other meat.

Answer 9

I personally don't care what someone eats... as long as they don't bother me about what I choose to eat.

BUT I don't like the word pescetarian. For one thing, the actual word, if interpreted literally, doesn't make sense... especially if you are referring to a dietary choice. The other reason I hate words like pescetarian, pesce-vegetarian, etc. is because they blur the line between meat-eater and vegetarian.

People might defend the use of the word pescetarian by saying, "I'm not calling myself a vegetarian, I specifically call myself a PESCETARIAN." I have a couple problems with this argument:

a. Like I said earlier by using this word (a word that sounds like vegetarian) it confuses the people who don't know the difference even more by associating the word with vegetarian just by the way it sounds.

b. The word, if interpreted literally, doesn't make sense if you are referring to a dietary choice. Here is why... If you look at the literal meaning of "vegetarian" you'd see the root "vege" coming from the Latin word "Vegetus" Meaning healthy, lively, and vigorous. And then that root is paired with the Latin suffix "-arian" meaning believer in, advocate of, indicates a lifestyle. Together vegetarian literally means, "Healthy Lifestyle" or if defined further you could look at it as "A vegetarian is someone who creates a healthy, LIVELY lifestyle by eliminating dead things (animals --meat) from their diet."
If you define the word Pescetarian literally (the same way I just defined vegetarian) you’ll have the root "Pesce" (which is SPANISH/ ITALIAN?? and not Latin) meaning fish... paired with the latin “-arian". This would literally come out to mean "Fishy Lifestyle" or "Believer of fish"... as you can guess... this is obviously not the best word to describe a dietary choice...
If you wanted to correctly (using the Latin root piscis and the latin suffix -arian) call yourself a "Believer of fish" you would want the word "Piscarian" this still would not describe a dietary choice... it would mean that you believe in fish.
If you wanted to call yourself a fish-eater... the best word for that would be "Piscivore" literally meaning "Fish-eating animal". This would be the best word to describe a dietary choice in which you eat fish.

c. (finally) you might argue that the word pescetarian was created as an easy way for a fish-eating person that eats "mostly vegetarian" with the exception of fish to describe their diet... And that it is a neologism that was never meant to be interpreted literally, but rather just a funny little combination of words that makes it easy to describe your diet.
Here is my argument against that point.
Ok, so maybe "pescetarian" was never meant to be interpreted literally...
I'd still say to compare the way society defines a vegetarian (as someone that doesn’t eat meat(including fish) with or without the consumption dairy/eggs) with the way society might define pescetarian... it is really just the combination of the words fish and vegetarian...
Whether people want to acknowledge it or not... the "word" pescetarian... is just a shortened version of the "word" pesce-vegetarian... which would mean fish eating vegetarian... I don't think that anyone in their right mind would argue that the term "fish-eating vegetarian" is not an oxymoron. It would mean a meat-eating vegetarian... that is very contradicting.
If someone doesn't agree with the use of the word pesce-vegetarian... then they shouldn't agree with the use of pescetarian... since they are basically the same word.

And I'd just like to add that vegetarianism for most of us is a lifestyle choice rather than just some diet... so when we hear things like vegetarians eat fish (meat) it is actually insulting (to me at least).

I am just giving my opinion, and you asked us for our opinions. You obviously mean no harm in asking this question, and by calling yourself a pescetarian. From what I can see... you seem like a very nice person. I just hope I wasn't too b*tchy while presenting my opinion (I guess I come off that way sometimes). I can tell that you don't mean any harm by using the term pescetarian... My point is that it doesn’t matter how you describe your diet, if you are associating fish-eating with vegetarianism... in the end no matter how many times you explain to people that you are NOT a vegetarian... it is still going to cause more confusion in the already misunderstood subject of vegetarianism.
I just feel that people shouldn't call themselves something they are not. Or (for that matter) associate themselves with a belief that they don’t follow. It confuses people. Again I don't want to make it like I am attacking you, since you seem very nice. I am just stating how I feel.

The end :]

Answer 10

It is a good healthy way to be. I don't eat beef or pork. I do eat chicken and fish. Eating fish is a great source of protein.