Nutrition

Vegetarian Differences in Practice

February 13, 2014 /

Vegetarian differences vary a bit between many people who call themselves vegetarian. There are those who eat their diets based on moral or philosophical reasons. There are those that eat based on health concerns. Some have obvious allergies or react badly to different foods. There are those that eat according to religious ideologies. There are a few technical terms for the vegetarian differences if you want to go look them up. There are lacto and ovo and pesco etc. etc. etc.

Vegetarian Differences might be as colorful as this bowl of goodness
Vegetarian Differences might be as colorful as this bowl of goodness

If you go to the message boards and other places where people can leave comments you’ll find quite a few opinions about vegetarian differences. One problem you might find is a certain level of elitism and snobbery. I’ve posted before here about how unhelpful such attitudes are EXAMPLE POST. I’d like to offer only positive, helpful suggestions if at all possible. Please remember that if you feel the need to comment below.

First of all, let’s separate ourselves from the typical “Western Diet” where breakfast might be a half dozen eggs and as many or more slices of bacon. Add in pancakes slathered with butter and fake maple syrup. Have a mid-morning snack of a Canadian bacon and egg biscuit. Have a lunch of fast-food quad cheese burger with fries deep-fried in non-transfat lard. Dinner could be a steak, or pot roast, or ham. I’m sure you get the idea there.

My opinion is that anything you can do to break free of the traditional American eating pattern is great. Many people who don’t eat “normally” do consider themselves vegetarian. That’s what leads to some of the conflict between the different types of vegetarians.

Vegetarian Differences Outlined:

  • You eat nothing but plant materials
  • Above and honey
  • Above and dairy
  • Above and eggs
  • Above and fish
  • Above and poultry
  • Above and the very rare occasional mammalian meat

I’ll also mention a couple of the more extreme examples:

  • You eat nothing but plant materials that killed themselves by jumping off the mother plant
  • You eat nothing but plant materials that involved no level of human or animal slavery

So as you can see there are quite a few vegetarian differences to explore on your way to fitness and health. I myself make no level of judgement, and consider that anyone eating a balanced healthy diet with the intent of continuous improvement is just awesome and needs to be encouraged. Taunts of “you’re not a real vegetarian” are not helpful. If you have an agenda in promoting any of the vegetarian differences in the above bullet-points, then relax and slowly encourage your friends. Don’t shut them down with strong opinions stated in a way they can only accept as rude.

Vegetarian Differences: a blender full of fruit gracing the cover of my diet plan book
Vegetarian Differences: a blender full of fruit gracing the cover of my diet plan book

In my book The 100 Calorie Diet Plan [MORE INFO] I explain my plan with encouragement to reduce your reliance on meat products. Getting a lot of your calories from meat within a portion control system can be difficult. How do you feel? Have you tried it? How did it work for you? Let me know…