Mentions of vegetarianism

[jack]

Fish eggs

After seeing most all varieties of being proselytized at through my life, a friend (fishpi) is to be congratulated for finding an argument to which I really did respond "Hm, yes, you're right, I hadn't thought of it like that. I'm going to change my conviction on that topic."

Specifically, I'd never thought about fish eggs, just assumed without thinking they would be non-vegetarian. Fishpi pointed out in passing that they should be equally as acceptable as hens eggs, and he's perfectly right. (To be accurate, I think he just posed the question.)

Of course, it's completely moot, since fish eggs are always gathered by killing, or at least operating on, a fish. But in principle I changed my mind. (I was particularly touched that both he and I, after this passing mention, went to look up whether fish eggs ever were considered vegetarian over the next week.)

There is a product marketed as vegetarian caviare, which is slightly ambiguous: I think everyone understands that to be a non-animalia substitute, although a more literal reading might lead you to suppose it was humanely-gathered actual caviare :)

Contamination

When I was willing to eat food that's touched meat may seem inconsistent, but when I considered it, it wasn't particularly logical, but nor was it very unusual: it conforms exactly to when I'd be willing to eat food contaminated by, eg., a probably-clean table or floor.

That is, I'd not eat food that's been mixed with contamination, and would always prefer not to eat food that's been touched by contamination. And if I were more scrupulous or fastidious, I wouldn't, but as it happens, I'm happy to just ignore touching if it looks ok.

That's not a golden rule, it's just a self-analysis of how I happen to feel, which changes over time, but if you've ever wondered why on earth I did think like that, that analogy might provide intuitive if not analytical understanding :)

Vegetarian majority

I still notice, in passing, whenever a group of friends chances to be majority vegetarian. Tonight at bridge was 4:3 in favour. It's nice that it's common enough that I rarely do notice, I certainly can't remember very precisely who else is vegetarian.

Comments

[ravingglory.livejournal.com]

I generality remember what people eat -- it's a talent or something.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

:)

[pizza.maircrosoft.com (from livejournal.com)]

Our cycling campaign has a disproportionate number of vegetarians. Not really surprising, perhaps.

The last refuge of the unimaginative...

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

Surely the closest thing to being 'consistent' as a vegetarian is to stop trying to be consistent?

Most vegetables, herbs etc. are 'contaminated' with whole insects and/or insect parts - we ingest loads of the things, and there's not really any limit to the measures we could take to reduce the number we do ingest.

I can't think of any reason for vegetarianism that requires 'consistency' apart from ones to do with ritual purity, which I tend to find a bit suspect, and yet I know people who have given it up because they are sometimes in a situation where vegetarian would be very difficult/inconvenient/unhealthy, and think that refusing to eat dead animals in other situations would make them a hypocrite! This is just crazy if you're vegetarian for animal rights or welfare reasons.

Also, Annoying Omnivores tend to try to catch vegetarians out on the grounds of inconsistency, and it's fun to laugh at them and say you don't care about consistency and watch them splutter and get confused.

Re: The last refuge of the unimaginative...

[fishpi.livejournal.com]

I think I'm justified in annoyance at capricious inconsistency when it turns out in practice to be one-sided. For example, I can imagine vegetarians being less fastidious about their own food prep than they will allow me to be when preparing food for them. I don't recall this happening with any vegetarian I know, but if it did I'd be annoyed.

I also tend to feel that people should be consistent if they're proslytising, at least to the extent that they are proselytising. Maybe demanding consistency here isn't necessary, but it doesn't seem unreasonable.

Sincerely,

Annoying Omnivore

Re: The last refuge of the unimaginative...

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Vegetarians can definitely be annoying too :)

(I think that was more about consistency between different foods, than consistency across time.) And that the point is that you naturally expect someone holding a belief or practice to have considered it (and be annoyed if they seem to claim to X, but not act as if X). But if you think something, people often act as if you have to have all the answers to it, or you don't have a right to think about it at all.

Like, I imagine meeting some remote cannibalistic tribe and trying to explain morals of murder, etc, to them, and them coming up with ethical thought experiments about run-away hypothetical mining carts, and concluding that I hadn't really thought this no-murder thing through, and chucking the whole idea out :)

I don't think this was about me, but if I'm proslytising, (which, as you know, I normally only do when an interesting argument seems afoot), I'd expect to be asked questions about atheism/vegetarianism, etc. But conversely, I'd hope "I'm still thinking about that" to be accepted sometimes.

And I definitely empathise with the relief of for once not being judged :)

Re: The last refuge of the unimaginative...

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, exactly.

[stephdairy.livejournal.com]

Do you eat mushrooms? Or, as we might call them, your fellow opisthokonts?

(S) (gently trolling)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

:)

When Mum met Rachel they discovered, apart from being too nice to try to overly embarrass me, that a lot of the stories of young-Jack are, to be honest, still pretty applicable today: apparently my pedantry was more prominent than my youthful ignorance, even when I was little and ignorant :)

Mum: Don't you want to eat your vegetables?
Me: Mushrooms aren't vegetables! They're not even the same kingdom.

(Mum, Rachel: do you remember if I have that quote right?)

And for the record, yes, lots and lots! Fall into my maw, helpless dark-place fungiods! I (and I think most moral vegetarians) wouldn't even have a problem with sponges :)

[rcv1.livejournal.com]

Mum: Don't you want to eat your vegetables?

I think it was more like:
Mum: Eat your vegetables!
etc.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Probably; then it's more or less right. I wrote that first, and then I thought maybe I'd remembered the anecdote as if that was too peremptory, so I toned it down a bit, but I'm not sure "don't you want" is really different.

[pizza.maircrosoft.com (from livejournal.com)]

wouldn't even have a problem with sponges

you chew 'em for ages and then get bits stuck in your teeth...

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

:) I meant, "in principle", I did forget to say that.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

I would eat unfertilized fish eggs if they could be removed from the animal without harming it and the animals were kept in a suitably ethically sound way. I'm not at all sure that is possible, though - even if they could be removed from the animal without harming, I remain to be convinced that fish farming of any kind can be ethically sound because of the lack of long term sustainability.

Regarding the contamination issue: I think that vegetarians who are OK with contamination make it harder for those who are stricter, in just the same way that pescetarians who claim to be vegetarian make it harder for vegetarians. Of course it's a matter of personal preference and neither is the one true way and morally superior or anything like that, just something that non-fussy people should consider carefully. (Of course, I mainly care about contamination because I am sick to the back teeth of being made violently ill because of [as it happens, not-meat] contamination :-(.)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I would eat unfertilized fish eggs if ... I'm not at all sure that is possible, though

No, I doubt it.

Regarding the contamination issue: I think that vegetarians who are OK with contamination make it harder for those who are stricter,

Yeah, good point. Thank you for putting that well (and politely :))

If I ever turn into someone who has a beefburger occasionally, but likes to think of themselves as vegetarian (God forbid, it seems pointless and counterproductive and almost certainly hypocritical to me, although I suppose might be understandable for someone vegetarian for health reasons) I'd say I was mostly vegetarian, hopefully conveying that I'm normally vegetarian, but not always, rather than trying to pretend that what I'd become was vegetarian.

As it is, I really hope that no-one says "Well, it's ok if I drop the food on the [barbecue ash], so I'll always do it" :)

[pavanne.livejournal.com]

The trouble with being utterly consistent as a vegetarian is that something, somewhere, dies for your animal products. Even eggs laid by my family's pet ducks - there's fish oil in organic waterfowl layer pellets, and we have to offload a few spare drakes every year at the market, otherwise the duckpen would be a scene of great social unrest in the springtime.

So it's a compromise position, and from my point of view basically for convenience so I don't need to explain about trophic levels and the horrors of battery farming whenever I'm declining to share a meat dish or making dinner party arrangements. It annoys me when people who've never thought of the ethical implications of their consumer decisions, question the consistency of a label adopted mainly for simplicity.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah. For a while I knew some vegans, who had had to do enough research to realise that whatever they did, was very definitely a compromise, and so became more understanding of compromises.

I'm always annoyed (maybe unfairly) by people who claim vegetarian is what they are, but apparently don't mean what they say, but by now it's sufficiently common that someone might eat vegetarian for the purposes of dining, or temporarily, or for any number of reasons, that picking at it is just so very presumptive.