After reading a thread on atkinsfriends site, this made me wonder.

There was some heated discussion on a vegetarian thread of eating cheese with animal rennet vs. cheese without rennet, and whether one could be considered a "true" vegetarian if they ate animal rennet in cheese, etc.

They kissed and made up (sorta), but it made me wonder how intolerant we are of each other, depending on our varying degrees of vegetarianism.

I am a lacto ovo vegetarian. I eat do eat cheese that does contain animal rennet, and I eat eggs that are not always free range. I just do the best I can, and respect others like vegans and semi-vegetarians who eat fish.

I guess I've learned that I'm so imperfect, I don't want to be so judgemental of others.

How 'bout you?

Hi Spirit!!

I saw that same thread you are talking about and I thought it was ridiculous. I'm really glad we are not like that on this site. To argue about who is the 'purest' vegetarian I think is a bit over kill. I see enough vegetarian bashing on these sites as it is, that I don't think we need to start bashing each other on what may or may not contain an element of an animal.

It does irk me a little when people call themselves a full fledged vegetarian and eat fish, but no matter the type of eggs you eat and so forth I really think it is up to personal preference.

Love not hate!

there are zillion topics about this on veggieboards.com

maybe vegan, laco-veg, ovo-lacto-veg, ovo-veg, and pesco**** (those who eat fish) are more clear labels for those who care. But seriously, fish/fowl-eating folks are just not vegetarians. It great that they are trying to reduce, though.

oh, I am lacto-vegetarian but more like a nut-head

Very good thread here. It's funny really how all of us come to being vegetarians. We all had different stories that first led us to our choices in the first place so it makes sense that our degree of vegetarianism would differ as well. I actually do eat some fish since I found out I was pregnant because my doctor asked me too. I of course eat small amounts and usually end up feeling sick about it but at the same time there are medical reasons involved that made her ask. Anyways, that is a story of it's own. As for the vegetarianism and tollerance....

I started off on this journey as a full fledged vegetarain when I was pregnant with my second child. By the time I had him, I had branched into a full fledged vegan. I was involved with a small organization for animal rights and actually was a supporter of PETA. Not too long after that I was leaning more towards fruitarian as I would sit in my garden and start to feel guilty for the plants I was about to pick. Sometimes I wouldn't eat for days just because anything I put in my mouth made me feel like a bad person. As I was getting more 'conscious' my health was starting to suffer. I wouldn't touch clothing, soap, sugar or anything I was afraid might have any trace of animal. But I was also driving myself crazy obsessing over every last thing. So not only physically but mentally it was taking a toll on me.

When I started to notice that my children who were following my eating habits weren't looking so healthy I had to snap out of it and make a change. I personally couldn't let my children suffer because of my tendancies to take something too far. I know it can probably be done in a healthy way but I obviously wasn't doing it right even though I tried. In some ways I felt better as a person with all my 'good deeds' but in other ways I felt horrible and so confined afraid of everything because society is just not run the way I was living.

In the end I know I feel for me that being a vegetarian is right. I don't plan on eating seafood once my pregnancy is over. But I also can't let my obsession and thinking through every food process get to me like it once did.

Everyone has a different story. Everyone has to live with what they feel comfortable with in the end. For some people that means anything goes. I have a family mixed with vegetarians, vegans and full blown meat eaters. We had some major head butting over the years, especially around holidays, but in the end we had to learn to love each other in spite of our different choices.
My husband is not less of a person even though he eats meat. He is just doing what he is comfortable with. He is the one that has to live with his decisions, not me. Maybe one day something will happen to make him change his stand. It happened to all of us... something along the way changed. It's possible that those who are today sitting and eating steaks by the pound might be eating tofu in the future. So I refuse to judge.

Jenn

I agree completely with the sentiment that there's enough vegetarian bashing from people who aren't, or who don't think making personal food choices is appropriate--no need to incorporate that attitude into how we treat each other (or anyone else for that matter!)

Just a small point, however...
I grew up Roman Catholic. In college in the mid-70s I spent a year keeping a full-tilt, orthodox Jewish kosher kitchen before that roomie decided it would be better for her schedule to take her meals on campus. Both Catholicism (all variations) and Judiasm have a long tradition of considering eating fish 'meatless.' On Catholic fast days, I was by religion abstaining from meat, even when I ate tuna casserole. I had a collection of Jewish friends who considered themselves vegetarians, because the fishes they were permitted were pareve...neither meat nor dairy.

These are religious traditions I never questioned, nor had questioned, until like the early 90s...when eating vegetarian seemed to take a peculiar political twist and some people started to get a little too holier-than-thou about their ethical eating choices versus everyone else's. I found it absurd then, as I do now. It's not like we have a secret handshake or a membership card that defines vegetarianism, and I don't think you can do it on the pure science of sentient life either--we don't really know enough about life. Everyone has to make his/her own menu choices based on traditions, religion, economics, etc. And what it boils down to when defining vegetarianism is what your traditions, religion and economics, among other things, define--lacking a international set of standards to which all humans without question subscribe.

YMMV, but at least we should all be able to agree that there are many more important things in this world than defining and applying the label of 'true vegetarian,' which is a meaningless appellation at best.

I work in a staffroom which includes a vegan. He rants on about the hypocritical lacto and pesco vegitarians in our staffroom who keep the veal industry going because they consume dairy etc.

They seem to be the true object of his loathing.

I am a carnivorous Atkinsite and propably eat twice as much meat as anyone else in the staffroom. And he and I get on just fine. Life (and people) are strange.

I've got weird views on vegetarianism.

6 years ago I went vegan, all the way - no wool or leather, as well as the obvious meat + bi-products. After two years I got sick of reading all food labels, and having to know every single ingredient. So I became Lacto/Ovo, which I have remained since then.

I can see why your work friend may find L/O vegetarians hypocrytical, because most I know still wear leather and use products that are directly linked to the death of an animal.

I personally find this a bit strange.

But it would be a bit silly to actually hold it against anyone.

I think the point of the original post was to help (not bash) vegetarians who might not know that the cheese they eat contains animal byproducts. I remember being horrified when I found out about that, and I was glad that someone passed the knowledge on to me, since product labeling had obviously not been sufficient.

The poster did give very helpful, specific info about how to identify which cheeses are made with animal vs. vegetable/microbial rennet, and even made recommendations about brands and stores -- an *informative* post, rather than just an opinion or a flame.

It's true that there are a lot of holier-than-thou vege/vegans, but not everyone who mentions rennet is one of them.

If you're referring to my post, perhaps you'd like to point out where I was being hard on anyone? I'd hate to be misunderstood.(not like that ever happens on an internet forum

I said it would be silly to hold someone's dietary beliefs against them.

I'm really not a preachy or self-righteous person. Well at least not when it comes to this issue.

Hi tribal,

No, I wasn't meaning to single you or anyone else out; I think I misunderstood what original post spirit was referring to, and I just got concerned that the thread was getting kind of carried away into "those annoying purist vegetarians" -- we all know plenty of those, no doubt! But when the thread stops responding to the info in the OP and turns into everyone sharing their stories about those bossy types, then the original poster kind of gets branded, even if his/her post was meant to be informative. But, like I said, I think I mistook spirit's reference, so what I posted didn't quite make sense. Sorry, didn't mean to jump on anyone!

We are all doing better than those meat eaters, who want stop eating any of it!!

I consider all animals to be meat (as I think the dictionary definition would say), so I find it annoying when people say that they are vegetarian BUT eat fish or chicken. I don't have anything against them for eating fish or chicken (the fact that they aren't eating beef is excellent in my book); I just wish they would 'fess up to the fact that they are not vegetarian. I think that there should be better terms for this gray area. "Pollo vegetarian", for example, is contradictory. I like the term pescetarian because it addressed fish specifically. To my knowledge, there is no similar term like that for people who eat birds.

As for the rennet issue...I find it (and the related veal industry) disturbing, but it hasn't kept me from consuming cheese or milk. I wish that the cheese industry would use rennet from other sources since it's available.

I think eating fish only is a step in the right direction.

As I said before i have some weird view on vegetarianism, I am vegetarian for ethical reasons only, I am not grossed out by meat, or the idea of eating meat.

It is the current farming system I disagree with (the chicken industry is the cruelest of them all), so by only eating fish I guess you partially side-step that issue.

I read up on the vegetarians plans, the Pesco one just fit the lifestyle eating plan I was doing, no offense, but it is better for me I wasn't never a big meat eater, so bear with us!

I would not call it side steping, my choice!!