1 post tagged “semantics”

I'm not sure why this has been on my mind recently, but it has, so here goes:

I AM NOT A VEGETARIAN.

While it's true that I exclude beef, pork, and poultry from my diet, I do not exclude fish. I eat fish. Fish are animals. Eating animals means that I am not a vegetarian.

This is always such an awkward thing to explain to people, and I actually avoid bringing it up at all because really... who the hell cares about my diet? Also, I really hate when people tell any and everybody about their vegetarianism (even though they eat fish, and sometimes poultry!) as if it's going to win them cool points.

It usually comes up like this:

Someone offers me food.

Me: What's in it?

Them: blah, blah, and ham (or whatever)

Me: No thank you.

Them: Do you not like ham or blah, blah?

Me: *feeling very awkward and embarrassed* Uh... no... it's just... well, I don't eat meat.

Them: Oh! I didn't know you were a vegetarian.

Here is the part where I could just say, "Yeah," and be done with it, but something in me recoils at misrepresenting myself like that and I have to clarify. Which, by the way, generally clarifies nothing, and actually causes more confusion.

Me: Well, I'm not really a vegetarian; I eat fish.

Them: Oh. Well that's a type of vegetarian.

And here I concede.

Me: Yeah, I guess.

And there certainly are types of vegetarianism. Lacto-ovo, Lacto, Ovo, and Veganism. My diet isn't consistent with any of these, therefore excluding me from being a vegetarian - of any type.

My husband has pointed out that Wikipedia (his favorite reference) defines my diet as pescetarianism, and I'll agree to that. However, I don't think that will clear anything up with other people either. First of all, who the hell wants to say, "I'm a pescetarian?" Not me. And second of all, even if I did say that when trying to explain my diet, I'm fairly certain that the most common response would be, "What?"

So I guess the awkwardness of explaining my diet will go on, but at least I got it off my chest here.