There have been countless times that vegetarians have heard this comeback (and its companion retort “...but you eat chicken, don’t you?”), and it still seems strange to me that so many people don’t consider fish and chicken to be animals simply because they do not produce “red meat.” Didn’t they ever play that game 20 Questions that lays out the three basic “animal, vegetable or mineral” categories? Let’s break it down into really simple terms: Fish and chicken aren’t rocks, and fish and chicken aren’t vegetables, so they must be animals. And vegetarians don’t eat animals.

Pretty simple logic, it would seem, but there’s now a special name for every variation on vegetarianism. “Pesco-vegetarians” eat fish but not other animals. “Pollo-vegetarians” eat chickens but not other animals. There’s even something called “flexitarian,” or someone who eats vegetarian most of the time but not always. These terms are all misnomers. Let me repeat: Vegetarians don’t eat animals. That’s the definition of vegetarian. So you can’t eat fish and still be vegetarian. You can’t eat chicken and still be vegetarian. If you eat animals in addition to vegetables, you are not a vegetarian of any type - you are an omnivore.

Why should we care what people label themselves with regard to their food choices? If someone calls herself a vegetarian and then eats chicken, it sends the message that other vegetarians think it’s okay to eat chickens. It makes it difficult for true vegetarians who have to constantly define what should be a fairly straightforward viewpoint. It creates fodder for opponents of vegetarianism who like to point out hypocrisies in an effort to discredit the entire notion of animal rights.

I’m not sure what the solution is. The people who are using these terms are not animal rights advocates or they wouldn’t be eating animals, so it probably will be difficult to get them to stop using these terms. I don’t want to discourage people from increasing the amount of vegetarian foods they eat, but I also don’t want people to be misleading about what vegetarianism really is. If you’ve got any ideas, please post your comments.