The Meaning of Strict

Today I was listening to Emril Lagasse's Emril Green, a green cooking show on Planet Green.  Because it's simply background noise as I sit here typing, communing and working, I miss a lot of what's happening.  But in the episode I was listening to I heard the words strict vegetarian.  I was intrigued because I was curious to know what the hell Emril was going to make for this "strict vegetarian."  As it turns out, although she and her mother consider her to be a strict vegetarian, she's not.  She eats seafood.   So to be pricise, then, she's a pesco-vegetarian.  So my question is this.  What is the meaning of strict vegetarian?

Yes, this is a blog about veganism.  So my contention is that she is not a strict vegetarian or for that matter a vegetarian.  But then I thought about vegetarianism as a concept.  Although there is debate, especially from vegans, about the kinds of vegetarianism--vegans would say that there is only one--I decided to examine these definitions.



The following is a list of the commonly known types of vegetarianism:

1. Vegetarian
2. Pesco-Vegetarian (or pescetarian)
3. Ovo-Lacto Vegetarian and these variants:
1. Ovo Vegetarian
2. Lacto Vegetarian
4. Strict Vegetarian
5. Vegan

Now we could state that there is no difference between a strict vegetarian and a vegan, but I make the distinction by describing a strict vegetarian as someone who consumes nothing whatsoever from an animal, and by consume I mean eat and drink.  This does not preclude wearing (or using in some other way than eating and drinking) things made from animals.  I don't actually know anyone in this category or if this is even a category of vegetarianism.

And of course we know that a vegan is a strict vegetarian is one that eschews anything made from animals, whether it be for health reasons and/or moral reasons.  Of course one could argue that a vegan for health reasons only is not a vegan, but rather simply a strict vegetarian.

So the point of all of this is that when one is describing herself as a vegetarian, she should qualify this so that we can be clear and then decide for ourselves whether her assertion is true or false given whatever meaning of vegetarian you choose.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Kick It Up a Notch with Planet Green Tonight: Emeril Green Premiers!
• Vegetarianism and Your Health
• Vegetarianism Has Many Benefits
• Vegetarian and Vegan Websites

Ethics and Veganism, Part I

Today I was watching the food network and thinking how disappointed I was that they aren't vegan-friendly and their coverage of vegetarian topics and recipes is very much lacking.  But, to be fair, some of the programs do make a point, albeit seldomly, to present some vegetarian dishes, or at the very least, mention how one can convert a dish to be vegetarian. And more recently they have begun to add more vegetarian recipes to their web site.  For fun, however, I enjoy watching and trying to figure out how I could convert various recipes into vegan recipes. For example, it seems to be easy to think of ways to "veganize" pasta and rice dishes.

The particular food network show that I had been watching is called Throwdown with Bobby Flay. He was trying to outdo in a jerk chicken throwdown the cookbook and children's book author, Angela Shelf Medearis. Among her works is a book titled The Ethnic Vegetarian.  I am not reviewing the book here because I have only read the Amazon.com excerpt.  But when I heard about this book on the show, I was surprised to discover that Medearis herself is not a vegetarian--hence the jerk chicken. Her other cookbooks are not vegetarian books, which is not to say that they contain no vegetarian recipes, because they do. In fact, if you read their reviews at Amazon and browse their contents, you'll find some vegetarian recipes.

So as I contemplated this I wondered. Is it not hypocritical for an author who is not a vegetarian to write a cookbook on vegetarian food? To me this did seem hypocritical.  But as I wrote this I realized that I was sounding ridiculous. Certainly it's alright if she does.  But what if the book contains not only information about vegetarian nutrition, but also espouses the virtues of a vegetarian diet diet in regards to it being cruelty free? This is what seemed to me to be hypocritical, but because I haven't read her book to know if she writes on the ethical topic of being vegetarian, I decided instead to engage myself in a smal thought experiment (my favorite pastime) about a hypothetical author and her cookbooks.

So, would it be hypocritical, then, if this was the case? But more importantly, as an ethical vegan, should one purchase such books? If I purchased this hypothetical vegetarian cookbook which, according to some reviewers, had a number of vegan recipes, would I not be supporting someone who exploits animals by writing about non-vegetarian food as well as consuming it?

I think that I would be a hypocrite if I bought this book, and I think it would be ethically wrong to do such a thing. I think that by contributing money to an author like this that I, indirectly, would be encouraging her to do more of the same. But I wonder, what do other people think about this? Certainly if one tried to live his life by conforming totally to Ahimsa (a Sanskrit word meaning non-violence), he would probably become a hermit living in the woods or a cave wearing only hemp, eating only those things that caused no harm to animal or insect alike. He might very well stop shaving and cutting his hair so that he wouldn't have to disturb the critters living in his beard and hair; perhaps he might even stop bathing.

But regardless of the degree of veganism and non-violence you decided to practice, ask yourself this: do you want to be a hypocrite or a hermit or something in between? 

Related articles by Zemanta

• Meat-free Cooking Goes Mainstream
• Why Eat a Vegetarian Diet?
• A Practical Guide for Activists
• Food Network features new Vegetarian recipes