There’s a risk that, when explaining you’re a (for instance) seasonally-focused, raw food, lacto-non-ovo-vegetarian, you’re going to get the kinds of raised eyebrows you see in certain coffee shops when someone at the front orders a tall, skinny, dry, double shot, extra hot, soya, vanilla cappuccino.

Which ethical food camps are there, which one are you in and why?

Focusing for now on diet choices motivated by ethics rather than health / nutritional benefits, these seem to be the options, arranged in ‘ascending order of passion’. We’ve made up some of the names ourselves. Have we missed any gradations that you can think of?

1.    Flexitarian
2.    “High-ethics” Flexitarian
3.    Pescetarian
4.    Vegetarian (Lacto-ovo, or Lacto-non-ovo)
5.    “High-ethics” Vegetarian including the “seasonal” Vegetarian
6.    Food-only Vegan
7.    “High-ethics” Vegan

What?!

So Flexitarianism is the name given to those folks who still like to eat meat, but who (perhaps for ethical reasons) are eating much less of it and who regularly opt for vegetarian meals at home and when they eat out. Reducing meat consumption is seen as an ethical choice because of both the animal welfare and environmental impact concerns associated with agriculture, especially large agri-business (see “References” for background information).

A “High-ethics” Flexitarian (we’ve made this name up ourselves!) has adopted a primarily but not entirely meat free diet. This choice is one “passion step” up from simply reducing amounts of meat consumed. When a “High-ethics” Flexitarian buys meat, he tends to shop for meat from a local source and is likely to be concerned about animal welfare standards. As well as cutting his carbon footprint by shopping locally / avoiding imported meat he’ll also probably be keen to stick with organic labels, and this will be true across the range of other produce he buys – he’ll be an ethical consumer “in general”. Where food is imported, he’ll look for Fairtrade certifications, sea rather than air freighting, recycled and recyclable packaging, and will try to avoid items with ingredients like palm oil and high fructose corn syrup the production of which is heavily linked to environmental damage (see “References”).

A Pescetarian won’t eat meat or poultry but will eat fish. The decision to adopt this diet is traditionally a nutritional decision driven by the desire to reduce cholesterol and increase Omega-3s and maintain protein intake. Ethically, it is sometimes suggested that fish don’t feel pain and therefore there are less welfare issues to take into consideration. This claim was debunked in the 80s by the RSPCA although slaughter regulations still do not apply to fish. Environmentally, some choose to become pescetarians as a stepped change on the way to vegetarianism.

A Vegetarian is someone who eats no flesh of any kind. Some vegetarians do eat dairy and eggs and are sometimes specifically described as “lacto-ovo” vegetarians. Some eat eggs and no dairy, some eat dairy and no eggs. We’re sure you can play with the Latin yourself to work out what they could be described as!

A “High-ethics” Vegetarian, like the “High-ethics” Flexitarian, is interested in the myriad ways of reducing her carbon footprint, environmental impact and involvement in poor animal welfare practices. She will shop organic, fair-trade, sea-not-air freighted, seasonal-only, local-only, recycled recyclable packaging, and try to avoid processed produce with ingredients associated with environmental damage. Consuming only or mostly seasonal food, and especially seasonal and local produce (see “References”), is associated with reducing the carbon footprint necessitated by transportation and the use of pesticides and preservatives to maintain freshness during long journeys. (Note that truly seasonal food also has a much lower carbon footprint that than food grown to be in season by using heated polytunnels.) Many claim that seasonal food also tastes better and has a greater nutritional value.

A “Food-only” Vegan refrains from eating meat of any kind, does not eat eggs or any dairy products, and neither will he eat any processed foods (or medicines) containing animal derivatives – for instance many cheeses are made using the enzyme rennet which is taken from the stomach linings of newly-slaughtered calves. (See “References” for a link to the Vegetarian Society’s brilliant list of ingredients that use animal derivatives). Many Vegans also refuse to consume produce that uses animal derivatives during the process of food production, even though they are not contained in the final product (e.g., real ales almost always use “isinglass” in the fining process which is derived from tropical fish).

Finally (we think!) A “High-ethics” Vegan will also stay away from non-food consumables made from materials derived from animals (e.g., shoes and clothes made from leather, toothpaste that uses glycerine, bedding that uses down), although now we’re no longer in the realms of ethical dietary choices, so we think we ought to leave it there!

Again, we’re aware that there are an enormous number of dietary choices (raw food-ism, macrobiotics) that we haven’t covered here, but those are for the most part dietary choices made for nutritional rather than ethical / environmental reasons, and so we’ll leave it to those better informed than us to give you the run down on those.

We’d love to know whether we’ve made any glaring omissions in our list of ethical dietary lifestyles. And we’d also love to know:

• broadly which camp you choose to hang out in, and why,
• whether you would consider taking it to the next ‘ethics passion level’, and
• what stops you from making more changes

Here are some further information sources we think are useful:

References:Some useful starting points for exploring the environmental impact of meat and fish eating are to be found as follows:

PETA’s sheet on Vegetarianism and the Environment

One of the earliest news articles focusing on the UN recommendation that we reduce our meat consumption. This one appeared in the Guardian in 2008.

The UN have made various suggestions over the years, from cutting out meat one day a week, to halving our meat consumption, to adopting an entirely vegetarian diet, and in most recent months they have urged us to consider a vegan diet. An article reporting the urge to veganism can be found here on the Guardian website and here is a link to the full UN report.

The Vegetarian Society’s fact sheet on reasons for stopping eating fish.

Another blogger’s view on High Fructose Corn Syrup and why to avoid this ingredient.

A Greenpeace piece on Palm Oil and why to avoid it.

Our piece on the benefits of seasonal eating.

Fellow-ooffer Anthony Davison’s piece on buying local.

And finally:

The Vegetarian Society’s animal-derived ingredients checklist.

Categories: seasonal eating

Tags: diet, ethical consumerism, flexitarian, food, recipes, seasonal eating, vegan, vegetarian

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