My friend wants to go vegan/vegetarian, but...

[illinoisemakerr]

So, I have a friend who is thinking about going vegetarian.(she's lactose intolerant, so she'll be an accidental vegan.) I'm happy for her, but the thing is that she thinks that there are certain types of vegetarians that eat fish and/or seafood. I spent a good amount of time in class today explaining to her that vegetarians eat no meat, and a fish

Comments

[laceyslostlove]

http://www.ask.com/web?q=do+fish+feel+pain%3F&search=&qsrc=0&o=0&l=dir

lots of articles

[illinoisemakerr]

Yes, I appreciate the help, but a lot of the articles contradict each other. I guess it is not known completely weather they feel pain or not, but I believe that as long as they have a brain and a nervous system, they are feeling pain.

[laceyslostlove]

there's always conflicting information. every *opinion* has backup somewhere. i gave you that link so you can see, some scientists believe fish can feel pain, others do not. the fact of the matter is, we're not fish so we can't *know* but scientific evidence strongly suggests fish can feel pain :)

[richips]

That is called a pescatarian.
Everyone had their own reasons, of course. You can help her find hers.

[awesomlytwisted]

Exactly what I was going to say.

Why don't you tell her to look up the definition. That may clear things up? She'll do what she wants in the end, though. At least she's just that much closer! Encourage her. ^_^

[illinoisemakerr]

Definitely. I think it's awesome that she wants to remove even *most* of the animals from her diet. But when it comes to being vegetarian, you either eat meat or you don't. That's what I wanted to explain to her, and I see this is the correct term that she should be using. thanks :)

[vgnwtch]

You might encourage her to look up the Vegetarian Society's website and the Vegan Society's website, and then let her go from there. They're very clear on the whole definitions of animals thing.

[illinoisemakerr]

thanks for the links :)

[matt_nothing]

This came up a few months back and I directed the person to this issue of Satya which inclues a lot of good articles on why eating fish is uncool.

A lot of people don't feel much empathy for fish, so appealing to your friend on the environmental aspect might prove more fruitful.

Or perhaps your friend is worried more about their health?

At the very least, if all else fails, please explain to your friend that the correct term they should call themselves is pescetarian.

Good luck!

[matt_nothing]

ps some of the Satya articles are available online and are linked from that link I posted.

[miss_roark]

Sometimes it just takes longer for people to wean the food out. Maybe you should let her go for a while and just hint. Or give her things to research on her own. I started out no beef. It took me a while to get used to getting rid of stuff. I was also an 'accidental vegan'- lactose intolerance drove me to investigate.

[thisxabovexall]

Same here. It took me a few months to fully go vegetarian, and I'm still in the process of going vegan.

Someone telling me I'm not doing it correctly or fast enough would have probably frustrated me to the point of almost not wanting to bother.

[bizwac]

but when still eating meat, did you call yourself a vegetarian?

[thisxabovexall]

Well, I suppose you do have a point there. It would bother me if a friend did that, but I don't think I'd waste much energy correcting them if they didn't care the first few times.