Posted Feb 6, 2010
Not all vegetarians are created equal. So if you run into one of us, here’s a quick and dirty glossary of terms to help tell us apart. When you start throwing around terms like “lacto-ovo-vegetarian,” your carnivorous friends will be impressed – or swear they’ve never met you.
-Pescetarian: This diet is all veggies and surf but no turf. Most people haven’t heard the word, possibly because it’s a relatively new one. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary dates it to 1993. It comes from the root for fish (Latin piscis; Italian pesce). Pescetarians avoid meat from mammals and birds, but eat fish, seafood, dairy and eggs. We’re sort of the least vegetarian of vegetarians.
-Lacto-ovo vegetarian: Or to put it simply, vegetarian. Lacto-ovo-vegetarians don’t eat any meat products, but they do eat eggs and dairy products. Lacto is for milk; ovo is for egg. Theoretically, you could cut out eggs and be a lacto-vegetarian, or cut out dairy and be an ovo-vegetarian. I’ve never met anybody like that, though.
-Vegan: This is about as hard-core as you can get when it comes to vegetarianism. Vegans don’t eat any animal food products, including dairy or eggs. That can make finding options pretty difficult at most restaurants. Think about how many foods (bread for instance) include just one egg or a pad of butter. Most vegans choose the diet because of animal-rights concerns, so they also commonly avoid other animal products such as leather. Kate Gorman
Date: Feb 4, 2010