Vegetarians... who eat fish.

[ThatGhastlyWoman]

I suspect this has been done before but, here goes...

We probably all know people who are 'strict vegetarians' apart from the fact that they eat fish. And chicken. And the odd cat, if they're especially peckish and it doesn't move fast enough.

Personally, I don't especially lose any sleep over what other people eat or don't eat. I'm a vegetarian, and like most that I know, consider it my personal preference not to eat meat, just as it is that of others to eat the stuff.

It does, however, rankle slightly when people think you are unreasonable or unusual to not eat fish when you are vegetarian: I've seen more my fair share of eye-rolling and 'well, my strict vegetarian friend eats fish, so it must be okay, you utter loon' - type attitude. A lot of people just don't 'get' it.

Anyway, what has made me start a thread on this topic, even though I doubt it's the first time it'll have been aired on here?

Today, my childminder (otherwise a lovely, lovely woman who I trust absolutely with my child's care) gave my daughter fish fingers because they were out at a fast food place, and she thought they were ok for vegetarians. Now, she thought she was doing a nice thing, but not only has my daughter now been given meat when I really wanted to avoid that happening for as long as possible, I am upset because we have a seafood allergy in my family- so there's potential for serious consequences.

PS: before anyone asks, yes- I did fill in a form listing dietary requirements, and mentioned not only that we were ovo-lacto vegetarians, but that it was really important to avoid any nuts as we have serious allergies in my family. I don't expect her to carry this around with her: the fact is, this prevailing attitude that fish is fine for veggies led to her making an assumption.

Really more of a rant/pointing out of an 'ishoo' than an AIBU, I guess..!

YANBU and yes this has been brought up before

I went several days without tea when staying away from home on a school trip, as guess what despite filling in the dietary requirements forms as vegetarian both the teachers and the hotel staff though vegetarians eat fish

I was expected to eat around said fish when I asked for a different meal (couldn't as the sauce also contained fish and it covered everything) and despite finding out that I didn't eat fish all the evening meals were fish...

I said this on the other thread but might as well here to agree with OP

I've had this several times in hospital ( have to be in fairly often). Was in before Christmas and v v ill, was malnourished and doc said to eat well. When I started to eat I told them I was veggie. The first night I was offered tuna pasta bake, the second night was fish pie. I did complain and was looked at like I was from another planet - 'all the vegetarians we get eat fish' - I was told that the kitchens always offered a veggie option but the servers always gave it to those who couldn't manage lumps because it was disgusting mush soft ie macaroni cheese etc. Never mind the vegetarians, they'll eat fish

So yes, it's damaging when people say they are vegetarian and eat fish. I'm not precious but would quite like to just get on with my food choices without a whole load of hassle.

Can't people educate themselves on vegetarianism? I really can't stand the ignorance.. Its hardly like its some big mysterious thing, there are millions of us in this country alone!! I always get the fish question, and the one I hate the most is 'What do you eat?' like without meat the world would end

But yes. The fish thing does get my goat. I can see its easier if you are a pescetarian to just say you're vege because not many people know what a pesce is. Personally i'd just say 'I don't eat meat, just fish'.

The thing is they don't need to educate themselves on what a vegetarian is as it's basic common sense!

A vegetarian is the human equivalent of a herbivore (you should know what a herbivore, omnivore and carnivore are before leaving school) - as long as they know what a herbivore is then all should be fine, in theory, but you still get idiot teenagers who think it's funny to feed a horse a tuna sandwich...

Chipping - Please say how children can have a very healthy diet without any animal products - no milk, eggs, meat, fish, etc. I would like to hear this.

A vegan friend has been TTC for several years. We all think that her diet might be the problem but just can't tell her Despite being very much into eating bio & healthy, she is clearly malnourished very thin and pale. She recently had herself tested for deficiencies and was surprised (how?!) to see that she is severely deficient in quite a few substances, especially iron.

Her super duper all-bio "healthy" diet clearly can't compensate for all the animal products she has cut out. It's particularly worrying for her little DS If there are any magic tricks to provide people, especially children, with essential nutrients in the absence of animal products, I'd love to hear about them.

As long as you use some sort of animal product, like dairy, eggs, wear leather, use drugs tested on animals etc. etc., I don't see how you can moan about a bit of fish.
I couldn't be a vegetarian, if I went down that route I'd have to go the whole way and be vegan, otherwise it's pointless, as animals are still being used and abused with a normal vegetarian diet.

This really bugs me as well, and I eat meat! My partner is a vegetarian and I am always asked to clarify his diet. I used to have a colleague who always spoke about being a vegetarian would woiuld happily serve, cook, and EAT chicken when we came over for a meal.

The other misconception that bugs me about this though is "if, you're vegentarian, it's such a healthy diet". Not if you load up on sweets like my OH, or one frined I had who mostly ate bread and cheese. She was reasonably thin but pale as any ghost I've never seen!

Cote, none of needs to explain this to you, if you want to learn, do a bit of research yourself. You claim to be 'challenging beliefs' but the only thing you've displayed on this thread is your ignorance. It's encouraging that you are now expressing an interest in learning.

So, let's see, there's a wealth of writing on vegetarian nutrition, for adults and children, health care professionals are perfectly happy with babies and children being brought up vegetarian, rightly regarding this as normal and the considerable Hindu and Buddhist populations of the world, a large proportion of whom are vegetarian, have been conceiving and bringing up children for generations. Oh, but, stop press - there's an anonymous woman on an internet thread who claims that children need fish and meat, offering no evidence at all... Who to believe?

Your friend should work with HCPs to address her individual needs. If you really want to read about vegan nutrition more generally, do so.

Cote As you are able to access MN, I assume you can access google? Try educating yourself. Your friend maybe lacking in her diet, but she isn't the only vegan on the planet and in case it's escaped your notice, so are many meat eaters and many meat eaters also struggle to conceive.

There are NO magic tricks to provide children with essential nutrients in the absence of animal products - it's just a basic vegan diet. Do some research.

LadyBeagleEyes - you'd be happy to eat cat then?

wow!!!people are really chippy on here! red meat=iron=brainfood for small children,but hey I am old and learnt the granny to mother to daughter way!google schmoogle!!

Cote perhaps my anecdote will cancel out yours if anecdotes are all you seem to be basing your 'facts' on?

My second pregnancy was a vegan one- I felt amazing all the way through, went into labour on my due date, had a great labour and ds2 was a 9lber. I then successfully breast fed him for nearly a year and he is thriving. He put on weight to follow his centile lines to the letter (or number) and is a bonny, rosy cheeked boy.

The health professionals had no concerns for either of us as I educated myself and had support in my choices.

My first pregnancy was dreadful.

Now I'll never fully know what the causes of the differences in my boys are but no one who knows by youngest could say he was lacking in anything.

"I couldn't be a vegetarian, if I went down that route I'd have to go the whole way and be vegan, otherwise it's pointless, as animals are still being used and abused with a normal vegetarian diet."

You're assuming that people are only vegetarians due to ethical or moral reasons

Dark green veg such as cabbage, spinach, broccoli ect are also full of iron... You just have to be aware of what you eat and what you gain from eating it :)

i have never really understood this [ i,m not a vegetarian btw]but if you are vegetarian on grounds of principle then how can eating fish be ok?.

lottie - re "You claim to be 'challenging beliefs'"

I have made no such claim. I haven't used the word "challenge" on this thread at all, so I don't know who you are quoting there.

"if you want to learn, do a bit of research yourself. "

You may not have noticed this in the 6 months you have spent on MN, but "Go find out about it yourself" as the answer to a relevant question on a thread is not really done around here. This is a public forum. People are hear to talk. Hard as that may be for some, that sometimes involves answering the questions of the curious.

"there's an anonymous woman on an internet thread who claims that children need fish and meat, offering no evidence at all"

Funny how you demand evidence from me, but don't seem to think you or anyone else has to answer me at all I'd be happy to point you towards the research that shows eating fish is important for brain development, for example, if you are interested.

CecyHall - "my anecdote will cancel out yours if anecdotes are all you seem to be basing your 'facts' on?"

It won't because I wasn't.

"My second pregnancy was a vegan one- I felt amazing all the way through, went into labour on my due date, had a great labour and ds2 was a 9lber. I then successfully breast fed him for nearly a year and he is thriving."

I'm happy for you. And since you seem to think a vegan pregnancy was such a great thing, I'm guessing that you are not aware of this study that says "Mothers Who Eat Fish While Pregnant Produce Offspring With Better Cognitive Development" and this one that says "Children whose mothers ate no seafood were 48 percent more likely to have a low verbal IQ score, compared to children whose mothers ate high amounts of seafood".

I'm not trying to tell you what to eat. Just don't say that there are no consequences to severely restricting your diet.

"There are NO magic tricks to provide children with essential nutrients in the absence of animal products"

That's what I thought.

Yes, but I'm aware of all the fish during pregnancy studies.

I ate ample fish oil supplements, as well as eating lots of fish (I love fish - had a severe craving for roll-mops when pg with DS1 -sadly it was McD's fish burgers when pg with DD ).

When Ds1 turned out bright as a button, I was smug. When DD turned out as random as me, I was )There is only so much fish consumption and breast feeding can do, it seems.

In my opinion a vegetarian eating fish isn't as bad as one that drinks milk. The dairy industry is one of the cruelest 'meat' industries. I mean, to have any milk a cow has to have a calf (no different from humans!), to ensure that there's enough milk to sell the calf has to be taken away from its mother when it's only a day or two old and is then kept in a small pen and fed formula. When it's 6 weeks old it then gets shipped off to France as veal.

I'm a farmers daughter and I love my steaks and milk etc but vegetarians need to think before they speak if they drink milk!!!

P.S I have nothing against vegans as at least they truely do what they believe!

matilda, how can you judge vegetarians who drink milk (and judge them as being worse than a 'vegetarian' who eats fish), when you yourself recognise the cruelty of the dairy industry, but choose to drink milk?

On the fish front, it does muddy the waters when food is called vegetarian but contains fish, or when people call themselves vegetarian but eat fish.

Well. A lot of interesting things have been posted since I last looked!

I would like to thank everyone, as actually it has given me a few things to think about. FWIW, I have, til now, been buying 'ethical' free range milk and eggs. matilda, as far as I am aware, male calves from organic dairies go to the organic meat industry rather than to factory produced beef or veal. Funnily enough, my uncle was a dairy cow breeder/small scale dairy farmer, and I helped out on his farm when I was young. (As his cattle were sought after, as far as I am aware his male calves were always sold as stud.) Used to make up the formula and feed them. His care for his stock was second to none- but he was very old fashioned: sadly, since the abolition of the Milk Marketing Board it has become much more big scale, and farms in the Western world seem to be following the American model.

I now plan to do some more research, educate myself more and do some more thinking, as actually perhaps I should make sure that I am not turning a blind eye and fooling myself. I'm not perfect and don't claim to be- pretty much I reckon you do what you can do, as it is at least something.

One thing though: if we did eradicate dairy and the meat industry- what would happen to all of the species of animals which have been bred over the millennia to serve our demands (in theory)? What would the ethical replacement for it be? Presumably fewer would be bred, of course, but what would we do with the relics? Sorry if I'm being thick, am v. v. tired and had a glass of wine or two!

PS Cote: seriously, there are millions of people globally who do not eat animal meat. Some of the healthiest children I've seen in my life have been vegan. What do you think inland populations did before refrigeration? Surely if fish made you that much brighter than everyone else, then fish-eating populations would have subjugated everyone else (human nature being what it is)?

I served someone the other day who said "I'm vegan, but I eat fish." What an absolute CUNT.

Cote, vegetarians get awfully bored constantly having to justify and explain themselves to people who are two lazy to do any research before they voice ridiculous statements about their life style and children.