To ask how you can be a pescatarian. Possible Triggers

[Jessiejuju]

So the whole point of being a vegetarian is that you don't eat meat from a living thing so why is it OK to eat fish and seafood. I know it is not classed as meat but it is still a living thing that is dying so you can eat it and is actually cruler than other animals for example chickens simply have their neck broken which is relatively quick as apposed to fish who suffercate when removed from the water.

Chickens rarely just have their neck broken now days, would be much kinder than being hung upside down and dunked in an electric tank which doesn’t even always stun them.

My friend still eats a small amount of fish for nutrition reasons but doesn’t eat meat or especially dairy due to the dairy industry

One of the most important reasons to give up meat is the impact on global warming.

www.independent.co.uk/environment/meat-eating-climate-change-vegetarian-vegan-global-warming-diet-farming-a8578251.html

www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth

The recent IPCC report said meat consumption has to be drastically reduced if we are to prevent catastrophic climate change.

Although entirely plant-based is best, a pescatarian diet dramatically reduces carbon emissions (impact probably the same as a vegetarian diet). If you are going to eat meat, then cutting back and switching from beef to chicken/pork also helps. Changing our diets is probably the most important thing we can do as individuals.

Anyway, it's why I'm going pescatarian (and cutting back on dairy too). The fact it's healthier, and avoids animals being raised through intensive farming, is just a bonus.

One of the most important reasons to give up meat is the impact on global warming.

Those are good arguments for cutting down meat consumption.

If we eat only a little meat there is no need for intensive factory farming.

We need not give up altogether.

Speakout, yes, cutting down is good.

As an individual, though, I've been trying to cut down for a while - and it's just too easy to kid myself that I'm eating less meat than I am. Also, I end up eating meat because other people have cooked it, I don't want to cause embarrassment etc - but really if there is going to be any chance of tackling global warming, then we need to change society's norms around meat. People who do eat meat have got to see it more as an occasional naughty treat and they are more likely to do that if some people are saying outright "Actually I'm not prepared to eat meat at all because it's too damaging".

Everything helps though. Veganism is obviously best, but vegetarian/pescatarian is better than eating meat regularly, while reducing meat to once or twice a week (and especially avoiding beef) is better than eating meat every day.

Veganism is obviously best

I don't agree.

If you look at people living in harmony with the land- the First Nations- none of them are vegan. Even when sources of plant food is abundant.
I am thinking of rainforest dwellers etc, people who have lived in harmony with their environment for tens if not hundreds of thousands of years.

The health of their own ecosystem is paramount. It sustains them.

They eat meat.

The damage of factory farming I accept. The fact that we eat too much meat I accept.

I don't accept that veganism is "obviously best".

I am thinking of rainforest dwellers etc, people who have lived in harmony with their environment for tens if not hundreds of thousands of years.

The trouble is there are now more than 7 billion people on earth. How can that many people live in harmony with the environment in the way that earlier people might have lived? All those people are not about to become hunter-gatherers, and there would not be the resources to sustain them if they did.

As an individual you might choose to eat meat raised in a way you approve, but the fact remains that climate change requires a dramatic drop in carbon emissions, and meat is a huge contributor.

I'm not a vegan myself but I recognise that it is the least damaging choice in terms of climate change.

I’m also not vegan but agree with the above. If the “right” way to eat is based on living in harmony with the land / Palaeolithic diet etc, including quite a lot of meat, no carbs etc, the Earth cannot sustain it. We are overpopulated and overconsuming and meat and dairy are up there as some of the worst polluters afaik. So, saying “it’s the natural way to eat, so it must be right” is oversimplifying.

We don’t live in a “living in harmony” world anymore. There are just too many of us.

But that’s not to say that overpopulated is the only problem btw. It’s overpopulation AND overconsumption. One without the other might be ok, but both together and particularly the overconsumption of meat is very worrying.

What annoys me more is people who say they don't eat meat because they care about animal welfare but tint give a toss about humans involved in getting them their coffee tea chocolate quinoa rice mangos etc etc

Agreed moomins. Or vegans who merrily stuff their faces with unsustainable Palm oil. So cows aren’t to be harmed, but destroying the habitats of orangutans is just Nancy then.

all living things have sentience - if you could kill an animals then you have no right to breathe the same air as them

all living things have sentience - if you could kill an animals then you have no right to breathe the same air as them

You're so unreasonable, you must be an agri-business plant.

I am taking the term "pesco-vegan" from this thread and running with it

if you could kill an animals then you have no right to breathe the same air as them

So presumably, a lion has no right to breath the same air as, say, a wildebeest.

So the whole point of being a vegetarian is that you don't eat meat from a living thing so why is it OK to eat fish and seafood. I know it is not classed as meat but it is still a living thing that is dying so you can eat it

I don't understand this

Vegetarians do not eat anything with a face or a mother.

Fish and seafood IS classed as meat.

Or am I mistaken?