Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Pescepollovegan?

On a lark I went googling to see if there's a 'diet' (either ethnic, religious, or what-not) that describes my own particular dietary intolerances, restrictions an preferences.

I didn't find an answer but compiled a fun list of different selective diets I stumbled across (and some made up):
  • omnivores - creatures (including humans) able to eat both plants and meat.
  • carnivores - animals that eat nothing but meat.
  • herbivore - animals that can not eat meat.
  • Kosher - excludes pork, predators, scavengers, and a complex variety of other things.
  • Hindus - exclude beef.
  • Lacto-ovo Vegetarians - (or just 'vegetarians') exclude all kinds of meat, but will eat eat milk, eggs, honey, and other foods created by animals.
  • Vegans - exclude all kinds meat and all foods produced by animals, (like milk/cheese, eggs, honey). Unsure where they stand on (human) mother's milk.
  • Raw Vegan - insist on no-meat, no dairy, no eggs AND no cooking.
  • Flexitarians - "almost"-vegetarians who infrequently include a small amount of meat in their diet.
  • Gluten-free - a diet that excludes most grains.
  • Pescetarians - exclude all kinds meat except fish.
  • Pollotarians - exclude all kinds of meat except birds/chicken.
  • Veganarchist - radicals that want all humans to act like herbivores.
  • "Picky Eater" - a flippant term used by veganarchists to refer to anyone with dietary restrictions without being completely meat-free.
  • hors d'oeuvre-ovore - someone that only eats appetizers, finger foods and other bite-sized treats. May include sushi. (my term)
  • meat-and-potatoes - simply that. Often 'greens-o-phobic', some are rather prejudiced against to vegan/vegetarians.
  • blancotarian - someone that only eats white or pale foods, bread, dairy, mushrooms, chicken, pasta, potatoes. (Typically excludes cauliflower.) (my term)
  • nicocaffetarian - a diet dominated by coffee and cigarettes (my term)
  • Theophage - a God-eater, (see: "transubstantiation" ;)
  • hematophage - a blood eater (for example: vampires and Catholics ;)
  • cannibal - one who eats members of their own species
Apparently, there is no word for someone that (for ethical or dietary reasons) refuses to eat mammals or creatures that nurture their young... but are okay with eating other animals like seafood, birds, perhaps even reptiles, or bugs...

Sure... I'm a "Picky Eater". But with good reason. Dairy (milk/cheese/butter/cream/whey) and pork in any form are so toxic to me I'd rather to starve. I can eat (but prefer to exclude) eggs, honey, and other mammals. This limits my diet to: plants, seafood and fowl.

When I dine out, I refer to myself as "Vegan PLUS fish/fowl".

I tried saying "NO DAIRY, NO PORK"? But far too often the wait staff interprets that as "no cheese, no ham/porkchops". Food shows up slathered in butter, topped with bacon bits anyway and it forces me to be the annoying "Take this back and do it right!" customer that everyone hates.

If you don't like my term, or have a better suggestion... you're welcome to pipe up in the comments.