I have a weird question

Do vegetarians and vegans look down on 'partial' vegetarians? Can I be a partial? I want to reduce the amount of meat I eat in a week, and I've subbed out much of my meat with Morningstar and Tofu - but my doctor wants me to try a lower-carb diet (125-150 grams) a day.  Is it possible to eat vegetarian and still do that?

I'm not happy about how animals are treated on factory farms, but I wouldn't mind eating meat if I could get it from animals that were humanely raised and humanly slaughtered - I know that sounds weird.  Short of doing it myself (GAH!!) I don't know how I could garuntee any of that - so I'm trying to learn to go without meat, and I can do it, most of the time.  I feel better about myself if I don't eat meat. but I just don't think I have the discipline to avoid things like gelatin, fish, meat based broth, and whatnot. 

Maybe as I go on, these things will start making me feel sick, and then I can give them up completely.  Another part of the reason I want to go meat-free is to help the environment - I have to drive a car, so not eating meat and saving energy is about the best I can do. 

I don't know.  I know too much red and processed meat can cause cancer.. I know it's full of hormones and other bad things, and I do want to get it out of my diet.  How can I do it and maintain 125-150 carbs a day? Should I wait until after I've lost the weight?

any ideas?

i didnt read all of this post, just the first few sentences (gotta be honest with you!)

and i personally look down on people who say they are vegetarians but still eat fish. (maybe look down is the wrong terminology - sounds a bit nasty....how about 'dissaprove')

ITS STILL A JEFFING ANIMAL! AHH!

=)

well actually if you eat meat...at all..ur simply not a vegatarian. 

Eat whatever you want.  Don't worry about people looking down on you, because anybody who thinks they're superior to you is full of $H*+. 

I think you could probably eat low-carb and vegetarian as long as you keep dairy and eggs in your diet.

I have heard one member on this site refer to him/herself as a "flexitarian". Someone who eats meat, but in small amounts.

My understanding is that many choose to do this for health benefits (many Americans eat too much meat).

I think you should eat what you are comfortable with :). Don't let others determine your reasons for why you do or do not want to eat meat.

BTW...In saying ur not a vegatarian if you eat anymeat at all is a true statement, I wasnt saying that I look down on you...Im not.  Im a meateater that doesnt eat meat!..I opt for the veggie stuff so that i get my veggies in during the day and it seems like it is lower calorie (so I have been told and full of protein)! I LOVE meat! 

Perhaps jargon is the problem here.  Drop the labeling and just eat what works for you.  You don't have to label yourself "vegetarian", just a person who eats what appeals to them.  That usually reduces the anxiety and the wrath of the dissapproving.  

well, if I ate only what appealled to me, I'd be eating carrot cake with frosting on a daily basis. 

I guess the point is, I don't like meat that much, but I like it when I like it.  I'd like to reduce my total meat consumption to 3 servings a week, but mostly for environmental reasons.  I've heard in dozens of places that if we didn't feed our food animals all that corn and grain, it could be used to feed the hungry around the world.  Farming hogs creates huge amounts of pollution and waste, and few animals are treated even slightly decently.  I thought I was doing good by eating eggs that are listed as 'vegetarian fed' but they aren't free-range, and even free-range doesn't actually mean free-range.  Apparently it means someone can open a window in the chicken barn for five minutes to let sunlight in and 'presto' the chickens are suddenly free-range.  or cage-free, or something like that.   I know the system is cracked.

I would prefer to buy everthing organic and free-of processing, but it's just not possible all the time :(.

As a consumer who is trying to make informed and ethical choices, you're already way ahead of most people. 

I think renekane has a point. Labels can be more harmful than anything. I don't eat meat or seafood anymore, but after I couldn't find any yogurt I could stand that didn't contain gelatin (a meat by-product) I decided that I wasn't prepared to give up yogurt entirely and it was too early to try to be so "pure" (I started this 5 weeks ago). So I've started buying dairy products with small amounts of "contamination". I'm sure a lot of people would say I wasn't vegetarian at all at this point, but I'm going so far as sanity will allow.

I hear you on the treatment of animals - I've gone to a lot of effort to track down eggs from well-treated hens. I've cared about how animals were raised long before I started to care about whether they'd been killed.

EDIT: the yogurt has to do with my weight-loss diet: I haven't found any other snack as effective for staving off hunger for a couple of hours while having very few calories (at least if it's fat-free, no sugar added). That's my main reason for eating plenty of yogurt.

i agree with renekane and flamel, it's the labels that create divides, judgment, hostility, looking-down, or whatever.  pure vegetarians aren't going to embrace your style of eating as being truly "vegetarian" because it's not. that's not looking down, it's simply not correct given the definition of the word. i feel like a poser when i use the word vegetarian, but sometimes it's just easier to use & i'm lazy. 

so it makes sense to call yourself something other than vegetarian if you have to put a label on it. i prefer to just say "i don't eat much meat" or "meat bothers my stomach" because it raises fewer questions (and fewer accusations of being a hypocrite) than saying "i'm vegetarian, but i eat seafood."

I call myself flex.  Not because I eat meat, because I don't; I haven't for almost a year and for a long time before that.  Mainly because some vegetarians act like there is a holy vow of eternal non-meat-eating that you have to take before you're allowed to use the label.  I'm not interested in being associated with an absolutist attitude ... so flex works better for me.

i eat meat, but i used top be a vegetarian. i am opposed to industrialized slaughter houses and the industry of meat in general-however i think that if you eat meat that you feel is ethically sound, and that passes your standards for being a positive food, than you can eat it. i personally dont think that anyone should be eating meat if they cannot deal with the fact that their food is a dead animal who had the desire to be alive. i also think that people should be willing to look whoever they eat in the eye. that said, i eat meat. i dont eat it a lot, and i generally only eat it when i know where it has come from. just because we eat meat doesnt make us stupid- meat eaters know where their food comes from too, we just make different choices about it. i think as long as you are not in denial about the flesh you consume, most vegetarins will not look down upon you.

It's not the fact that you're 'not doing a good enough job' or anything. I totally support the fact that people make the effort to cut back on meat in any way!

However, calling yourself a vegetarian would mean that you don't eat ANY meat. But you do. That would be like a person who knows how to change the oil in their car calling themself a professional mechanic. It's just not telling the whole truth. Some people take the term 'vegetarianism/veganism' very seriously, and get offended if someone uses those terms loosely.

I didn't mean to offend anyone in this post. Just wanted to share how I personally felt about the matter. :)

I know a lot of vegetarians who eat fish and/or chicken because it's not "meat." I don't look down on them, because they simply have a different idea of what constitutes meat than I do, and I'm a vegetarian for personal beliefs whereas some do it for primarily health reasons. That said, I know some people can be touchy about the subject. The best advice I can give you is to decide based on who you're talking to. For example, if someone were inviting you to a cookout, it might be easiest to just tell them you were a vegetarian so they could accomodate you, whereas if you were going out for seafood, you would just not say anything about being a vegetarian (although if you said you didn't eat red meat I think people would totally understand. I make a point to avoid things like geletin and meat broths, but even if you do say you're a vegetarian, I find it hard to believe that people will be paying enough attention to what you eat to say anything. A lot of times, i'll tell someone I am, and I'll still be served animal products. That's why sometimes I say I'm vegan, so that they know I follow fairly strict dietary restrictions (even though, in reality, I still eat eggs and dairy in small amounts).

Hey, you're a "flexitarian"! Congrats! :) You might scootch closer and closer to vegetarianism and finally make the switch, but you might not. You might be happy flexin'. See what works for YOU and YOUR lifestyle.

I don't understand how anyone can eat vegetables without realizing that they are dead plants that would prefer to be alive.  Just kidding.  We therefore we live.

I understand completely where you're coming from.  I just switched over to a totally vegan diet (not lifestyle) and I'm worried about a.) getting crap from my family, who have always thought of me as a weird, hippy-chick and b.) getting crap from full vegans for still wearing and using animal products.

Labels suck, but, harsh as it is, the sort of people who look down on others will normally ALWAYS find an excuse to do so.

I really appreciate all the positive responses, all you guys have helped a bunch : )

I don't call myself a "vegetarian" - no one should call themselves that unless they really don't eat meat at all (or maybe, just once in a blue moon?).  I like "Flexitarian" and I'd like to try and coin the term "Ecotarian" - mostly organic foods, meat or veggies, and a diet that has a low-impact on the world - fair trade products, consumption of minimally processed foods, try not to buy heavily processed stuff like crackers, little debbies, soda and etc.

This is something I'm trying actively to do.  Those snaky cakes are hard to pass up, but thinking about all those weird named ingredients that I don't know helps a lot.

Ecotarian- I love it. :D

trhawley, i actually used to think that as a child. it still doesn't seem right to me, cause imo plants are still living things, but i guess i've gotten used to the idea, lol. what else could we eat?