Types Of Vegetarians
A Quick Guide to Types of Vegetarians
It wasn’t that long ago that no one talked about types of vegetarians. When you referred to someone as a vegetarian, it meant that they didn’t eat meat. When it came to food, the entire world, so to speak, was divided into meat-eaters and non-meat-eaters. But times have changed. Today there are many different types of vegetarians. None of them eat meat but some do eat fish while others eat varying types of animal products.
The person we used to refer to with the generic term, vegetarian, is now known as a lacto-ovo vegetarian. A lacto-ovo vegetarian does not eat any kind of meat--beef, pork, poultry, or fish. But while they do not consume any kind of animal flesh, they still do eat eggs, milk, and other kinds of dairy products. Of all the types of vegetarians, more people are lacto-ovo vegetarians than any other kind.
There are two other kinds of vegetarians on the fringe edges of the lacto-ovo type. These are known as ovo-vegetarians and lacto-vegetarians. An ovo-vegetarian does not eat any kind of meat--no animal flesh at all. The also don’t drink milk or eat milk products. They do, however, eat eggs. On the other hand, lacto-vegetarians are just the opposite. They consume no animal meat, not even poultry, no eggs either. What they do still have in diet is milk.
If you thought the lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet was strict, you probably won’t be interested in the vegans. Vegans are very strict when it comes to sticking to non-meat products. They don’t ever eat meat, and that includes any type of fish or seafood. But they also go one step further--they do not consume any processed foods or products that contain anything at all that comes from an animal.
That means vegans can’t have anything containing casein--a milk byproduct used in ice creams and custard, whey--used in cheese-making and margarines, etc., or gelatin, which is in a multitude of products, including all kinds of baked goods. Gelatin is obtained from boiling animal tissues. Vegans take their conviction of using no animal products beyond the realm of food as well. They don’t use clothing or anything else made from any part of an animal. This includes such materials as down, angora, silk, mohair, leather or chamois, etc.
Believe it or not, some people choose even more restrictions than the vegan diet. They are known as raw vegans and raw vegetarians. They do not eat any cooked food. That pretty much leaves just raw fruit and vegetables. A raw vegetarian would follow the limits of the lacto-ovo-vegetarian with the added condition that all food be eaten raw. That doesn’t mean that raw foods can’t be warmed. Anything not heated beyond 115 degrees is considered raw.