Rudy Canoza wrote:

> Pesco-vegan wrote:
>
> > usual suspect wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Pesco-vegan wrote:
> >>
> >>First of all, there is no such thing as a pesco-vegan. You may be
> >>pesco-vegetarian, but not -vegan.
> >
> >
> > Pesco-vegan is a term I coined to describe my unusual dietary choice.
> > Do you have a problem with it?
>
> It's bullshit. "vegan" means consumes NO
> animal-derived products at all, and not just limited to
> food, either: no leather, no wool, no lanolin in hand
> lotion, no products that were tested on animals, no
> standard refined sugar.
>
> If you eat fish, you are not "vegan": PERIOD.

If you eat fish, you are not "vegetarian": PERIOD.
Yet the term "Pesco-vegetarian" is in common usage.

> But more to the point, if you eat fish, you are
> engaging in some kind of stupid *rationalization* and
> sophistry in how you justify the deviation from "veganism".

Unlike birds and mammals, fish lack the brain structures
that are associated with the processing of emotions in
humans. If I am to be honest I don't believe that fish
are really devoid of emotions but there is certainly more
room for debate and the level of consciousness is likely
to be lower for fish than for birds and mammmals. Other
considerations: Consumption of fish is recommended by
nutrition experts who don't have a vegetarian agenda.
In general it takes more land and more energy to grow meat
than it does to grow vegetables. This argument is widely
used to justify vegetarian diets but doesn't apply to fish.

The male calves born as a direct result of the dairy
industry are either raised for meat or killed shortly
after birth. If you drink milk, you are therefore
necessarily responsible for the slaughter of cattle,
regardless of whether or not you eat the meat. The same
argument also applies to chickens. It is my contention
that ethical justifications for ovo-lacto-vegetarian diets
require far more sophistry than do pesco-vegan diets.