stories : The Ten
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You Are What You Don’t EatTen ways to label you and your food |
OK, vegetarians don’t eat animals, including fish. But that’s only the beginning. There’s a whole other world out there of selective eaters who abstain from this or that because of health, politics, or neuroses. To guide you through the nomenclature of culinary identity, we’ve defined some terms, coined others, and generally split the world into 10 kinds of eaters. And that doesn’t even include the omnivores with a conscience (whom perhaps we’ll call Pollanarians, after Michael Pollan, the patron saint of humane eating).
1. Vegan. A vegan won’t put anything that comes from an animal into his or her mouth, including dairy products and eggs. Though originally associated with hippie culture, veganism garnered much-needed hipster cred with the rise of the straight edge scene (punks who don’t drink or do drugs) in the early 1980s. Notable bands that erupted from this fusion are Vegan Reich and Naturecore.
2. Macrobiotic. An ancient Eastern way of eating, macrobiotics today is specifically tailored to each individual, though the basics remain the same: locally grown organic food with meat-free preparation and lots of whole grains as the base. Unlike in vegetarianism, seafood’s permitted, though tomatoes, honey, and eggplant are not. The diet was once thought to cure certain forms of cancer, though there are stories of it exacerbating health problems.
3. Localvore or Locavore. People who make it a practice to consume exclusively local produce and products claim that the ingredients in an average American meal have to travel 1,500 miles to get to one’s mouth. In to-may-to, to-mah-to fashion, some call themselves localvores while others have adopted locavore. The resurgence of farmers’ markets, the inherent environmental benefits, and the fact that it supports local economies have strengthened the philosophy’s appeal. This is all well and good for people living in California, but how’s the local produce in Alaska?
4. Gluten-free Eater. This term is often used as a catchall for people who avoid all types of wheat and gluten products. A strict gluten-free diet is maintained by sufferers of celiac disease, whose systems can’t tolerate gluten in any form (see Seinfeld: “I have no patience for lactose, and I won’t stand for it”). For the most part, someone who is a gluten-free eater can’t ingest breads, pastas, and convenience foods, and—depending on his or her tolerance—kamut, spelt, rye, barley, and oats. In the midst of the Atkins Diet craze, gluten-free started appearing on labels as dieters sought to up their protein intake and cut out the carbs. But technically gluten is a protein, referring to the sticky, water-soluble protein group found in flour.
5. Lachanophobitarian. Broadly defined as someone with an overbearing and uncontrollable fear of vegetables; we have no doubt that any produce-aisle object could evolve into a catalyst for a traumatic event. But why not fruits, and what is the lachanophobitarian’s stance on tomatoes?
6. Flexitarian. A flexitarian makes exceptions to his or her mostly vegetarian diet according to a self-defined set of rules. Common flexitarian rules: “I only eat meat when I’m at someone else’s house and I’m the guest”; “I only eat meat when I know where it came from”; and “I only eat meat when traveling and there’s no vegetarian choice.” CHOW coined its own subcategory of flexitarianism: ba-curious, meaning a vegetarian who just can’t refuse bacon, the gateway drug.
7. Pescatarian. To us, those who claim to be vegetarians while still eating fish are like the people who say they don’t do drugs, just marijuana. Maybe it’s simply less confusing for someone to say he’s vegetarian instead of pescatarian, but if you’re going to label yourself in the first place, you might as well get it right.
8. Calorie-Restricted. The calorie-restricted diet has received a lot of attention in the past year, most recently being provocatively and effectively compared to anorexia. Severely restricting the amount you eat might make you live longer (if you’re calorie-restricted) yet makes you live less long (if you’re anorexic). Either way, eating becomes way less fun.
9. Gravitarian. Fruitarians, a subdivision of vegans, follow a strict diet of fruits, nuts, and seeds. Gravitarian is a term we came up with to deal with a smaller group of hard-core fruitarians who eat only the ripe fruits and vegetables that have fallen naturally from the plant or tree. When they find out that they’re stealing nutrition from foraging animals, they may turn to breatharianism.
10. Breatharian. Followers of breatharianism claim to be nourished only by sunlight and air, free from the rigors of eating and drinking. The most vocal advocate of breatharianism in the 1990s, an Australian woman who changed her name from Ellen Greve to Jasmuheen, has received all sorts of awards for her work, ranging from the Bent Spoon Award (for pseudoscientific piffle) to an Ig Nobel Prize (an ignoble parody of the real thing). The founder of the Breatharian Institute of America, Wiley Brooks, was famously spotted exiting a Santa Cruz, California, 7-Eleven in 1983 with a hot dog and Twinkies in hand. He acknowledged that he periodically breaks his fast with a Big Mac and a Coke, since junk food “adds balance.”
Jasmuheen and Wiley Brooks, Bat Shit Crazy!
bacon, its the honorary vegetable
they forgot freegans!
awesome. so many definitions i didn't know!
Can someone send this to all the airlines please? Whenever I ordered the vegetarian meal on an airplane, I always seemed to get chicken. And, I hate chicken!
Modern chicken isn't meat, its science!
What's the term for people who live on booze and cigarettes?
journalists?
I love "Flexitarian". In the mid-70s our seasonal inn hosted a wedding for a couple who lived in a yurt commune nearby--all of them militant vegetarians constantly berating meat eaters and quoting statistics on the better health and longevity of vegetarianism.
It was what we called a "bare facility rental"; the yurt-dwellers were supplying/serving all food & drink.
The bride's father was a prosaic Midwesterner who was not impressed with the yurt/vegetarian lifestyle and didn't look forward to a reception dinner of tofu & bulgar wheat potluck. He took me aside at our first planning session and handed me $250 and asked if I'd see that there was some MEAT on the buffet--turkey, roast beef, ham, anything.
I said sure, and ordered two smoked turkeys, two good-size beef tenderloins and a huge beautiful sliced ham. (This was 1976 in rural Maine, remember.)
The wedding day came, and after breakfast we cleared the kitchen and turned it over to the very efficient yurters managing the food service. The morning was a constant procession of people coming in and out bearing covered dishes/pots/kettles of food.
I went to town to fetch the meat, brought it in all plattered/sliced/ready to serve, and gave it to the kitchen staff. I wish I'd had a camera to capture the horrified expressions on those 5-6 faces when I peeled back the foil and they saw what it was. I told them it was per instruction of the bride's father and it was to go on the food table, and I left.
By the time the wedding party & guests arrived back at the inn after the 2PM ceremony at a nearby beach, the inn was full of savory aromas and 3 eight-foot tables end-to-end were covered with food.
The bride's father, of course, was trapped in the receiving line until all the ~120 guests had passed on to the food table. By the time he got there, there was nothing on the turkey platters except skin and picked-clean bones, nothing on the ham and beef platters but grease. Plenty of bulgar wheat & parsnip casseroles, but no meat.
I've found it hard ever since to keep a straight face when a vegetarian lectures me about the moral inferiority of meat-eaters.
Great story.
I'd add one of my favorite terms, Beady-eyed vegetarians. Vegetarians who'll eat chicken and fish (animals with beady eyes) but never any meat from cows, pigs, or lambs because awwwwwthey'resocute!!!
i probably eat less meat than some people who label themselves "vegetarian" but I think it's silly to label yourself in the first place, especially if you EVER make exceptions!
Sam, I beleive you're referring to models.
ArikaDawn - Sam couldin't be referring to models as booze has too many calories. Now cocaine and cigarettes, that could be models, ballerinas, and if we add xanax, apparently socialites...
ArikaDawn - Sam couldin't be referring to models as booze has too many calories. Now cocaine and cigarettes, that could be models, ballerinas, and if we add xanax, apparently socialites...
Sorry don't know why that posted twice.
On the loca - as in crazy - vore thing: When you realize the movement began in Berkeley and think about the year-round access they have to great "local" wine, seafood, produce etc.; you can understand why it makes so much sense. Someone from Alaska once wrote in one of these "discussions" that even the produce she gets a few months of year could not sustain her. Oh, and the next time someone preaches about eating locally - and you're not at the green market in Berkeley - ask them where the wine they drank last night came from.
My friends at the farmer's market laugh with me at the ridiculousness of the debate. Is local non organic better than shipped from miles away organic? Better for whom? In what ways? What will locavore mean to inner city folks who only have access to mega markets?
Sorry...I'll stop now....! Good piece.
You guys get real righteous about the vegetarians eh?
What do you call someone who only eats vegetarians?
You know, I keep hearing about locavores as the equivalent to vegans - as if people who use the term actually believe that everyone should eat ONLY what is grown within a certain radius of their homes. I've been pretty involved in the local-eating thing, and I've never once heard anyone say that. Do people try it, for a specific period of time (the Eat Local Challenge)? Yeah, sure. And some people run marathons, but they don't usually think everyone should run a marathon. They do tend to think everyone should exercise, though. The point of the movement is not strictly limiting food options, but supporting local farmers, honoring local food traditions, building local food networks so that our food infrastructure might be broader and less vulnerable, increasing transparency in farming practices, and decreasing our reliance on cheap fuel in our food distribution system.
So, yeah, the wine I drank last night was from California, my spices come from all over the world, and I'll be eating a lot of Florida oranges this winter. But I'll continue to look for New England apples, not New Zealand, continue to buy my beef from Massachusetts, not Argentina, and continue to eat yogurt from New Hampshire, not Greece. Which seems is really not so irrational as people are making out this locavore thing to be.
(And maybe Alaska doesn't have vegetables in winter, but I bet there's some great local venison.)
(to Termite) Vegicannibal
What about a locannibal?
I'm a pescatarian according to these rules, but the description was pretty insulting. I eat what I'm comfortable with eating, and I don't feel uncomfortable eating not-farmed fish. And also, people choose different diets for different reasons. For example, some people are pescatarian for health reasons.