stupid but quick question

[kaigou]

vegetarian = no eggs = no bread ... correct?

is this generally a hard-and-fast rule, enough to consider it a pretty safe assumption?


ETA: apparently the unclear part above is my expectation that bread contains eggs. Yes, as a matter of fact, bread can contain eggs -- pretty much my entire repertoire of bread-recipes all contain at least one egg. (Some of them contain two eggs, even, and some even have milk.) This is not to say I've never made bread without eggs -- I have -- but I don't much care for the texture or the reluctant timbre of the bread when working with it. With eggs, the bread is considerably silkier/smoother, and just more pleasant and easy to work with; thus it's not a headache to let it rise six times and really become amazingly-melty. Or shorter version: bread can contain eggs.

ETA the 2nd: I suppose it might've been less confusing if I'd asked about, say, angel food cake... for which my grandmother's recipe uses the whites of like a dozen eggs. I rarely make it, though, because I hate wasting a dozen egg yolks, but I'm never quite sure what to do with them...

Comments

[raletha]

Might an extremely strict vegetarian object to yeast?

Yeast is fungi, so, no. At least, I've never encountered a vegan who avoided fungi. ^^;

[quillori]

You're absolutely right - I was thinking of sourdough starter, which has bacteria as well as yeast, but you're right, yeast is definitely fungi. (Not that bacteria count as animals, either, although I've never quite been clear what the defining line is for vegetarianism - a purely definitional matter as to what kingdom something is, the capacity of the individual living thing to feel pain or what?)

[raletha]

That line between vegetarian and vegan can be very fuzzy, at least this has been my impression from my investigations into it. I think the animal kingdom distinction is pretty good rule of thumb.

When vegans start talking about whether or not to eat honey and the exploitation of honey bees in pollinating various crops, it gets pretty hairy. Some vegans even make a case for eating oysters. And this is why, no matter how strict I become as a vegetarian, I would not feel comfortable calling myself anything more than semi-vegan.

[quillori]

Out of curiosity, I've just been googling to see if I can find any edible sea sponges, which would present an interesting test case of whether the border really is animal kingdom or not (no nervous system, look like plants, but are technically animals), but I can only find one rather doubtful reference, which may or may not be referring to a genuine sea sponge, so it could only be an extremely hypothetical test case, and the animal kingdom remains a decent rule of thumb.

I know a number of (otherwise quite strict) vegetarians who have no problem with either fish sauce or shrimp paste - I suspect that vegetarianism is more an umbrella term for a large number of different things that happen to overlap on not eating meat, but may otherwise have quite different motivations and boundaries. (I am curious, though, as to a vegan rational for eating oysters - I've known some very inventive people when it comes to justifying what the want to eat, but that one is quite impressive.)

[raletha]

Here's an article on vegans eating oysters: Consider the Oyster, which is similar in some ways to your edible sponge test case. Seems reasonable, if these animals are insensate and sustainably produced, there's no real issue I'd have (aside from palate; I never liked oysters).

Of course, now I can't stop thinking about poor old Sponge Bob Squarepants and traumatized children being fed sponges! XD

Food politics is such a minefield these days. Personally, I try to keep things simple and sane for myself, but it's hard to achieve any kind of logical consistency trying to balance all the diverse issues -- ethics, environmentalism, health, sociability -- so it never really is simple. I try to cut myself some slack (I'm less strict (fully lacto-ovo vegetarian, and I don't bother asking if the sour cream has gelatin or the curry has fish sauce. I don't want to be that guy!) when eating out or eating what other people have cooked for me than I am with what I eat at home and cook for myself (wholefoods mostly-vegan and finicky about sources for honey, dairy, and eggs)).

I think I've come around to accepting there is no perfect solution. If someone is trying to find, simultaneously, The Perfect Diet which is the most healthy, most ethical, most environmentally sound, and doesn't turn social eating into a hazard zone, they are doomed to fail.

[quillori]

Destroying all my foodie credentials, I must admit I've always found oysters much more palatable when fried. (Although still not as nice as practically anything else one could fry instead. I feel much the same way about snails - they're perfectly unobjectionable as a means of conveying garlic butter from plate to mouth, but on the other hand, if that is the aim, some other thing, perhaps a hunk of bread, or even just a small spoon, would surely be superior.) That aside, it seems a perfectly acceptable argument.

Your approach seems very wise - even just on grounds of health, I think it would be impossible to balance everything. After all, our bodies are complex, and foods that are good for us in some respects may be bad for us in others. Even just a Perfect Healthy Diet would have to made from a huge number of carefully balanced trade offs. Trying to include ethical views on what should be eaten, and environmental concerns (which may also involve trade offs between things bad in different ways) ... yeah, perfection isn't happening there. And I've spent much of my life wandering hither and yon about the globe, so I've also spent much of my life as a guest, sometimes literally and almost always at least in the sense of being a guest in other people's country and other people's culture - walking in and objecting loudly to the ways of ones hosts has its own problems.

[kaigou]

walking in and objecting loudly to the ways of ones hosts has its own problems

This is one reason why I'm an omnivore. My upbringing says you never decline what a host offers short of absolute religious grounds (which, being raised Episcopalian, we didn't have) or deathly allergies. Even then, you don't turn it down so much as only accept a little and then push it around on your plate so it's not obvious.

Or as my mother put it once, there is no insult greater than to refuse to eat what someone else has taken the time and energy to make for you. Absolute no insult greater, as a guest.

This is also how I've ended up choking down foods whose texture doesn't appeal to me, like tripe or liver, but I'd rather choke it down and feel a little ill than feel the worse crime of having offended my host. The first only lasts as long as it takes to clear the palate, but the second is unforgivable.

...which must be balanced out, of course, with the knowledge that it's equally unforgivable, as a host, to force one's guests to violate allergen/health or religious issues just to satisfy their role as guest. So I try to curtail any offered food to what the guest prefers, and I smile and accept whatever I'm given when it's my turn as guest.

[quillori]

Oh yes, this, exactly. I, too, was brought up to think that's how the host/guest thing works - if I'm the host I will put as much time and effort as I reasonably can into to discovering and accommodating my guests' preferences, but as a guest, you accept your host did their best and try to give the most convincing impression of pleased gratitude you can consistent with not actually being hospitalized or breaching a serious religious rule. As a guest, I think it's stood me well over the years - certainly I know people who have succeeded in getting themselves very poor reputations (which I don't think they realise) by managing to inadvertently insult a string of people precisely by refusing food; as a host it may have been less successful - on the one hand, I think I've mostly done a decent job of anticipating and catering to my guests, on the other, I've spent a fair amount of time being quietly and useless angry at people who fail to follow the guest half of the rules. (I mean, for example, would you, had your host gone to some trouble and expense to procure your favourite fruit, not normally obtainable where you were, and made it into your favourite dessert - would you really choose the moment it was placed in front of you to explain you'd given up eating desserts for the rest of the year and wouldn't be touching it? Well, obviously you wouldn't dream of it, but sadly others would. I've never quite been able to decide whether that sort of behaviour really is just bad manners, or whether in some places it's normal and acceptable behaviour.)

[kaigou]

you accept your host did their best and try to give the most convincing impression of pleased gratitude you can consistent with not actually being hospitalized or breaching a serious religious rule

...and you learn this by having a parent unafraid to lean over and whisper in your ear, "If you do not EAT AT LEAST THREE BITES and do it WITH A SMILE ON YOUR FACE then I am going to DRAG YOU OUT OF HERE and I will do it IN FRONT OF EVERYONE and they will ALL KNOW EXACTLY WHY."

Oh, the shame, the shame! Not just to offend your hosts but to be humiliated for it, too.

On the other hand, I sure know my best-behavior manners as a result of being threatened with BEING DRAGGED OUT OF THERE IN FRONT OF EVERYONE. Heh.

would you really choose the moment it was placed in front of you to explain you'd given up eating desserts for the rest of the year and wouldn't be touching it

Such a situation, or similar, is difficult when I'm a host, because I can't help but see it as tantamount to ending our friendship. It's completely ingrained but there it is: like the contract has been breached so badly and thoroughly that it must have been intentional. (The few times I've reeled back from such a position, it's because I've had CP to argue in the person's behalf.) I had a really tough time living in New England, for that reason, b/c a lot of the Italian-Americans and Portuguese-Americans we knew seemed to pride themselves on honesty, which apparently included snarky (if not outright dismissive) comments about food on the table. I just stopped entertaining, very quickly, rather than feel like doing so was opening myself up to unrelenting offense -- because it was that, or recognize that no one I'd met was willing to satisfy the guest/host contract, or even try to meet me halfway.

On the other hand, as a guest, the biggest offense I'll take is when a host corrects me -- "we don't put mustard on that," or "we don't eat it that way," or whatever. As my grandmother told me once, the guest is always right (hence, verrrry limited correction unless the guest specifically asks), but as a guest, it behooves you therefore to not abuse this right/privilege. A kind of noblesse oblige, perhaps?

[kaigou]

I think the honeybee example is probably working off the same logic as the diary issue -- that to take a cow's (or goat's) milk is to exploit the animal. My issue with that is mostly pragmatic, that cows/goats (and even horses) will produce milk if nursed/milked, long after their actual offspring have stopped needing it. Same way chickens will produce copious amounts of eggs if the eggs are taken, compared to how they'd stop producing if those eggs hatched. It just seems like... if done with any forethought (which is not to say the US food-production system currently has even an iota of that), it's more like using the leftovers. The milk the baby's stopped drinking, the eggs that wouldn't have hatched, the spare honey.

Although when it comes to bees, I recall my mother's justification for eating shrimp and crab -- she'd cry at the thought of veal (baby lambs! baby cows!) but baby shrimp? As she put it, she refused to feel guilty for eating "anything that could grow up to eat YOU". And if you've ever been crabbing and had a crab take a swipe at your toes... that eating-thing isn't too far of a stretch. Heh.

[raletha]

Right. Mostly I have issues with industrialized corporatized agriculture, not the individual foods. Meat is still off limits for me personally, but I am generally okay with arguments for ethical omnivores.

Honey bees are a little different as an issue because of the way they are used for pollination of crops, it's also about food security. Short version is this: over exploitation of honey bees -> honey bees die en masse -> crops don't get pollinated. This, to me, is actually an argument not to eschew honey, but to actively support small scale, local, organic apiarists.

Oh, food politics, why so hairy?

[kaigou]

I'm not sure you can even avoid fungi, if you wanted to.