What's in a Name?

This past weekend I was at a wedding in Iowa.  I know from previous experiences that weddings in the Midwest mean I probably won't be eating at the event.  I also know that it means explaining my dietary habits to people.  One friend of mine advised me to just say I have food allergies, and no one will bother me.  It's great advice, but it also makes me wonder, why does anyone care?  People like to label each other: by location, sexual preference, fashion style, intelligence, race, body type... the list goes on.  Why? Maybe the labels help us categorize each other, or find commonalities, I don't know. But I'm not going to get into all that.  It did get me thinking, though, about how I label myself and my eating habits, and why there's almost always confusion.

From the start of this blog, I called myself a pseudo-vegan pescetarian, or something along those lines.  Here is what I mean: I do not eat animals or eggs; I eat fish sporatically; I rarely eat cheese; I avoid butter, milk, sour cream, cream cheese, and mayonnaise; I avoid high fructose corn syrup and artificial ingredients; I drink wine and sometimes beer on the weekends; I drink green tea for caffeine and only have coffee once in a blue moon; I eat chocolate occasionally; and I avoid baked goods.

When it gets broken down, I am not actually 100% vegan.  I rarely eat cheese and I love seafood.  And vegans do not consume any animals or animal byproducts.  But for me to say vegetarian or pescetarian just doesn't seem enough, especially since so many things are restricted from my diet.  If I say I'm vegetarian, people will assume that I eat cheese, eggs, and dairy.  Then they will feed me those things, or question me when I don't eat them.  The only dairy I eat is cheese.  Even then, it's not often. (If I eat 4 times a day Monday through Friday, and twice a day on the weekends, that's 24 times a week.  I eat cheese probably two meals out of 24, putting me at 8.3% of my weekly diet.)  I avoid other things with dairy and even check labels to make sure they do not have whey and casein-- proteins found in milk-- and I will not touch things made with eggs.  I only eat seafood when I'm out to eat-- which may actually have more to do with saving money and the fact that I haven't mastered cooking seafood yet-- and even then, it's once a week at most.  And I also drink wine and beer, which some might say are processed using animal byproducts.  (FYI: Amstel, Corona, Heineken, Miller and Rolling Rock are all vegan.)

So that's where the pseudo-vegan pescetarian label comes from.  I realize that maybe I could just say I'm a pescetarian with lactose intolerance, but even that will bring up some sort of question when someone sees me eating cheese, but not milk (which is actually kind of funny because I actually do have lactose intolerance, but sometimes just eat cheese anyway).

The moral of the story is that eat what I eat, and I can't really label it.  I just have to accept that I will always have to explain myself.    And as long as I remember that what I eat goes into my body and no one else's, I guess it shouldn't really matter what anyone thinks.

For the record, here are some labels of food preferences:
Carnivore: eats meat, dairy
Omnivore: eats everything
Vegetarian: eats largely plant-based diet, but sometimes dairy

Vegan: eats only plant-based foods, no meat, no dairy

Pescetarian: eats plant-based foods and fish/shellfish, but excludes other meats

Fruitarian: eats fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and grains

Lacto vegetarian (lactarian): vegetarian diet that includes dairy, but excludes eggs
Gluten-free: excludes gluten, which is commonly found in wheat, barley, rye, and malts