Is 'Flexitarian' the New 'Clean Coal'?

I ran across a fascinating little tidbit on the BBC News website today. (Yes, I know I rely on the dirty Brits far too heavily for my news, music, telly, and lit). Entitled 'The rise of the non-veggie vegetarian,' the piece attempts to tackle the somewhat prickly issue of assigning labels to our culinary identities. Specifically, the increasing use of terms such as "flexitarian" (to describe so-called vegetarians who also consume limited quantities of fish),as well as "meat-reducers" and "meat-avoiders"(labels attached to people who try to limit their intake of meat for health or environmental reasons) is examined. Of course there are also the good old, run-of-the-mill vegetarians who "won't eat anything with a face" and vegans, who eschew all foods derived from animal sources, but I'm getting ahead of myself. The culinary identity issue is painted as complex and nuanced, with room for many shades of grey. I say bullocks.

In my opinion, no one who eats an animal (yes, fish are animals last time I checked. and so are chickens) can rightfully refer to herself as a vegetarian. There is no such thing as "I'm a vegetarian, except I also eat some fish." If you eat an animal you are out of the club. (Yup. There's a club. Secret handshake and all.) Likewise, if you eat eggs, milk, honey, or gelatin you cannot call yourself a vegan. I might even go so far as to say that anyone who accepts the ethical argument against eating meat ought also to refrain from eating any animal-derived products, since the treatment of egg-producing chickens is perhaps one of the most atrocious crimes committed by man against animal in all of human history. I say this, and yet I'm one of those vegetarians who happens to like an occasional omelet--with cheese. I am ashamed, and thus generally refrain from discussing my dietary habits.

I think it's time to rethink the vegetarian/non-vegetarian issue. When a fish-eater can call himself a vegetarian, labels have effectively outgrown their usefullness. Instead, ponder this. Anyone reading this blog has access to the internet, and thus YouTube, and thus the countless videos showing the horrors of modern-day factory farming. No one with a heart can witness the carnage and not feel at least a twinge of guilt about eating meat, eggs, and dairy. Nor can anyone who cares about the future of the planet deny the exceedingly detrimental impact that the Western world's taste for meat has had on the environment. Ready for the sermon? Here it comes...Here it comes...

Stop eating so much fucking meat people! You don't need meat with every meal. You don't need third-pound burgers and chicken on your salads! I don't care what you call yourself--vegetarian, carnivore, flexi-frickin-tarian--people need to wake up to the fact that our current food habits are not sustainable. Of course, I would prefer if everyone just stopped eating animal entirely; and yes, I should really eat a vegan diet in order to avoid hypocrisy (but I've never run away from hypocrisy!), but if everyone would just chill a little on the bacon burgers and Kentucky Fake-Grill-Marks Chicken, we would be healthier, the strain on the environment would lessen, and there would no longer be a need for the "Automatic chicken deboner" and other cruel torture devices spawned by our insatiable lust for flesh. Hallelujah!