Varieties of Vegetarian

Vegetarianism is the practice of following a diet based on plant-based foods including fruits, vegetables, cereal grains, nuts, and seeds, with or without dairy products and eggs. A vegetarian does not eat meat, game, poultry, fish, crustacea, shellfish, or products of animal slaughter such as animal-derived gelatin and rennet. A vegan diet is a form of vegetarian diet which excludes all animal products, including dairy products, eggs, and honey. A lacto-vegetarian diet includes dairy products but excludes eggs, an ovo-vegetarian diet includes eggs but not dairy products, and a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet includes both eggs and dairy products. Vegetarianism may be adopted for ethical, health, environmental, religious, political, cultural, aesthetic, economic, or other reasons.
A semi-vegetarian diet consists largely of vegetarian foods, but may include fish and sometimes poultry, as well as dairy products and eggs. A pescetarian diet, for example, includes fish but no meat. The common use confusion between such diets and vegetarianism has led vegetarian groups, such as the Vegetarian Society, to note that such fish or poultry-based diets are not vegetarian.

Semi-vegetarianism is often criticised by vegetarians or vegans who assert that one cannot be "semi-vegetarian" or vegetarian only occasionally. According to such criticisms, a vegetarian is someone who consistently keeps to a diet that excludes all animal products or is, at the least, lacto-ovo. Semi-vegetarianism and the related term "flexitarianism" have been dubbed "problematic" and "diametrically opposed to vegetarianism".

Other dietary practices commonly associated with vegetarianism

• Fruitarianism is a diet of only fruit, nuts, seeds, and other plant matter that can be gathered without harming the plant.
• Su vegetarianism (such as in Buddhism), excludes all animal products as well as the fetid vegetables: onion, garlic, scallions, leeks, or shallots.
• Macrobiotic diet is a diet of mostly whole grains and beans. Not all macrobiotics are vegetarians, as some consume fish.
• Raw veganism is a diet of fresh and uncooked fruit, nuts, seeds, and vegetables.
• Dietary veganism: whereas vegans do not use animal products of any kind, dietary vegans restrict their veganism to their diet.

Strict vegetarians also avoid products that may use animal ingredients not included in their labels or which use animal products in their manufacturing e.g. cheeses that use animal rennet, gelatin (from animal skin, bones, and connective tissue), some sugars that are whitened with bone char (e.g. cane sugar, but not beet sugar) and alcohol clarified with gelatin or crushed shellfish and sturgeon. Vegetarians who eat eggs sometimes prefer free-range eggs (as opposed to battery farmed eggs).

Types
* Flexitarianism - Mostly avoiding all meat, but eating it under some situations.
* Pollotarianism - Mammalian meat, fish, and seafood is excluded, but chicken or other poultry is not.
* Pescetarianism - Mammalian meat and poultry is excluded, but fish and seafood are not.



Article Source : www.wikipedia.org

Lacto Vegetarianism

A lactovegetarian diet is a vegetarian diet which includes dairy products such as milk, cheese, yogurt, butter, cream, and kefir, but excludes eggs. The origin of "lacto" is the Latin word for milk [lac, lactis]. Cheeses which include animal rennet and yogurts which contain gelatin are also avoided. Lacto-vegetarianism as a concept and practice amongst a significant number of people comes from ancient India and was originally based on religious beliefs. Within Indian cultures this diet is often what is meant by the term "vegetarian".

The greatest proportion of vegetarians, such as those in India or those in the area of the classical Mediterranean such as the Pythagoreans, are or were lacto-vegetarian.

Lacto-vegetarians abstain from specifically eating eggs, fish, chickens, cows, sheep, pigs and sea animals. Eggs contain animal hormones including testosterone, which may or may not increase aggressiveness. Lacto vegetarianism may be adopted by vegetarians wishing to lower their dietary intake of cholesterol, since egg yolks, as well as dairy products, contain cholesterol. Unfertilized eggs contain a similar amount of cholesterol as fertilized eggs.

Article Source : www.wikipedia.org