Phytophagarianism

[Auxin]

Phytophagarian - Those who believe in plant based diets.

A new year is a good time for a new word, google reports zero hits for this one

Phyto- : Referring to plants

-phagy : Eating

-arian : A believer in

As my main winter solstice resolution, and something I've been working up to for a decade, I've dramatically curtailed my consumption of animal derived dietary products. I've decided to brush up on issues surrounding my choice and was at a loss of how to refer to my dietary archetype.

On one hand you have 'vegetarian', those who believe in vegetables- the implication that the belief involves eating, however western vegetarians consume more than half as much dietary animal products as regular meat eaters! [1] 'Vegetarians' tend to consume large amounts of dairy and eggs, and sometimes fish. So I'm not a vegetarian.

Then you have the Vegan movement. While this deeply and irreversibly involves just the kind of dietary animal product avoidance I'm trying to learn to maintain, its philosophy goes far beyond diet and covers any human use of any animal product or service for anything at all. Its not a diet plan, but rather a moral philosophy based in animal rights. This goes well beyond just describing my dietary choice so I wont use 'vegan' to describe it. It doesnt help that many people react with hostility to any mention of a 'vegan'- regarding them as a preachy, self righteous, and often confrontational sort of folk (which a certain, but possibly single digit, percentage of them really are IME).

Steve Solomon calls his choice vegetableatarianism which he describes as mostly eating mostly vegetables most of the time [2] Ignoring the problems with etymology and spelling thats just too lax for me. (The guy has some great gardening tips tho)

While I sympathize and identify with animal rights arguments the thing that finally pushed me over the edge to a plants-only diet was health considerations relating to the cumulative harm to oneself of consuming meat, fish, and dairy [3]. I dont like any sentient being being harmed but I'm not about to throw away my leather jackets that were made 15 and 20 years ago, nor will I burn my animal derived books printed as far back as 1754 and predating my own country!, nor will I toss my hundred year old animal derived tools in the river, nor will I refuse to read scientific papers that mention animal testing, even if sometimes they involve things I would never do. Thus I would be a heathen in the vegan camp. There is substantial evidence showing that dairy is harmful to ones health, and I'm mildly allergic to eggs, I wont even go into the issue of vegetarians consuming more estrogenic raw soy than any culture in history ever has, so I wouldnt fit in with vegetarian menu options at restaurants.

All I want is a nice little word to plainly describe the idea of striving to consume a plants based diet, and I'll count fungi and lichens as plants.

Thus I am a phytophagarian!

Whos with me?

[1] Messina M, and Messina V 'The Dietitian~ Guide to Vegetarian Diets. Issues and Applications.' Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen Publishers, Inc., 1996

[2] Steve Solomon 'Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times'

[3] T. Colin Campbell 'The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health'

[tripsis]

Why bother with a label at all?

[Auxin]

Well yeah man.. in ultimate reality names only distract from the totality of existence and cause us to abstract ourselves out into a false reality.

But on a more mundane level its useful to be able to point to a apple and say 'apple', to point to a metabolic process and say 'cytochrome P450 2E1 mediated xenobiotic oxidation', or to point to a cheese sandwich and say 'naw man, I'm not vegetarian, I'm phytophagarian'

[tripsis]

Sorry, maybe that came across a little blunt...

I call myself a vegan out of convenience, but ecotarian would be a better fit (which i also sometimes call myself). But at the end of the day, it's still just a label, and few of us fit into a category as simply as some of us might think. Every time you say you're a phyophagarian, you'll end up having to explain exactly what you mean. It would be a lot easier to just say, "no, I don't eat animal products", when confronted with the cheese sandwich scenario.

One problem I find with veganism, vegetarianism and almost any other diet/lifestyle label, is that often when people use a label to describe themselves, they end boxing themselves in to conform to specific rules or guidelines of that label, thus not being able to choose a middle path. E.g., someone who calls themselves a vegan might not eat something with dairy in it, even if that product is about to be thrown out, because doing so jeopardises them being a vegan. Personally, I prefer to eat according to my own ethics, so whether I might generally practice being a vegan in an economic sense, if I dumpster yoghurt or hit a kangaroo, I'd prefer to eat them than see them go to waste for the sake of myself conforming to a preexisting label/stereotype. Likewise, I will buy leather boots, as they last a longer than synthetic counterparts and produce less non-biodegradable waste. I agree that people often react with hostility to the the mention of the word "vegan", at least partially why I will call myself one, as it confronts those with prejudices. On the other hand, many vegans shit me with their attitudes, as they're often very extreme. As you mentioned, some people end up with the "holier than thou" attitude, which just serves to alienate people around them.

Hence, my previous comment. Labels tend to make people box themselves in, even if it's not intentional, so if you can not label yourself, I think you're better off.

[Distracted]

So...

How is it pronounced?

Fighto - fag - arian ? or Fighto - fadge - arian?

Good luck spreading it around, it's probably on google right now because these forums are indexed.

Personally I eat whatever I think is tasty, this involves me avoiding any products that contain seafood which I feel good about

[Auxin]

'Fighto - fadge - arian' seems about right, I'd prolly spell out the pronunciation like 'Feye-toe-fay-ger-e-uhn'

Lots of my friends from the 90's ate whatever they thought was tasty too... today theyre not so pretty a sight and becoming prime candidates for a future of chronic degenerative diseases. I'm not tellin' folk not to eat meat, but be careful with your levels of excess.. ya pay for it.

tripsis, yeah I can sympathise with trying to avoid over-identification with labels. I've seen the subtle problems it causes in others and in myself too, conceptualizing oneself as X and then feeling some stress when reality doesnt totally conform to that idea. But thats not a problem with the words, thats a problem of how people choose to relate to the self. It can be solved independent of linguistics.

As for having to define the word, yeah to people that dont know any latin would, hell if I heard 'phytophagarian' cold for the first time I'd blink before being all like 'oh, so like vegetarian'? Same learning curve happens with any word. Vegans still often have to define it too, and when someone says their vegetarian the person listening oftens says "so do you eat fish" or "but you still eat chicken, right?"

Stopping to define new words to people isnt so bad, it invites creative new thought. Thats why Gandhi taught 'Ahimsa' rather than just 'killing is not good', thats why the Buddha taught about 'dukkha' instead of just saying stress, and thats probably why Kwanzaa was invented as a holiday for black pride. Learning and developing is fun, sure theres the occasional A-bomb or nationalism that get produced too, but until we learn better thats just the price we pay for moving out of the caves.

[ThunderIdeal]

lichens?

i wish i could join you auxin. don't think i could maintain my frame without milk though, unless maybe i ate a lot of soy

i don't need convincing that milk is bad, but why is milk bad? i could read some random stuff off google but asking you directly would probably give me a better idea.

[Auxin]

Its linked to the same type of promotion of heart disease and cancer as meat, but is also being linked to osteoperosis and prostate cancer now.

Prostate cancer is a biggie, I'd like to avoid it.

They figure it may cause a dysregulation of vitamin D homeostasis as the mechanism of osteoperosis promotion, if true that could also hypothetically impact the immune system negatively to some degree.

Milk and cheese have also long been known to be able to induce cataracts. A cheese loving mate of mine has cataracts now. I never consumed enough to put me in a high risk group but still... one more reason to avoid it lol

Oh yeah, many lichens are edible, especially ones without any yellowish tint... the question being would you want to eat them They also tend to be antibiotics of modest to moderate usefulness.

Edited January 20, 2011 by Auxin

[zelly]

I dont like any sentient being being harmed

Sentience is the ability to feel or perceive.

The Secret Life of Plants

The book explores the idea that plants may be sentient, despite their lack of a nervous system and a brain.

Have you considered a diet of cow dung?

[Rabaelthazar]

There is a growing number of people who believe that cow dung is sentient.

[Zen Peddler]

Im doing a macrobiotic (another label) diet and ive dropped shit loads of weight. Did it for moral reasons mainly. macrobiotic diets also include fish but i only eat fish varieties that arent endangered like the aussie salmon (not to be confused with american farmed red meated salmons).

[ThunderIdeal]

what are good sources of protein? particularly interested to hear your thoughts auxin but of course i'm interested in anybodies thoughts.

obviously animal products are good sources of protein so i'm talking about vegan sources.

i like spirulina, it's 80% protein, but even at such a high concentration it would be expensive to consume lots of it.

can any soy products be safely eaten in large quantities, with the question mark hanging over soy?

which nuts are unhealthy and should you limit nut intake in general?

[Auxin]

Germplasm is pretty much always high in protein. Thus grains and beans. Half a cup of oats (a bowl of oatmeal) has ~25% your daily protein and my bagels each have ~8%, barley has a good amount and I often add that to my soups/stews, breads and noodles are a non-trivial source. Any nuts, tho some people have problems with some.. particularly peanuts. All beans, including lentils, are a good protein source. Lentils make people fart less than beans. Soy is a bean, one fairly new to the human diet and with its controversy. Beans and grains are a good combo for protein completeness, as is peanut butter and bread.

Mushrooms and vegetables serve as a lesser source of protein- but a significant one.

People often make alot of noise over 'protein quality' but its rare for any protein source to be almost completely lacking in any essential amino acid, so a diverse diet will supply ample 'protein quality' even with no animals involved. There is a school of thought linking animal product/animal protein consumption with increased cancer, cardiovascular disease, etc. its not really known what part of animals does that (animal fats are often blamed but may just be a marker for animal product consumption level) but in studies examining only isolated milk protein some studies have found it to promote cancer, it could be some funky class of peptides or animal-specific protein prosthetic groups or something but one day I was looking at the slight lack of lysine in grains and a bottle of pure lysine hydrochloride, pondering supplementing oatmeal so its protein was like chicken, and something occurred to me... perhaps the 'good' 'protein quality' of meat is the source of the harm itself? In us amino acids are used for protein synthesis, amino acid synthesis, energy production, and other stuff synthesis- with protein synthesis often taking priority. Perhaps if protein 'quality' is too good (too close to eating human flesh) something biochemically goes wrong in us due to the reduced abundance of 'extra' amino acids to do non-protein-synthesis stuff with

I didnt supplement my oatmeal.

I havent ate animal products since solstice in december and I havent lost any muscle mass at all, in fact I've gained some from exercise. Its really not that hard to get at least 40 grams of protein without animals.

[Legba]

Another consideration with respect to meat is the amount of food needed to produce it. In other words, food is given to animals to produce the meat to meet the demand, rather than spreading the food around to feed everyone.

"According to the World Health Organization, hunger is the single gravest threat to the world's public health. The WHO also states that malnutrition is by far the biggest contributor to child mortality, present in half of all cases. According to the FAO, starvation currently affects more than one billion people, or 1 in 6 people on the planet." (source)

"Undernutrition among children has reached terrible levels. About 195 million children under the age of five in the developing world – about one in three children - are too small and thus underdeveloped. Nearly one in four children under age five – 129 million – is underweight, and one in 10 is severely underweight. " (source)

"Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes. That's one child every five seconds." (source)

Meat products should have warning labels to emphasise these facts. (as if that will happen)

"ADVISORY NOTE: 60 children will die of starvation in the time it takes you to eat this big mac because we gave the food to the cows instead of the kids to deliver this product to you. Enjoy."

Eating less meat isn't just good for your health (if you have been overindulging) it could help the health of many if the above fact's became common knowledge.

Got a word for eating more plants so no one goes hungry -arian?

[Auxin]

Compassiocarniphagiarian?

The belief in eating meat with compassion.

[Zen Peddler]

beans and lentils are high protein low carbs - cant go wrong