Healthy Cooking

Question: Can a teenager who only eats the meat his/her parents make them eat, be considered vegetarian?
Based on what I have read, vegetarianism/veganism is NOT a diet but a lifestyle choice based on respect for animals. That if one abstains from meat for health reasons, but would eat it if it was not for the fat and cholesterol then they are not a vegetarian, but one who eats a vegetarian diet. Likewise if some one is too poor to purchase meats, but would gladly do so if they had the money (this is true for many in the third world) then they are not a vegetarian.

If we accept the above is true would it also be fair to say that when a vegetarian claims her toddler son is a vegan/vegetarian, then her statement is equally false? If a four year old is only given vegetarian food, the child has not made a choice. He can only become a vegetarian upon being offered meat and deciding not to eat it. Agree, disagree?
Every so often someone will post a hypothetical directed to vegetarians of the sort, if you were in a shipwreck and floating in a life raft and your only possible source of food was fish, would you eat the fish or starve? Universally people respond that yes, they would eat the fish instead of starve to death, but that the hypo has little bearing on their day to day decision to abstain from meat. But let’s assume such a situation did occur to someone who had become a vegetarian 10 years prior. And the vegetarian eat the fish, and then upon being rescued four weeks later resumed his abstention from meat. Ten years after that he tells someone he has been a vegetarian continuously for 20 years. Is he lying? Did he remain a vegetarian during the shipwrecked period or did he cease to be one?

The shipwreck hypo is truly a rare event. The next hypo is not.
Assume a 13-year old girl wants to be a vegetarian, in fact she would prefer to be vegan. Her parents, however, strongly oppose such action. So she eats the least amount of meat possible in her situation. At dinner she takes the smallest piece of chicken that is in the bowl and then loads up on steamed veggies. She gets away with this because none of her sibling mind having less steamed veggies. When dinners is spaghetti and meatballs, she tries to get as much spaghetti and as little meatballs as possible. She has asked her mom if she can make her own lunches for school and mom has said no. So when she gets a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch she trades it with a friend for a PBJ one. At restaurants she always orders something veggy. When it is her choice she chooses veggy, but being 13 it is not always her choice.
Assuming you are okay with our fishing eating shipwreck survivor claiming he has been a vegetarian for twenty years, would it not also be fair to call this teenage girl who does not eat meat unless her parents make her also a vegetarian?
Kitkat – I would say that a 4 year-old who eats meat and veggys is an omnivore, a 4 year old child who is fed only veggy is a herbivore, but not a vegetarian.

Answer:

Answer by Skully
I believe the argument you are making is whether or not “intent” to be vegetarian is enough if one has no control over the “non-veggie” forces in his/her life?

If that is what you arguing— I would say “Yes”.

Good questions and will likely prove the black & white fanatics on here some trouble. It will be interesting to see how “Free Range Mikey” (Mike H.) weighs in on this one….LMAO.

Add your own answer in the comments!