Vegetarian Taxonomy

Possibly the only thing more depressing that eating dinner with a roomful of vegetarians is making dinner for them.

To make this a slightly more tractable experience, we have embarked upon a taxonomy of the different kinds of vegetarians that we know and love, and sorted and labelled them in a manner convenient and dehumanizing.

TypeSub-typeSynopsisNotes
I Eats meatMay be fashoniably or indifferently vegetarian on a part-time basis.
IBEats white meat onlyHi Pege!
II Eats seafoodDepressingly common, also called pesco vegetarianism.
IIBEats seafood without an endoskeletal backboneCrustaceans, shellfish, squid. Hi Ivana!
III No meatNothing that ever walked, swam or flew, but open season on vegetables and animal products. Also called Ovo-lacto vegetarians.
IIIBBuddhistsNo meat, no root vegetables, no onion or garlic.
IV No animals or animal productsForests and plantations tremble in terror at their approach. Also called vegans.
V No plant corpsesBasically seeds and fruit. Discussions about the right to life of embryos strictly off-limits at the dinner table. Also called Fructo-vegetarians.

Mikolaj J. Habryn
Last modified: Fri Jan 11 17:18:53 EST 2002