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REASONS FOR CHOOSING A PESCETARIAN DIET Health benefits One of the most commonly cited reasons is that of Health , based on findings that Red Meat is detrimental to health in many cases due to non-lean red meats containing high amounts of Saturated Fat s. E Giovannucci, EB Rimm, MJ Stampfer, GA Colditz, A Ascherio and WC Willett, 1, Cancer Research 54, 2390-2397, (May 1, 1994) Frank B. Hu, MD, PhD, JoAnn E. Manson, MD, DrPh and Walter C. Willett, MD, DrPh, 2, Journal of the American College of Nutrition, Vol. 20, No. 1, 5-19 (2001) Furthermore, eating certain kinds of fish raises HDL levels, Paul J Nestel, 3, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 71, No. 1, 228S-231S, (January 2000) Sacks FM, Hebert P, Appel LJ, Borhani NO, Applegate WB, Cohen JD, Cutler JA, Kirchner KA, Kuller LH, Roth KJ, et al., 4, Journal of Hypertension, 209-13, ( Feb 12, 1994) and some fish are a convenient source of Omega-3 Fatty Acid s, Frank B. Hu, MD; Leslie Bronner, MD; Walter C. Willett, MD; Meir J. Stampfer, MD; Kathryn M. Rexrode, MD; Christine M. Albert, MD; David Hunter, MD; JoAnn E. Manson, MD, 5, JAMA. 2002;287:1815-1821. and have numerous health benefits in one food variety.[http://health.ivillage.com/eating/ewmeat/0,,79sxz0k6,00.html Get Hooked on Fish! by Sue Gilbert, MS, Nutritionis] Some health websites also state that pescetarianism lifestyle is a more healthy diet than vegetarian and vegan ones healthacker.com . It can be claimed conversely that fish also contain Toxins such as mercury and PCBs ,Committee on the Toxicological Effects of Methylmercury, Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, National Research Council, 6, ISBN 0-309-07140-2 (2000) though a careful selection of fish can ensure a low-risk or toxin-free product. Experts Say Consumers Can Eat Around Toxins In Fish - Science Daily[http://www.healthcastle.com/fish-safe-eat.shtml Mercury: Are Fish safe to eat? by Gloria Tsang R.D.] Ethics and criticism For some the rationale is Ethics : believing that eating mammals and birds is unethical but eating fish is not . Some pescetarians view red meat as an inefficient food source. Most cattle, pork and chickens United Egg Producers, 7, 2005 that supply the United States meat market are not Free Range . Instead, they are fed grains that are grown for the sole purpose of animal feed. The amount of calories in the grain needed to feed a cow, pig, or chicken (to a lesser extent) greatly exceeds the nutritional value of the meat these animals provide. Were this grain to be used for human consumption instead, far more food could be provided. Considerations of Overpopulation and the restricted amount of Arable Land usually play a role in this pescetarian rationale. This view is complicated by the fact that farming carnivorous fish species requires large inputs of wild fish for feed. Demand for "wild caught" fish may reflect this concern as well as a broader ethical position of rejecting the farming of animals, and the perceived health benefit of avoiding farmed varieties of some species such as salmon. Many pescetarians therefore choose only wild caught fish, or use guides such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood WATCH to evaluate the practices of fisheries. A 2006 report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that livestock are responsible for roughly 18 percent of the global warming effectFood and Agriculture Organization, 8, 2006, outstripping even the contribution of transportation. The main greenhouse gases produced by livestock are methane — the natural result of bovine digestion — and the nitrogen emitted by manure. Furthermore, the deforestation needed for grazing lands also contributes to global warming, by eliminating the CO2 sinks that forests provide. Thus some pescetarians choose their diet in an attempt to reduce "livestock's long shadow." . Some pescetarians are, for purely visceral reasons, disgusted by the consumption of mammals and birds yet not seafood. This can carry even to the point of avoiding sexual partners who eat mammals and birds, according to a study conducted by the New Zealand Centre for Human and Animal Studies.9 COMPARISONS TO OTHER DIETS Pescetarianism is similar to a traditional Mediterranean Diet , which focuses on seafood, grains, fruits, and vegetables. However, the Mediterranean diet does not entirely exclude meat from land animals as pescetarianism does. While pescetarians and vegetarians often cite similar reasons in selecting their dietary choices, pescetarianism is not a type of Vegetarian diet.http://www.vegsoc.org/fish/ Vegetarians do not consume the flesh of any animal, including sea animals; any diet that includes fish or other sea animals is not a vegetarian diet. However, since pescetarians do not eat mammal-meat or bird-meat, they experience many of the same social pressures as vegetarians, so that the two groups may sometimes have common interests. Occasionally -- and controversially -- terms such as ''pesco-vegetarian'' and ''semi-vegetarian'' have been used in place of the term pescetarian. While both groups often cite environmental issues as a rationale behind their diets, pescetarian and vegetarian diets can be each environmentally unfriendly if precautions are not taken, due to the problems of Overfishing , By-catch and in both diets, Habitat Destruction through arable farming. For this reason, some pescetarians focus on eating species that are most sustainably fished and avoid many Farmed Fish (e.g. salmon). TERMINOLOGY The root of ''pesco-'' is ultimately from ''piscis'' the Latin for Fish . However, the vowel ''e'' suggests that it has been taken via other Romance languages such as Spanish (''pescado'') or Italian (''pesce''). The reason for this seems obvious to English speakers - if they were called ''piscatarians'' people might get the wrong idea! As of August 2004, "pescatarian," "'''pescotarian'''," and "'''piscatarian'''" could be found on the Internet, but "pescetarian" was perhaps the most popular (while Italian ''pesce'' is pronounced /ˈpeˌʃe/ , the English term is usually pronounced with a hard "c.") As of May 2007, the term "'''pectarian'''" could also be found on the Internet. "'''Pescavore'''" is also quite common, formed by analogy with " Carnivore " (though the more regular word ''piscivore'' already existed). Less commonly used terms found include "'''aquatarian'''," which has recently gained popularity in Washington, DC, and "'''fishetarian'''," which was used in print as early as 1992 , and "'''vegequarian'''." REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS |
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