The vegans and vegetarians, the omnivores and carnivores and oh the pescetarians 🥚🥩🍍🥦

So many ways of eating.

Lifestyle choices, likes and dislikes, ethical standpoints and personal values can go into choosing what to eat and what not to eat.

And there are many different diets that one can adopt.

From paleo to keto, low-carb/no-carb, high protein/high fat, low sugar, . . .

You can take your pick.

I want to debunk a few myths and prejudices surrounding this topic.

I will explain what a few of these diets actually are and go into a few of the motives and reasons of why people might make before mentioned choices.

First off, I want to talk about some of the stereotypical opinions that people have about persons who choose to eat in a certain way.

Let’s take vegetarianism for example.

Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of

meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, and the flesh of any other animal),

and may also include abstention from by-products of animal slaughter.

Now, this person is not trying to be “extra”, difficult or particular with the sole purpose of ordering “off the menu”, making family meals harder or annoying the ”basic eater”.

Some people literally get nauseous at the sight of meat.
Some people find eggs appalling.
Others grow up vegetarian and are used to eating like that or just don't condone animal cruelty.
Sometimes a specific diet has a health related reason.
No matter the reason, it is a personal choice and not made because a person wants to be labelled a certain way.

Whether a person decides never to eat meat again from one day to another or it just happened slowly and kind of got phased out -

they will be labelled a “vegetarian”, because that is just what that diet is called.

They don’t go running around wearing a sign that says:

“Look at me, I’m vegetarian. I’m special. I need special treatment.”

They just don’t have meat or other certain other foods on their shopping list.📑

🌱Veganism seems to be sweeping the nations - which is a great thing -

for the planet, for animals, for humans - no matter the motive.

At one point it started becoming “trendy” even.

Suddenly, seemingly everyone announced that they were going vegan.

Promoting vegan burgers and ice cream and vegan this and vegan that.

Of course being vegan also has a variety of different motives,

but nowadays some of the main ones are:

ethical reasons and environmental reasons.

There are different, less "popular" or less known ways of eating like:

being pescetarian, ovo-lacto vegetarian or even fruitarian.

Then there are different diets which names have become quite known because they have become increasingly popular in the fitness industry,

often promising things like weight loss, "glowing" skin or “getting toned” quicker.

The keto diet for example is a low-carb diet which is focused on making fat your main energy source instead of carbohydrates. 
The diet was created in the 1920s as a treatment for epilepsy, but the effects of this eating pattern are also being studied for type 2 diabetes.
The ketogenic diet may improve blood glucose (sugar) levels while also reducing the need for insulin. 
So this diet was actually created for a totally different reason than what some fitness influencers and dieticians actually sometimes make it out to be and it is certainly not suitable for everyone.

🥦🍍🥩🥚🥗🥥🌽🥑🧄

Another popular diet called the paleo diet.
A paleo diet is a dietary plan based on foods similar to what might have been eaten during the Paleolithic era ( about 2.5 million to 10,000 years ago).  
A paleo diet limits foods that became common when farming emerged about 10,000 years ago. These foods include dairy products, legumes and grains
The idea is to return to the “original” way of eating that was before farming changed what people ate.

So there certainly are a lot of different ways to label oneself “diet-wise”.

There are many different reasons to adopt a certain diet.

It is very individual and does not have to be seen as an attribute or a statement about ones character.

Eating a certain way does not have to be something to be highlighted or commented on.

It is also very important to educate oneself on what different diets are for and if they are suitable for you.

They can reflect a persons values, personal preferences or medical conditions.

🧐You should remain critical, do your research and 100 % try to not get sucked into the fad-diet void or becoming obsessed with following a certain diet that gets promoted as one that will be the solution to all of your problems.

Ok, I hope you just got a teensy bit wiser😋.

And that ya didn’t get bored.

Thank you for reading

See ya next blog

Xx Stella