Is eating egg allowed in a vegetarian diet?
misecmisc1
I am a HinduIndia Veteran
Hi all,
I was pretty much convinced that eating egg is non-vegetarian. but recently i have heard from my family that eating egg is included in vegetarian diet.
i think the basic idea is of intentionally no harming, so we take up veg food, so that we do not harm or hurt other animals for our food, provided we have sufficient supplies of vegetables and fruits to cover up for our diet. since i am from india, so as far as my situation is concerned, where my work cities or my home city are there, i have easy access to different kinds of vegetables and fruits to cover up for my diet. But still my family is insisting me to eat eggs, since i have left eating non-veg food for nearly 2 years now. The reason my family have come up with is that they are saying that they have heard that egg is included in vegetarian diet. so i thought of raising this as a thread to get more information on this topic.
so please tell if in a vegetarian diet, eating egg is allowed or not? thanks in advance.
Comments
Some do some don't. For a vegan it's a no-no. Vegetarian that eats eggs is called an ovo-vegetarian. In the final analysis what you do or do not eat is up to you.
Only eggs allowed vegetarians are the ones produced by vegetarian birds.
So, hummingbird eggs, maybe?
Is this because a chicken eats wurms and thus kills, and if you eat the eggs of a chicken you indirectly killed beings? I find it quite an ineresting point of view.
I eat eggs of chickens that can run free, I also have a friend she has chickens herself and uses those eggs. I do not know if chickens can live on a vegan diet, of course if they find a wurm they will eat it, but they might be able to live on corn only I am not sure.
I think the comment regarding vegetarian birds is supposedly tongue in cheek. There is, of course, virtually no such thing as a vegetarian bird.
Not allowed in vegan diets.
The eating type of eggs we eat are unfertilized so no being is destroyed in eating them. However most egg laying chickens are raised in terrible conditions, living in India I'm not sure what is available for humanely raised eggs, maybe you can find a source from a small family who lets their chickens roam freely.
It depends on the particular person's diet, but in general, I'd say yes as long as the eggs are unfertilized eggs. You're not eating an animal, but an animal product (e.g., milk). As for myself, I also try to only eat eggs from animals that aren't harmed/killed in the process. I generally avoid roe (fish eggs) because some of the fish are killed for their eggs.
Yes.
@robot
Not that it matters..but I believe hummingbirds supplement their mostly vegetarian diet with any small bugs unlucky enough to be in the wrong flower at the wrong time.
Just another light weight dinosaur in a feather suit.
Yes how, but the hummingbird does not intend to eat the bug. A down side is the size of the eggs.
I wonder how many hummingbird eggs it would take to make a normal-size omelet.
Btw, the Audubon society just announced that the Allen Hummingbird was voted Bird of the Year:
The wonders of a vegetarian diet.
Beautiful bird.
And tasty! In a Christmas turduckenpigeosparhum.
I think we should go back to discussing whether eating eggs is a vegetarian behavior or not.
Sorry, that is just my opinion .
@sndymorn
They feed insects to their young, catch insects on the fly and actually pick bugs out of spiderwebs...That is deliberate intent in my book....
It would seem to me there isn't a bird that doesn't catch n eat a bug once in a while unless it's raised in captivity and its diet prescribed by people.
I think the 'answers' to the op have already been given more or less... :smirk:
Alright then How, no hummingbird eggs either. That settles that.
hi all,
thanks for your replies.
Is there any teaching anywhere in any sutta or in any tradition, which has information on the below thing: if i eat a hen's egg and the hen intentionally eats the worm to feed itself, then will i because of eating the egg will share the bad karma done by the hen when eating the worm? means does my eating the egg is going to add to me hurting of those worms indirectly through hen?
@seeker242 : you haven't replied on this thread till now, so can you also please share your views here on the above topic. thanks in advance.
Oh for goodness ' sake, @misecmisc1, please stop over-thinking this! First of all, the chicken does not generate bad kamma by eating a worm. It is just doing what comes naturally via survival instinct and the need to eat. It is not sufficiently sentient to be able to discern the karmic consequences..
Secondly the chicken's kamma is nothing to do with you! what the chicken does, is what the chicken does, and what you do, is what you do! Simple!
Oy!
Depends on what kind of vegetarian you are.
There are several “levels” of vegetarianism, or types of vegetarian.
Vegan: do not consume any animal products or by-products. do not use honey or beeswax, gelatin and any other animal by-product ingredients or products. Vegans typically do not use animal products such as silk, leather and wool, as well.
Pure vegetarian: do not consume any animal products or by-products. So of course do not consume red or white meat, fish or fowl. They also do not consume eggs and dairy. May wear leather, use wool, etc. Sometimes referred to as "dietary vegan"
Lacto Vegetarian: Lacto-vegetarians do not eat red or white meat, fish, fowl or eggs. However, lacto-vegetarians do consume dairy products such as cheese, milk and yogurt.
Ovo Vegetarian: Ovo-vegetarians do not eat red or white meat, fish, fowl or dairy products. However, ovo-vegetarians do consume egg products.
Lacto-ovo vegetarian: Lacto-ovo vegetarians do not consume red meat, white meat, fish or fowl. However, lacto-ovo vegetarians do consume dairy products and egg products. This is the most common type of vegetarian.
Although, if you are interested in non-harm to animals, eating modern day produced eggs is not very good. The kind of eggs typically at the supermarket. Modern day egg production is very abusive and unkind to animals.. Some people have no ethical problem eating eggs from a backyard chicken, who they know is being treated fine and not harmed, etc. Mass produced eggs almost always involve animal abuse of some kind.
hi
I consider myself a vegi however I eat eggs ,cheese ..Milk
I dont eat meat (fish beef pork etc) I think that we can eat products like eggs from
animals as long as they are not harmed in its production and anyway lifes to short to join the bean people
Nollaig shona
slainte
Liam
@yildun, Actually, life is shorter if you don't... :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
Besides the chicken, is there a list of egg producers not "sufficiently sentient", so those of us who only want eggs produced with unintentionally eaten bugs can become better informed.
It is my opinion that most egg layers are eating bugs because they have to. Maybe there is a place with so few bugs that the birds are ,"ipso facto," vegetarians.
Anyway, Seeker seems to have you defined .
Such a strange notion. That somehow a human's life could be affected by being part of a system in which birds eat insects.
What would the world be like if birds didn't eat insects?
@misecmisc1
If you wish to minimize the suffering that your eating creates, just examine all the processes that bring food to your mouth and choose the products & venues that create the least amount of overall suffering.
Ones real intent to minimize such suffering is best measured by ones willingness to be aware of the full costs that come with each mouthful and what use towards resolving sufferings cause do you make of it.
A chicken that suffers the least is said to be free range. Whatever that means in the industry I can't say.
What it should mean and does in the case of home raised birds is that they have room to move around and do what they naturally do which is peck at bugs on the ground. As well as consuming some type of organic feed that is preferably not laced with animal fat.
That's is as happy as a captive chicken can be. And they also will produce the healthiest and best tasting eggs.
To obtain eggs from a chicken that does not eat insects is not the way to create the least suffering, for the chicken.
If someone is worried about the bugs, they will likely have to give up eggs.
But I wonder if that person could be so self absorbed in trying to live harmlessly that they are becoming willfully ignorant about the natural world.
I would imagine it depends on not only what kind of vegetarianism you prefer but your reasons for choosing it. Some people choose it for health reasons only, in which case it would be totally up to you whether you want to consume eggs. If you are vegetarian because of the harm coming to animals, then you would want to research conditions of where the eggs your family uses come from. Do not fall for false labeling, if it happens there as it does here. Organic, free-range chicken eggs do not mean the chicken are treated any better or fed an ideal diet for them by any means.
I am not vegetarian, but I am cautious of where any animal products we buy come from. Our eggs are from a neighbor, so I know they are unfertilized and I know how they are treated and what they are fed.
You just have to decide what is best for you, and only you know your intentions and motivations for your diet. Sometimes, we wish we could do more but limitations of culture, living conditions and finances limits us. We all have to make the best choices we can. It's good to be aware that being at the top of the food chain means no matter what we choose, beings suffer so that we can stay alive. There is no way around that. To what degree is up to us based on the best we can do at the time.