I eat sea kittens raw!

Apparently, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has decided that fish need new PR. So, instead of "fish," swimming sea creatures with fins will henceforth be referred to as "sea kittens." The rationale being that "no one would want to hurt a sea kitten!"

http://www.peta.org/sea_kittens/about.asp

As it turns out...sea kittens are tasty, especially in the form of sushi. Which led a friend of mine, at a group sushi dinner in Boston, to propose making shirts for all of us that proclaim "I eat sea kittens raw." Because, in fact, we do.

Now, I refer to myself as a vegetarian. Technically I'm a pescatarian, because I'm vegetarian + fish. But normal people go "huh?" if I use big words, so I generally stick to explaining that veggies + fish = good. I've been called a hypocrite a number of times because I don't "go all the way," i.e., I'm not completely vegetarian or vegan. And the reason is...being completely vegetarian sucks. I tried it for a month or so, when I first went veg. At the time, I was dancing and fencing four days a week and becoming horribly protein deficient and anemic because a pure vegetarian diet within the constrains of a college dining hall was not sufficient to supply the nutritional needs of an athlete. I became vegetarian for health reasons, not ethics, and I missed seafood. I see nothing wrong with killing animals for food. The plants I eat die too. I do have a problem with the practices used in the megafarming of livestock, but if I really wanted to eat meat I could easily get around that by eating organic-free-range-and-humanely-killed-animals. Which brings me back to why I still eat sea kittens.

My reason for being vegetarian, quite simply, is that meat makes me sick. Physically ill. It's like lactose intolerance, only with meat. My body doesn't produce the right enzymes, and I'm not willing to eat something that causes me intense physical pain. So birds and mammals are outside my natural food chain. Sea kittens are not, because seafood in general is healthy for me and does not make me ill. Yes, there are problems with deep-sea trawling and overfishing that get my ethics up. And I'm still working out the best way to handle that. But in the meantime, I'm going to eat what keeps me healthy. And raw sea kittens are definitely on that list.