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Pescatarian Diet - Pescetarianism is the practice of following a diet that includes fish and other seafood, but not the flesh of other animals.
Those on pescetarian or pollotarian diets may define meat only as mammalian flesh and may identify with vegetarianism. Most pescetarians maintain a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet with the addition of fish and shellfish, described as "fish but no other meat". The common use association between such diets and vegetarianism has led groups such as the Vegetarian Society to state that diets containing these foods are not vegetarian.
Some pescetarians adopt their diet because of the inefficiency of other meat sources. For example, in the United States most cattle, chickens and pork are not free-range and are fed with grains specifically grown for their food. Therefore, the environmental impact and the amount of energy needed to feed a cow, a chicken or a pig greatly exceeds its nutritional value. Such pescetarians might prefer to eat wild-caught fish, as opposed to farmed carnivorous fish that require food input of other fish. They might use guides such as the Seafood Watch to determine the sustainability of their seafood source.
Other pescetarians might regard their diet as a transition to vegetarianism, an ethical compromise (ethical pescetarianism), or a practical necessity to obtain nutrients absent or not easily found in plants.
Furthermore, pescetarianism may be perceived as more ethical because fish, along with certain other animals such as insects, may not associate pain and fear as more complex animals like mammals do. Researchers have found that, unlike mammals, fish do not have the neuro-physiological capacity for a conscious awareness of pain. Fish do not possess a neocortex, which is the first indicator of doubt regarding whether they have pain-awareness. That is, certain nerve fibres in mammals (known as c-nociceptors) involved in the sensation of intense experiences of pain are not present in primitive cartilaginous fish. Some cartilagenous fish, such as sharks and rays do contain traces, yet there is an incomplete development of these fibres. To further test this, researchers administered powerful painkillers (such as morphine, which are highly effective in humans and mammals) to fish. They were found to be either totally ineffective or were only partially effective in doses so high that they would result in death from overdose. In this respect, although fish do show instinctive reactions to injuries and other interventions, the physiological prerequisites for the conscious experience of pain is not present. This, in combination with the pharmacological data, has supported the notion that fish do not feel pain in human, mammalian or biological terms.
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