What do you call an almost vegetarian diet that includes honey and insects, but excludes milk and eggs?

Question

I'm looking for the name of a non-lacto or ovo diet, but that includes honey and insects (as the title says). What would this version of vegetarianism be called?

I'm looking for a name similar to lacto-vegetarian, pesco-vegetarian, etc.

Answer 1

If you really want a word for this, I'll make one up for you. Call it entomophagous vegan. Entomophagous is the adjective for eating insects. You can also say plant and insect based diet. But there is no mainstream word for the diet you describe at least in the US or Australia.

I symphathise with you as I have a very complicated diet (vegetarian with the following modifications: no cheese, but I eat insects, invasive species, and sustainably harvested, abundant, wild, herbivorous animals). Try explaining that diet easily. The vegan plus insects and honey is less complicated, but complicated enough that if we had a word for every modification it might get unwieldy.

In most practical situations, you can just say you are vegan. For example, at a restaurant: just say you are vegan. This makes things easier for everyone. While avoiding honey is technically not vegan, and the phrase "beegan" is sometimes used in vegetarian/vegan circles, in the vast majority of situations where you are with the general public and just want to be practical, vegan + honey = vegan. In fact, pure vegans at a restaurant ordering a sweet dish should specifically ask if the item contains honey. Most servers in the US, Europe and Australia do not realize that honey isn't vegan unless their attention is directed to the fact bees make honey. You might ask, is saying "I'm vegan" lying? Yes, it is. However, it is like a friend of mine who says his name is "John" when ordering food at a restaurant, because his real name is "Jobosiguentanacalda", calling himself John is a white lie that hurts no one.

Answer 2

"Flexitarian" can be used as a catch-all to describe any "almost" vegan/vegetarian diet. The only other term I've heard of that comes close is "beegan", to refer to a vegan to eats honey

Answer 3

bee-tlegarian

beegans eats honey, you mentioned eating insects, as a fortunate coincidence the word BEEtle includes Bee which is happy convenience.

The "garian" suffix already indicates something that comes from agriculture so the word seems ok.

Another possible word is

bugvorousgarian

Answer 4

I’d call it vegan (1988) or old-school vegan.

The Vegan Society UK considered honey to be vegan at their founding and as recently as 1988. Yes, that’s the same society that has the word vegan registered as an international trademark. They were originally a spin-off from the vegetarian society with the addition of eggs and dairy as concerns.

Most of us are eating bugs already, so the only practical difference is intent and quantity.

Most of us eat a quarter of a kilogram of insects by accident each year anyway, writes Susan Lawler, HoD, Department of Environmental Management & Ecology, La Trobe University, Australia, in the website, Conversation. If you eat organic, your rate of insect consumption is much higher, she says.

In addition, insects are already killed in great quantities by regular agricultural practices thanks to the use of pesticides. Just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

Let those who don’t harm insects set themselves apart. In fact, there is a group that strives to avoid harming insects whenever possible and that is Jain vegetarians.

Of course, one should expect to be challenged on whether those who eat insects can be considered vegetarians but just consider that an opportunity to explain why you think eating insects is better than not doing so.