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"Pesco/pollo vegetarianism", "pescetarianism" or "semi-vegetarianism" are neologisms coined to describe certain lifestyles of restricted diet. Most commonly, these include the practice of not eating certain types of meat (most commonly red meat such as beef, pork, lamb) while allowing other meats, such as seafood. There are usually no restrictions on non-flesh animal products such as dairy and eggs.
Terminology
Terms for these diets arose in response to growing numbers of people (particularly in the United States) who have systematically restricted diets that do not meet the definition of more stringent diets such as vegetarianism or veganism. The logic of the terms is fairly simple: pollo is Latin for chicken, pesce is Latin for fish. These prefixes are then prepended to the root word vegetarian. Since a vegetarian is one who eats plant-based foods but restricts or excludes animal flesh, a pesco-vegetarian eats fish and plants but may restrict or exclude other meats or animal products, and a pollo-vegetarian allows chicken.
Semi-vegetarian is even more general, but is also fairly ambiguous. Arguably any typical diet could be called semi-vegetarian. In Britain during the early 1990s, some people used the term demi-vegetarian. Chickifishitarian is a humours and specific pejorative neologism that means one who includes chicken and fish as non-meats.
Pescetarian is a variant of pesco-vegetarian that dates back in print to at least 1993 *. As of August 2004, "pescatarian", "pescotarian", and "piscatarian" could also be found on the Internet, but "pescetarian" was perhaps the most popular. (The word is usually pronounced as English, not Italian, so this particular spelling awkwardly contravenes the usual rule in English that c before e is pronounced as s.) "Pescavore" is also quite common, formed by analogy with "carnivore" (though the more regular word piscivore already existed). "Fishetarian" was also used in print as early as 1992, but is no longer very common. A colloquial term on the increase is "vegaquarian", also spelt "vegequarian".
The word "pollotarian" can also be found in internet sources, and it is met with just as much derision as "pescetarian" along with its various spellings.
Note that these are ad hoc coinages using Latinate (not genuine Latin) stems to form new words. The Latin stem meaning "fish" is pisci- and the stem meaning "chicken" is pulli-.
Terminology objections
Most objections to these new terms come from those who feel that pesco/pollo-vegetarians are misrepresenting themselves, or worse, confuse others as to what vegetarians eat and what constitutes an animal. Some fear that this may lead to the public understanding of "vegetarian" becoming further distorted, and claim that vegetarian diners asking for vegetarian meals at many restaurants are actually offered dishes with "only seafood or chicken". However, in the absence of a suitable (and well-known) alternative term to describe this dietary requirement many people simply use these terms in order to avoid having to give an unnecessarily long and detailed description of their eating habits every time they wish to avoid being served meat. Then again they could simply say "I don't eat red meat" or something similar, as has been the fashion for decades.
Of course, it should be noted that many vegans make similar criticisms of ovo-lacto vegetarians.
Rationale
There are many possible rationales for maintaining a "pesco/pollo-vegetarian" diet. One is health, based on the perception that "red" meat is somehow more detrimental, perhaps due to hypercholesterolemia. Many pesco-vegetarians claim that eating certain kinds of fish raises HDL levels that protect against this condition, and also point out that some fish are a convenient source of omega-3 fatty acids. Vegetarians, however, would claim that fish also contains toxins such as mercury, and that flaxseed is a safer source of omega-3 fatty acids.
While vegetarians and vegans sometimes claim environmental concerns as their motivation, this is less clear-cut among pesco/pollo-vegetarians. In particular, the pesco-vegetarian diet can be every bit as environmentally unfriendly if further precautions are not taken, due to the problems of overfishing, habitat damage, and by-catch. For this reason, "environmentally conscious" pescetarians commonly focus on eating the species that are most sustainably fished and avoid many farmed fish (e.g. salmon) as well.
For some the rationale is ethics: believing that either the treatment, or simply the killing and eating, of mass market meat animals is unethical. The rationalization for eating chicken or fish in this case is usually either "I have to eat some kind of meat" (see also complete protein), "chicken and/or fish are less intelligent than other animals", or in the case of pescetarians "fish are not mistreated in the same way that factory farmed animals are" or "hooked/netted fish do not suffer as much as land animals that are shot in the wild". There is also the belief that the predator-prey relationship between man and animals is part of the "natural order of things" and that, therefore, hunting animals from their own habitat for food is acceptable (as opposed to farming them in an artificial one).
Another ethical consideration of many pescetarians has to do with the inefficiency of red meat as a food source. Most cattle, pork and chickens that supply our meat market are not free range. Instead, they are fed grains that are grown for the sole purpose of animal feed. Far more grain is needed to feed a cow, pig, and chicken (to a lesser extent) than the meat they provide. Were this grain to be grown for human consumption instead, far more food could be provided. Considerations of overpopulation and restricted amount of arable land usually play a role in this pescetarian rationale.
See also
"Pesco/pollo vegetarianism"