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I think I identify as more vegetarian than pescatarian; I think I consume fish about 2-3 times a month now. 65/35 or about a 2:1 ratio makes sense in my head given that most of the year (before I met Rachel), I identified as pescatarian.

Still eating eggs and feeling a bit guilty about it; I think I'd be happy to make a $5000 purchase offer to whoever makes https://sideways-view.com/2021/03/21/robust-egg-offsetting/ a real thing.

@Austin very quickly, have you tried getting kala namak (indian black salt)? It contains very high sulfur content that makes it taste "eggy" such that you can make tofu scramble and stuff that is quite similar to scrambled eggs and/or mimic basically any egg flavouring you want.

You can get "runny yoke" type stuff from fancy vegan places but idk how they do that and it's probably not practical to do often for yourself.

@MarcusAbramovitch I'm generally fine with egg substitutes like Just Egg when cooking myself; but the larger issue (also outlined by Paul) is that lots of tasty food made by restaurants and bakeries already include eggs in them. I'd like to offset this, the same way some people voluntarily offset their carbon emissions on flights.

@MarcusAbramovitch (but thanks for the rec, I hadn't heard of kala namak and just ordered some to try)

@Austin ah, i wouldn't be so upset if you ate these every so often and that was it.

I'm vegan and I probably inadvertently consume a bit of egg every year. My best guess would be ~5. Like, I'm sure every now and then a noodle dish at a restaurant or something similar had some egg in it or a baked good had some and it said vegan but wasn't actually or w/e.

If you are 99% vegan except for some baked goods or the occasional ice cream outside the house, that's good enough for all but the most puritanical of vegans. Especially because most of the gains is just realizing that non-human animals and their suffering are worthwhile.

@MarcusAbramovitch i think it is better called "rock salt" than black salt

@Austin Can this resolve?

@ as described in https://open.substack.com/pub/thingofthings/p/on-ameliatarianism (ie no farmed fish, poultry, or eggs - except arguably Certified Humane)

Seems reasonably close to what you’re already doing? At least, based on your last comment, do you think pescatarian is a better descriptor than ameliatarian?

I'm going to try to convince you that ethically, this is a very good diet and that it doesn't sacrifice that much compared to pescatarian on taste/convenience and greatly improves welfare.

I'm afraid that pescatarians, while not causing harm to the animals that we feel the most connection to, often cause more animal suffering than omnivores. This is because when you fish/shrimp, you cause the suffering of far more of them than if you eat 1/500th of a cow. You eat say 10 shrimps (who had their eyes cut off) or about 1/10th of a salmon.

Depending on where you are the world, bivalves (mussels, oysters, clams, scallops) can be decently cheap. That said, they also basically are rich in all the things people think vegans don't get or can't get easily. Protein, B12, zinc etc.
In terms of welfare, the evidence for their sentience is minimal at best. They don't have a CNS etc.

In terms of productivity, cooking of bivalves is fast and tasty.

I also agree with others that reducing egg consumption is incredibly important for animal welfare.

@MarcusAbramovitch Thanks! In practice (especially since dating @RachelWeinberg) I've cut down a lot on fish eating; when I started pescatarianism I (possibly motivated-ly) believed fish didn't feel pain, and now I do.

I don't particularly enjoy bivalve meat so might drop that for purely taste reasons? Though could give it another shot in the future.

I've also cut down egg consumption a lot with Rachel, though eggs are very high on my "list of tastiness things". I believe the most expensive eggs in supermarkets to be ~neutral-to-positive in welfare, and would personally be extremely excited to purchase egg offsets eg as outlined by Paul Christiano https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qJxzBpubLB7Fr3oM8/demand-offsetting

I would strongly dispute the part about expensive eggs in supermarkets.

How do you like to eat eggs that make you want to not replace them? Scrambled eggs? Fried eggs? Baking? etc.

"Fried egg on top of things" is the only thing I haven't replaced

I feel morally clueless about chicken suffering, but my instinct* says that it's possible to humanely raise hens, albeit rarely done.

*I originally said my gut, but my gut may have unconscious bias in this area.

/MartinRandall/can-i-buy-humane-egg-certs-by-20240