If you’re a pescatarian that eats fish often, are you doing the same ethical harm as an omnivore?
I’ve recently decided to switch to a more plant based diet for ethical reasons. While minimizing animal suffering was apart of why I’m making changes, the more important portion to me is the negative environmental impact of the meat industry.
For the past few days I’ve been eating a pescatarian diet. In another world I’d be vegetarian, but I’m an athlete and getting protein is very important to me. I guess I could manage being vegetarian with protein powders and what not, but because I have IBD, my gut health is another major concern of mine.
All this to say, although I haven’t consumed other types of meat the past few days, I’ve had a pretty significant amount of seafood. Maybe 2x a day. To be clear, I do believe that fish can experience pain, so that’s not what I’m asking.
What I’m trying to get at is, with how often I’m consuming fish, is my environmental impact functionally the same as an omnivore? I understand mass fishing is a major polluter, and though my original intention was just to reduce harm where ever I can, I’m starting to wonder if this really is harm reduction at all.