Are Eggs Vegetarian?

Is being a vegetarian as straightforward as it seems? While it's true that vegetarians don't eat animal meat, distinguishing them from vegans — who abstain from all animal-derived foods — is important. Although plenty of meat-free recipes exist — and even plant-based seafood and protein-rich plant-based meat are available for purchase — the question of alternatives often arises for ingredients like eggs, which, of course, come from various birds. These oval-shaped, hard-shelled structures do not derive from the flesh of animals, so they are technically vegetarian (as long as they remain unfertilized, as most grocery store eggs do), and many vegetarians enjoy them as a source of protein in their diets.

However, if the eggs were fertilized — meaning they came into contact with a bird's sperm — or even if the birds from which they derived were fed a non-vegetarian diet (factory-farmed chickens, for example, may be given feed that derives from other animals), they would not be considered vegetarian by some non-meat eaters, and would therefore be avoided. Due to rising interest among consumers over the conditions in which many of their food items have been produced, some companies have started marketing their eggs as specifically vegetarian.

There are actually subsets within the vegetarian community — labels given to non-meat eaters who do consume eggs. These include: ovo-vegetarians, who, as their name suggests, eat eggs but don't eat the flesh of any animal or consume dairy; and lacto-ovo-vegetarians, who eat eggs and dairy products but not the flesh of any animal. Consequently, the label lacto-vegetarian indicates someone who eats dairy but avoids both eggs and animal flesh.

It is also common for practicing Hindus to avoid eating eggs as a condition of their religion. A few tenets of Hinduism that might discourage consuming eggs include ahimsa, a principle of non-violence, which can extend to all animal products if the believer so chooses. Eggs might also infringe on the satvic diet, which emphasizes the consumption of pure foods. It was also actually common practice for Christians to avoid eggs during Lent as well, though that tradition has largely faded in the West, and eggs are often consumed even on Fridays during Lent in modern times.