Scrote greatly admires vegetarians. Scrote was a vegetarian himself for several years, although he was never terribly ardent about it. Eventually the terminal flatulence and the cravings for bacon overcame him. Scrote likes vegetarians because they have to think about their food- they have to know its origins, its moral values, its nutrition, and its ingredients to be sure that it conforms to the faith, and they have to be terribly inventive with their cooking to overcome the limitations of their diet. "Better than meat," they say, and they are right. Vegetarians live longer- but you don't see very many fat vegetarians.

Vegetarians, like adherents to other value systems, come in varying degrees of orthodoxy. The most liberal are red-meat vegetarians who won't eat beef or lamb, but who will eat poultry, fish and just about anything else. Depending on their principles most 'ordinary' vegetarians will not eat any meat but will eat animal products such as milk, cheese and sometimes eggs. Vegans are rather more strict, not eating any animal products and restricting themselves to foods of purely plant origin (cereals, vegetables, nuts, beans, fruits and derivatives such as bean curds and vegetable oils). Strictest of all are fruitarians who will only eat plant products that can be harvested without killing the plant such as berries, nuts, and fruits but not roots (such as potatoes) or cereals.