More than diets, let’s talk about eating habits
Not sporadic or one-off paths that begin and end once a goal is reached—or are abandoned out of boredom or lack of consistency. Here’s an overview of the most common nutritional styles.
Omnivores
Their diet includes everything edible: fruit, vegetables, legumes, mushrooms, seeds, and animal products. Theoretically, even insects—if you like them. Then there are those who avoid shellfish, dislike offal, or don’t eat vegetables. But that’s another story.
Vegetarians
They don’t eat meat or fish, but dairy products, cheese, eggs, and honey are allowed. The cornerstone of this diet consists of fruits and vegetables, legumes, and whole grains (combined, they provide bioavailable protein with all nine essential amino acids), as well as nuts, seeds, and seaweed (which supply iron).
Vegans
Like vegetarians, they avoid meat and fish, but also any animal-derived products such as eggs and dairy. Not even honey is allowed, as it results from bee labor and is linked to their exploitation.
Mushrooms, however, are permitted since they belong to a separate biological kingdom—eukaryotes—neither plant nor animal.
Despite the risks of deficiencies in iron, calcium, vitamin D, and B12, veganism is spreading widely.
Some well-known Hollywood vegans include Michelle Pfeiffer, Anne Hathaway, Natalie Portman, and Joaquin Phoenix.
Ostrovegans
Ostroveganism derives from veganism but allows the consumption of bivalve mollusks such as mussels, clams, oysters, scallops, cockles, and sea truffles.
The reasoning: these shellfish are marine animals but lack a developed central nervous system and are not believed to feel pain.
Traditional vegans disagree, staying faithful to excluding all living organisms from their diet.
For ostrovegans, it’s a compromise—these foods are rich in protein, Omega-3s, vitamin B12, and minerals such as iron and zinc, often scarce in a strict vegan diet.
Moreover, bivalve farming is considered one of the most sustainable forms of aquaculture: these organisms filter water, improving marine ecosystems, and unlike fish, cattle, pigs, or poultry, they require no human feed, pesticides, or antibiotics.
Pescatarians
Pescetarianism is a semi-vegetarian eating pattern that excludes meat and its derivatives but allows aquatic animals—freshwater or saltwater—except for non-fish vertebrates: mammals such as whales and dolphins, reptiles like sea turtles, and amphibians like frogs.
Flexitarians
These are “flexible vegetarians”—people who follow a primarily plant-based diet rich in fruits, vegetables, legumes, and (preferably whole) grains, but occasionally and in moderation eat meat, fish, or other animal products.
They care about health, the environment, and animal welfare—but without too many sacrifices.
“Free-from” diets
The best known are lactose-free and especially gluten-free diets. These are not choices but necessities due to specific intolerances: lactose intolerance (caused by lactase deficiency) and celiac disease, a chronic autoimmune condition triggered by gluten consumption.
For people with celiac disease, pizza, sweets, bread, and pasta are off-limits unless they’re gluten-free—made from gluten-free cereals (corn, rice, millet, teff, sorghum) and pseudo-cereals (buckwheat, amaranth, quinoa, cassava).
Macrobiotics
Macrobiotics is a holistic life philosophy before being a diet.
Its goal is the balance between body and mind, and the harmony between Yin and Yang—opposite yet complementary forces that, according to traditional Chinese medicine, govern the universe.
Food plays a central role in macrobiotics. Foods are classified and evaluated based on their “expansive” (Yin) or “contractive” (Yang) effects.
The key foods are whole grains (especially buckwheat), vegetables, legumes, and seaweed.
To be avoided: industrial, refined, and processed foods; sugars, dairy, and meat should be limited.
Preference is given to simple preparations and local, seasonal, organic products.
Fruitarians
No animal products—and not even vegetables, legumes, or grains.
Stricter and more “purist” than vegans, fruitarians eat only fruit: raw, cooked, or dried.
There are different schools of thought: the most radical consider “fruit” only what grows on trees or shrubs.
Others include botanical fruits such as tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, and eggplants; some also allow nuts, seeds, and legumes.
Raw foodists
They eat only foods that have not undergone any physical, chemical, biological, or genetic treatment that could alter their natural nutritional properties—since cooking can destroy heat-sensitive nutrients like vitamin C.
However, following this diet can lead to issues such as food poisoning or reduced nutrient absorption.
Here, too, there are divisions: non-strict raw foodists—omnivores, carnivores, and pescatarians—and purists who are vegetarian, vegan, or fruitarian.
The fruitarian raw food diet, which also excludes processed fruit (including juices), alcoholic beverages, and condiments (oil and vinegar), is the hardest to follow and may cause nutritional imbalances, especially in protein and energy intake.
Paleo diet
Based on foods that would have been available during the Paleolithic era—before the advent of agriculture and animal husbandry.
It includes foods obtained through hunting, fishing, and foraging in the wild, and not processed: meat, fish, seafood, eggs, fruits and vegetables, roots, nuts, seeds, and natural oils.
Legumes and cereals are excluded.
