Liketotal shocker honey isnt considered vegan . And then there are so many questions about eggs. A big one: Are eggs meat? If not, WTH are they? Heres what you need to know.

So, how do eggs fit into a vegetarian diet?

Backing up a sec, there are actually different types of vegetarian diets. In general, being a vegetarian means you dont have any meat, poultry, or seafood, with most of your nutrition coming from vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, seeds, and nuts, the U.S. National Library of Medicine says.

However, you can generally break vegetarians into five groups:

• Vegans: They eat plant-based foods and avoid anything with animal proteins or animal by-products.
• Lacto-vegetarians: They eat plant foods, as well as dairy products.
• Lacto-ovo vegetarians: These vegetarians have plant foods, dairy products, and eggs.
• Semi- or partial vegetarians: They eat plant foods and may have chicken or fish, dairy products, and eggs. However, they dont eat meat.
• Pescatarians: They have plant foods and seafood.

For lacto-ovo vegetarians and semi- or partial vegetarians, eggs are just a normal part of the diet and a good source of protein, says New York-based registered dietitian Jessica Cording . So, you can technically be a vegetarian and still eat eggs.

So, how do eggs fit into a vegan diet?

They dont. (Sorry!) Vegans, which you can think of as the most hardcore vegetarians, dont eat animal products, says Sonya Angelone, RD, a spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Instead, they can use items that provide a similar texture in cooking, like aquafaba, the liquid in canned garbanzo beans, or bananas, she says.

Do eggs qualify as dairy?

Just a refresher: All fluid milk products and most foods made from milk are considered dairy products, per the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). That includes foods made from milk that keep their calcium content, like yogurt and cheese. Foods that are made from milk that dont have a lot of calcium, like cream cheese, cream, and butter are not considered dairy. Heres a mind-blowing factoid: The USDA says that calcium-fortified soy milk is also considered dairy.

However, eggs arent a dairy product. They count as lean protein, says Julie Upton, RD, co-founder of nutrition website Appetite for Health .

Do eggs qualify as poultry?

This is a little tricky. Most eggs that people eat come from chicken, and chicken are poultry. That said, eggs are an animal byproducttheyre unfertilized eggs from the chicken. Think of them kind of like milk from cows. So eggs themselves are not actually poultry, Cording says.

Okay, but wait, are eggs meat?

Nope! That said, they have a similar quality of protein, Angelone says. When it comes to nutrition, you can generally think of eggs as being equivalent to about one ounce of poultry, Upton says. So, when youre planning a meal, eggs and meat may be used interchangeably, Cording says.

Ultimately, you should be able to eat what you want. But if you want to follow the rules of vegetarianism, know that some forms are more okay with having eggs than others.

The bottom line: Eggs are not meat, but they do have a similar level of protein.