why do some people think fish isnt meat?
Posted by TsukinoUsagi67 on May 04, 2008 · Member since May 2008 · 22 posts
Iver always wondered why some people don t consider fish as meat? I mean fish are animals. Do these people think that fish arent animals? caus I dont know where thety get that from. Why do they think that fish are different. is it becuause they are aquatic? I dont see the justification in that
This is a question to which I have given considerable thought. For many years I called myself a "vegetarian" but ate fish. In retrospect, I'd classify myself as a pescatarian. The reasons I sighted for continuing to eat fish (although I was not required to justify this choice many times at all.) was that fish did not have a central nervous system capable of perceiving pain or fear- therefore there is no ethical dilemma in eating them. I now understand this to be false and would further say that regardless of a creatures ability for feel pain, all creatures lives are sacred and have the right to live. I am also aware that many cultures which are considered "vegetarian" by western standards do, in fact eat fish.This may be the case in parts of the world where there is not enough space for the farming of animals, but the ocean is busting with fish. Most "vegetarians" I knew ate fish, including my mother while she was pregnant with me. I am sure if you showed me a series of flashcards and said "animal, vegtable or mineral" I would have been capable of placing fish in the appropriate category of "animal." Yet when it came to my diet, there was a disconnect. I was relying heavily on fish for protein. I can only assume that because of my lack of exposure to fish, they were not much more than a tantalizing fillet that landed on my plate straight from the frozen food section of the grocery store. I was not a very learned eater at the time and thought that my diet was causing no harm, which is what I was seeking (note i was not seeking a plant based diet, mealy one free of animal maltreatment.) For that reason I did not classify fish as meat.
I became increasingly disturbed by this oversite after going vegan. I HAVE noticed that there area lot of "vegetarain" cookbooks inclusive of fish, which merely serves to further perpetuate the idea that fish are a part of a vegetarian diet. I now feel quite annoyed by this misnomer and have been known to rearrange books at the library and/or book store to remove cookbooks that encourage the consumption of sea creatures from the vegetarian section.
All that said, I must say i think that someone on a pescatarin diet is probally headed in the right direction (Their diet likely causes less harm than the SAD, to be sure). It was a stepping stone for me as it is many people. That first act of the breaking away from what they have known. Often, humans have the desire to fit into a unit of society, no matter how small a unit it might be. Therefor, a person who elects to follow a pescatarin diet, may feel they identify more strongly with vegetarians than with their omnivorous counterparts. For that reason, they may adopt the title "pesca-vegetarian." I don't see anything wrong with this. All i can do is welcome pescatarians as members of the spectrum of "vegetarian" and encourage them to question their diet and principles futher. Some pescetrian will continue to learn more about the ramifications of their eating habits and may eventually switch from pescatarin to ovo-veg, lacto-veg or maybe even vegan. Other Pescatarians will find they are content to be a fish eating vegetarian all their lives, and I will be happy to befriend them.
So basically, people don't frequently consider fish to be vegtables, but may consider them to be part of a vegetarian diet for a number of reasons.
My grandmother thinks birds aren't meat. Makes for interesting Christmas dinners.
My grandmother thinks birds aren't meat. Makes for interesting Christmas dinners.
My grammy says that I "could" eat turkeys b/c they are stupid. Uh, no. :err:
Oh, and it's definitely not just fish. I've had many a time where a waitress (or someone) has suggested a chicken dish (or chef salad..) after finding out that I am veg*n.
I have a Catholic friend who doesn't eat "meat" on Fridays during Lent, but she'll eat fish/sea creatures. Some confusion could stem from this; also, fish isn't considered "meat" in the Jewish tradition either--it's considered "parve"--neither meat nor dairy.
They probably grew up with a Salmon tree in their backyard. :-D
They probably grew up with a Salmon tree in their backyard. :-D
;D
I just read an article saying this on Yahoo. It is an article about centenarians and a healthy lifestyle, etc...http://health.yahoo.com/experts/drmao/13738/centenarian-tips-for-a-long-life/;_ylt=AvN6YkK09AP1BkgE3Y46kzp1kIV4
It says "These long-lifers eat mostly fish, vegetables, mushrooms, seaweed, corn, and buckwheat"...."no meat"..."Scientists have confirmed the health benefits of a diet high in fish and vegetables and low in animal products."
umm..yeah...how can it be both "high in fish yet low in animal products" ...
The fish are hanging in limbo!
I have a Catholic friend who doesn't eat "meat" on Fridays during Lent, but she'll eat fish/sea creatures. Some confusion could stem from this; also, fish isn't considered "meat" in the Jewish tradition either--it's considered "parve"--neither meat nor dairy.
I think the religious aspect is a big part of it for some people.
I think that fish being leaner and healthier is also a big part of it, at least for people who are concerned with health. The nasty health considerations associated with eating cows and pigs do not apply to eating fish.
Another thing is that fish are more distant from us than mammals are. It seems like people who go veg*n first stop eating mammals, then birds, then fish. So in that respect, I think it's very psychological. You can relate to the idea of a pig or a cow experiencing pain because they respond similarly to how a human might respond. That's not true for fish. They don't cry out. And many people just view them as gross and slimy things--like insects. I mean, think of how many people might enjoy fishing but would never go hunting.
Fish are becoming more and more scarce as a food source, at least in this country. Many people think the price of seafood will increase so much that fish will become a real luxury. I wonder what that will mean for pescatarians....
At the end of the day, fish are in the animal kingdom. Sorry, folks.
Actually, the TA for one of my classes is VEGAN except for fish! Imagine that! She said to me, "Yeah, I eat vegan, except I love to fish. I don't know what that makes me." Thank goodness she doesn't refer to herself as a vegan. She just tells people she doesn't eat dairy. She also doesn't wear fur and things like that. I got the impression that fishing was an activity she really enjoyed doing with her family. And she eats the fish too. So again, it's kind of a cultural/psychological thing.
What do you call a fish-eating almost-vegan? If a fish-eating almost-vegetarian is a pescatarian, is a fish-eating almost-vegan a pescan? ???
It's funny. I was raised catholic (as most all French-Canadians are) and there were a few things when we weren't allowed to eat meat, but we could ate fish. I remember asking my grandmother why we could eat fish when we couldn't eat meat. I got the typical catholic answer : Do as you're told and don't ask questions.
I grew up close to the sea and all my uncles and even my grandmother worked on fishing boats or fishmills. Fish and sea creatures were very much a part of my upbring/culture. Also, like KMK said, we also think of fish as being more healthy. But now, with the level of mercury contained in fish, we certainly have to think otherwise.
In Europe at least, the "fish on Friday" thing goes back to the days of the Black Death. Sumptuary laws were proclaimed saying people had to eat fish instead of meat because of shortages of animals due to "murrains" or epidemics in cattle, sheep etc. (OK, technically, in animals it's an "epizootic" but you know what I mean). They made the sumptuary laws part of the religious observance because the church had more legal power in those days than some local governments.
If you went to school in the mid 60's like I did, we were honestly taught some strange things. I remember being told that fish were not animals! They were fish! They meant "mammals" but the classification stuck. Instead of saying "mammals, fish and birds" they would say "ANIMALS, fish and birds." So maybe more than one person out there is still using the old 1st grade system they learned.
We were also told "A square can be a rectangle, but a rectangle cannot be a square." I remember repeating that every morning for a week in kindergarten. I kind of know what she meant but I can't understand why it was so important!
I now repeat some of these gems of wisdom to my European husband and get "that look"--just before he falls about laughing.
Yabbit, we're still taught the rectangles-square thing in school!! The explanation I got for it are the following definitions:
rectangle: a parallelogram with four right angles (90*).
square: a parallelogram with four right angles (90*) and four equal sides.
Therefore, all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares!!
Along the lines of eating fish of Fridays, the practice can be found going beyond the days of the black plague..... If you look at the days of the week, Friday is the only day named after a Goddess, Freya, who is the Goddess of the sea. Eating fish/seafood on Fridays was one of the few acknowledged/condoned forms of Goddess worship back then.... Also, I could be wrong on this (been waaaay to long since my last biology class!!), but, IF I remember correctly, fish are cold blooded, as are reptiles, therefore, the spiritual concepts of meat (IE consuming another being's life force), are completely different compared to eating the warm blooded flesh of mammals.
Also, Pork, Poultry, Reptile, and Fish are all WHITE meat. Therefore, back in the day, when the word "meat" STRICTLY meant red meat, the flesh of none of these animals were/(are?) considered meat. Unfortunately, as is common with most traditions/societal philosophies, very few people know the reasons behind these conceptions anymore.
Back when I held this belief, I justified it by imagining that fish were provisional. i.e. they were mindless, overabundant and only existed to occupy a position in "the" food chain.
Of course, I know better now.
VF78, I guess in that sense I'm "lucky". I've never liked fish much. I suppose because growing up in the landlocked Midwest, "Fish" meant frozen squares covered with bright orange breadcrumbs that tasted faintly (to me, at least) the way motor oil smells. Now that I live in Spain where most people see fish as a delicacy (and you wouldn't believe what they pay for it at Christmas! We're talking $150+ a pound for shellfish--and they pay it!)...I just can't deal with it. It's just dead. Even way before returning to vegetaria, if I had to clean it I couldn't eat it. After the return, I can't bear the smell of it, raw or cooked. And tinned tuna just clears the room. There's a thread somewhere from about a yr ago about how what we eat affects our sense of smell. I begin to believe it.
I have heard that whole "fish don't feel pain" thing. I always get mad when I hear it. There is an intereting story I have to prove that fish feel pain. I have fished all of my life, until a few years ago. It was an activity that my grandpa and I used to do together. We would catch bluegill. When it came time to clean them the first thing we did was cut off their head. So it seemed to me that they never felt much pain. But after grandpa died, grandma started dating other men, about 3 years later. One of the guys she dated was a guy a lot like grandpa. He liked to fish. So I went fishing with him, I caught a big bass. When it came time to clean the fish for dinner he did it different than grandpa did. Instead of cutting off the head, he filleted the fish...while it was still alive. He held the fish down, and cut off the flesh of one entire side of its body. The fish flopped and flopped like mad, even though it had been out of the water for about an hour. But it could only flop one direction. I got sick, almost started crying. He then flilleted the other side. I wanted to cut off the fish's head, or at least sever its spin but he just told me that that was unneccesary becuase it was easier to fillet the fish with the head still on. I thought how horrifying it had to be for the fish, the pain, then try to move but find that you can't because half of your body is gone. I said that the fish was in pain. He just looked at me as if I was silly.
I stopped fishing after that, and shortly after that I went vegetarian. So if anyone trys to tell me that fish can't feel pain, I get very angry.
And also, my mom and I have argued and argued that fish is meat. I think it is meat, she insists that it isn't considered that. That is a long standing arguement between my mom and I, and to this day we disagree, but we have agreed to disagree with that.
I just thought of something.
The edible part of a walnut is called "walnut meat". Does that mean that walnuts are meat?
I just thought of something.
The edible part of a walnut is called "walnut meat". Does that mean that walnuts are meat?
Ha ha - no. It's just the old use of the world "meat," which basically meant food (back in the day, medieval times, etc.). So it's the edible part of the walnut.
In common modern speech, Muscle tissue=meat. Fish have muscle tissue, therefore, yes, they are meat. Carrots don't have muscles, though they'll make you big and strong.
VF78, I guess in that sense I'm "lucky". I've never liked fish much. I suppose because growing up in the landlocked Midwest, "Fish" meant frozen squares covered with bright orange breadcrumbs that tasted faintly (to me, at least) the way motor oil smells. Now that I live in Spain where most people see fish as a delicacy (and you wouldn't believe what they pay for it at Christmas! We're talking $150+ a pound for shellfish--and they pay it!)...I just can't deal with it. It's just dead. Even way before returning to vegetaria, if I had to clean it I couldn't eat it. After the return, I can't bear the smell of it, raw or cooked. And tinned tuna just clears the room. There's a thread somewhere from about a yr ago about how what we eat affects our sense of smell. I begin to believe it.
I agree totally, what we think of as food becomes appealing to our senses. whether it's psychological, physical adaptation or a bit of both, I'm not sure. I can say, at least for now, that some of the plain veggies still need a little help to be appealing to me. I would love to look at a carrot and think "yum," but right now it's just not happening yet. (I do finding dead flesh repulsive, so that's a good start for now) Anyway, I am very glad to have this site so that I can make otherwise bland food yummers. Sorry, going off on a tangent again ::)
I've often wondered the same thing and many moons ago when I was little, I posed the question to my mom. She just told me that many vegetarians still ate chicken, turkey, and fish...I never understood how one could classify themselves as a true vegetarian and eat ANY animal. I mean, hello...animals don't grow on trees! My kids and I have a giggle about people planting chicken trees in their backyard.
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