Infinite_Loser

(I don't know how to do polls.)

Earlier tonight a friend asked me if I wanted to go out to the bay to this all-you-can eat seafood buffet but I declined on the basis that I don't eat meat. She responding by saying fish wasn't meat. So I asked her what it was and she replied "Fish". Really, I don't understand this argument at all. How isn't fish meat? The way I see it, anything which could be considered 'flesh' is meat. I really don't understand how people can rationalize not eating, say, chicken or beef while eating fish.

So what do you think? Meat or not?

__________________
I believe in equality; Everyone is equally inferior to me.

snowy

Fish is meat, according to my vegetarian boyfriend. Seafood is meat.

Eggs and milk and cheese are not meat. He does eat those.

__________________
If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Baraka_Guru

It's a historical thing. Fish was considered separate from "flesh" (i.e. other meats) and was sometimes permitted during Lent. There are other similar distinctions. The distinction here is a social/cultural one. Our scientific minds cannot stand it when people carry forward these things into contemporary thought. There is a lot of this; we just don't realize it.

Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas. "Article 8. Whether it is fitting that those who fast should be bidden to abstain from flesh meat, eggs, and milk foods?"

In the institution of fasting, the Church takes account of the more common occurrences. Now, generally speaking, eating flesh meat affords more pleasure than eating fish, although this is not always the case. Hence the Church forbade those who fast to eat flesh meat, rather than to eat fish.

I think fish is meat because it is the flesh of an animal.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Willravel

Fish is meat, the sky is blue, and water is wet. Also, your friend might be an idiot.

Baraka_Guru

No, man. Fish is fish, the sky is the sky, and water is water.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Ustwo

The concept of not eating fish angers and confuses me.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Infinite_Loser

I'd agree with that.

__________________
I believe in equality; Everyone is equally inferior to me.

telekinetic

Is your friend Catholic?

And I guess the answer to your question depends on the reasons you don't eat meat.
A lot of people who avoid meat for dietary reasons do OK with fish.
A lot of people who don't eat meat for PETAesque "farming is cruel" reasons are ok with eating fish if it is caught in the wild (note: a lot of =/= all, I don't want to hear from the people who disagree with this...save your breath)
A lot of people who don't/didn't eat meat on Fridays/during lent because the Church told them not to eat fish because the Church said it was OK.

This reminds me of an anecdote in Richard Feynman's autobiography where a group of Muslims asked him if electricity was fire. Turns out, there are special spark-free switches that orthodox members of certain sects can install to ensure that no 'fire' is accidently created when it is forbidden.

__________________
twisted no more

KellyC

Yeahh. My mom and sister abstain from eating meat but instead chose to eat fucking fish and shrimp and other seafood every year during this time. Boggles my mind how they think. And they have the nerve to lecture me about eating meat...

__________________
Him: Ok, I have to ask, what do you believe?
Me: Shit happens.

Menoman

hopefully he has studied up on how some cheeses are made =) It's not meat but it takes a dead baby cow to create an awful lot of those cheeses.

^_^

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rennet

__________________

DaveOrion

Damn, I'd rather eat fish & bloody red meat than that cheese!! That just sounds so gross, calves stomachs, coagulated milk......

&.......yes, fish is meat, the flesh of an animal, although its definitely better for you than red meat.

__________________
Syriana...have you ever tried liquid MDMA?....Liquid MDMA? No....Arash, when you wanna do this?.....After prayer...

Charlatan

Dave... rennet is one of two ingredients that make up almost any cheese.

Rennet and Milk

There are variations on this but these two are the main ingredients.


As for Fish... it depends on the person. My wife will eat Cheese, Seafood and Milk but will not eat anything with Feathers or Hoofs. She has her reasons.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

Menoman

funny thing... its the majority of cheeses that are made with rennet. Which I why I think its funny when a vegetarian will eat cheese.

__________________

Halx

Fish is meat, but I know a couple vegetarians who will eat it. I once made my friend stop eating eggs for a while because I proved to him that they were meat. The moral is that you should eat whatever you want to eat. There are many reasons why people choose to be vegetarian, and if a particular food never occurs to you as off-limits, then you should re-think it based on your reasoning for being vegetarian, not because its classified arbitrarily as such.

__________________
You have found this post informative.
-The Administrator
[Don't Feed The Animals]

Sion

I consider meat to be the muscle-flesh of an animal (as opposed to other "fleshy" parts, like skin or liver, which are not muscle). the part of a fish that is eaten is the muscle(s), so yes, fish IS meat.


as for the horsepuckey about the "dangers" of red meat...considering that human beings have subsisted on red meat (among other things) for many millenia...I think that the "dangers" of red meat are WAY overblown. the biggest problem with red meat, at least here in the USA, is in how its grown and processed commercially...ie the steroids/chemicals that go into it. I get my red meat from my father-in-law who raises a couple dozen heads of cattle each year and butchers them himself. not only is it MUCH cheaper than store bought, but much healthier and tastier. I also like me some venison (deer, elk, moose, bear...etc) whenever I can get it.

and I gotta tell you, there is no finer meat on this planet than the tenderloin of a healthy deer, filleted and pan-fried with butter and garlic...

__________________
He's the best, of course, of all the worst.
Some wrong been done, he done it first. -fz

I jus' want ta thank you...falettinme...be mice elf...agin...

ratbastid

This false categorization amuses me. My wife is a committed carnivore, but doesn't eat fish. She also doesn't eat asparagus. So fish must be asparagus.

People eat what they eat. They also have opinions about what others should eat, and they make up all sorts of wacky things to justify themselves and invalidate others. Human nature, friends.

Also: there is vegetarian cheese, made with a non-animal-based starter. In my experience, it's so-so.

The_Jazz

Culinarily speaking, fish is fish, beef and pork are meat and chicken is chicken. All three are prepared differently with different sauces and flavorings and paired with different wines and sides. The three are completely separate. As a host, I would never pair a cabernet with a fish unless it accompanied a beef entree.

Speaking strictly about tastes, textures and the other eating sensations, these three all have their own separate catagories and are treated differently.

The man does have the habit of truthspeaking. He's spot on yet again.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Redlemon

My wife attended a Bat-Mitzvah last week. It was a Conservative Jewish ceremony, so you can't mix milk and meat in the reception (kosher rules). They chose the milk side of that equation, and fish was also served. So, there's one case where fish are not meat.

__________________
I can't read your signature. Sorry.

Crack

If you beat your fish, it dies...

If you beat your meat, it cries...

therefore fish =/= meat

__________________
Crack, you and I are long overdue for a vicious bout of mansex.

~Halx

analog

For certain religious observations, fish is not considered "meat".

Other than that, there's really no basis on which to not call it meat. It's the flesh of an animal that you can eat.

Daniel_

Personally, I count anything made from muscle fibres as "meat".

Fish - check
Beef - check
Chicken - Check
Octopus - Check
Bananas - Not Check.

As for cheese - in the UK vegetable rennet is common, and there are many "true" vegetarian cheeses.

__________________

╔═════════════════════════════════════════╗
Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air,
And deep beneath the rolling waves,
In labyrinths of Coral Caves,
The Echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand;
And everthing is Green and Submarine
╚═════════════════════════════════════════╝

World's King

If it had a heartbeat before you ate it...

It's made of meat.

__________________
heavy is the head that wears the crown

Plan9

A person's diet is a philosophy.

The human body is (generally) capable of eating a wide range of plants and animals.

...

Soylent green is meat.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Jinn

I consider fish non-meat because of the health difference between it and all other meats (saturated fat, for one).

If I were to get a semantic argument, sure.. I'd concede that the dictionary definition of "meat" does include fish.

But when I reference "meat", I really mean non-fish meat.

__________________
"I'm typing on a computer of science, which is being sent by science wires to a little science server where you can access it. I'm not typing on a computer of philosophy or religion or whatever other thing you think can be used to understand the universe because they're a poor substitute in the role of understanding the universe which exists independent from ourselves." - Willravel

Willravel

Jinn, do you also consider poultry a non-meat because it is lower in saturated fat? And does that man coconuts meat?

Plan9

I got it. Semantics make the meat.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

telekinetic

My sister won't eat anything from the sea, on the grounds that fish swim in their own poop. Also she thinks (accurately) that Lobster = Cockroaches.

Carnivore otherwise.

__________________
twisted no more

Fly

you had to go and do that didn't you.............*bastard*




oh yeah...........fish is meat.


go toss a live in your local lake/river and pull one out........throw it on the fire......and it is heaven baby.

fresh meat.........like 2 mins after it was KILLED..............good stuff.

__________________
BASTARD

SterlingStudios

Rogue Element

Meat is animal tissue used as food. End of story. Now, if for health reasons you don't want to eat red meat and call yourself a vegetarian because its an easy shorthand...I'll look the other way. But if you're calling yourself a vegetarian for any other reason, and you're eating fish, or crabs, or oysters etc...you have some explaining to do.

__________________
< Prententious/insightful filler goes here >

blahblah454

I am Catholic, and fish is meat. And I will eat what I want when I want it.

snowy

Trust me, he knows all about rennet. There are a lot of cheeses made with rennet alternatives. We eat cheese that gets its enzymes from other sources--not a calf's stomach.

http://www.tillamookcheese.com/FAQS/...s.aspx#Answer5

__________________
If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

inBOIL

Fish is meat, and meat is fish. All tetrapods (land-dwelling vertebrates) are, from an evolutionary standpoint, types of fish. From a taste/nutrition point of view, I can understand making a distinction between fish and meat. But if your reason for avoiding meat is anything other than taste or nutrition, you'd be a hypocrite to eat fish.

__________________
And you believe Bush and the liberals and divorced parents and gays and blacks and the Christian right and fossil fuels and Xbox are all to blame, meanwhile you yourselves create an ad where your kid hits you in the head with a baseball and you don't understand the message that the problem is you.

MexicanOnABike

i know! it's so tasty!

__________________

- Movie Reviews - Ratings-

Ustwo

Must...not...make...fun...of...vegetarians.......

After all, it wouldn't be fair to tire them out that way

I kid I kid....

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Telluride

I'd say that fish qualifies as meat. I'd even consider escargot to be meat.

__________________
"I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice." - Friedrich Hayek

Menoman

The urge is difficult to resist isnt it!

__________________

Sion

vegetarian: old Indian word that means "bad hunter"

__________________
He's the best, of course, of all the worst.
Some wrong been done, he done it first. -fz

I jus' want ta thank you...falettinme...be mice elf...agin...

stevie667

If you beat my fish i'll make you cry

Therefore you=meat

Besides: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article....&in_page_id=34

There was an extra bit where they use an anesthetic on the stalk and then dropped acid, the little guys just sat there confused but didn't groom it.

__________________
Office hours have changed. Please call during office hours for more information.

Baraka_Guru

Come on, it's just as fun to tease you carnivores....

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Destrox

Eggs not meat? Its an embryo, very very soon to be meat.

Seems like a real vegi would have issues with that.

I happen to love all eggs and meats though

**

Fish is meat, voted yes.

__________________
You bore me.... next.