[poll][Tell me!] Is Fish Meat?

[thebitterguy]

A controversy has erupted here at BGHQ over a simple question: Is fish meat?

Please, help us resolve this issue.

[Poll #932338]

p.s. This is, of course, a discussion at corporate office, not the home office.

Comments

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

From a Catholic perspective, 'meat' means mammals and (I think) birds, and therefore fish can be eaten on Fridays.

From an ethical vegetarian perspective, 'meat' means any edible substance acquired by killing any member of the kingdom Animalia.

Biologists will laugh at you if you think 'animal' is a synonym for 'mammal'.

[mouseferatu.livejournal.com]

"From a Catholic perspective, 'meat' means mammals and (I think) birds, and therefore fish can be eaten on Fridays"

Yes, but there was a time--and no, I'm not making this up--where the clergy declared that rabits below a certain age were fish, so they could be eaten on Fridays. :-D

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

I thought of that! I wanted to get home and find some corroboration first. ^^ I'm glad to know I didn't just make it up.

[optimussven.livejournal.com]

From a Catholic, Jewish and Muslim perspective. Seems that the "fish exception" is a solidly Judeo-Christian thing.

[fraidycatx3.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I looked at some of the answers you got. When I was leaving the hospital today I noticed a guy with ashes on his forehead and realized it's Ash Wednesday. I'm pretty much a lapsed Catholic but I still fast on Good Friday and Ash Wednesday if I'm aware of the occasions. On the way home I picked up some fish and figured the chicken I had planned on having would have to wait until tomorrow. When I was a kid you fasted every Friday. In those days that meant you didn't eat chicken or meat, but fish was okay, hence the popularity of fish and chip places back in those days. We all knew the perils of eating a hot dog on Friday. I don't know when they changed the fasting rules to only Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

I guess the controversy has come up since more and more people are going vegetarian, and some folks consider themselves vegetarian even though they eat fish although other vegetarians would argue with that view point. I've come across people that have called themselves vegetarian when they chicken. Okay now I'm digressing but when I was a kid, and we fasted on Fridays, fish was okay, meat and chicken were not.

[thebitterguy]

Yeah, in the coptic church there are long periods of fasting in addition to Fridays, so I can't remember what's allowed when.

I remember the hot dogs of damnation, at least second hand.

I think that's also why the Big Fish sandwish at BK and the tuna sandwich at Subwya are on sale on Fridays.

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

There are still Catholics who avoid meat every Friday. When I went to Italy this summer, we flew on a Friday night, and the default meal on the plane was vegetable lasagna. The meal on the flight back was not vegetarian because it wasn't Friday (and I bought a sandwich at the airport to make sure I had something to eat, because I'd forgotten to book a veggie meal specifically).

[fraidycatx3.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my grandmas both fasted Fridays till the day they died, and even my dad who never was much of a church goer tended to prepare meatless meals on Fridays.

Old habits die hard I guess. :)

[maliszew.livejournal.com]

According to the pertinent sections of the Code of Canon Law (http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P4O.HTM), every Friday and the entirety of Lent remains days of abstinence from meat unless the local bishop's conference has determined otherwise, in which case appropriate acts of penance should replace it.

Not that anyone in North America does this, of course.

[ludickid.livejournal.com]

If an animal has to die for it, it's meat. I cannot fathom for the life of me imagine how anyone could consider that fish is not meat.

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

The oddest one I've found is that in Japanese restaurants, something might be called 'vegetarian' even though it contains fish. I suspect that the word that's being translated means 'contains no expensive land animal flesh', or something. In Thai and Vietnamese and Korean restaurants, things that appear to be (and may even be called) vegetarian usually have fish sauce in them.

Chinese food doesn't seem to have this issue, as far as I know... maybe the Buddhist influence is stronger or something, so when they say vegetarian they mean nothing had to be killed to make it. This is the country that invented some scarily authentic wheat/soy-based fake meat products millennia before anyone had heard of a Boca Burger.

[mouseferatu.livejournal.com]

Meat = "the flesh of animals as used for food."

So assuming we're talking about a discussion held in the English language, there can be no rational argument for fish not being meat.

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

Unless, of course, you equate meat with meatiness, which fish is distinctly lacking.

[thebitterguy]

It's a religious issue, due to the restriction on eating meat on Fridays, and fish being valid, hence, fish != meat.

[gnaremoob.livejournal.com]

off topic but
you still going to panda?
still want the sauce?
have a cell? (if yes give me, if not then I will give you b's cell #)

email me

carolinekwong at gmail dot come

[thebitterguy]

I'll put my in a private post to you in a minute.

[thebitterguy]

Did you get my cell # from the post?

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's meat. You kill it, peel the flesh off the bones, and eat it, it's meat.

Of course, this raises an interesting question; nobody ever refers to INSECTS as meat, but people eat them as a protein source the world over. Why not?

[thebitterguy]

Because you eat insects whole. Like peanuts.

Hrm...

[absinthe-dot-ca.livejournal.com]

It's not particularly scientific, but the definition I generally use for meat is any muscle tissue. This does include the heart and tongue, but not "organ meats", so it's not a perfect definition. However, it certainly encompasses fish. Probably a better definition would be any part of anything from the Animal Kingdom (which of course includes birds and fish). Don't get me started about Protists and Monerists.

As for the insects, I don't think strict Buddhists can eat them, and most Western "civilized" people would turn their nose up at a plate of bugs anyway. So, I guess they are meat, but us white folks don't consider them edible. (Well, most of the white folks anyway...)

[lab-brat.livejournal.com]

doesn't meat = the flesh of an animal? If so, then fish = meat.

meat can also be the flesh of a fruit or nut too. So by that reckoning fish could also = fruit. lol there's an argument for you. fish = fruit.

[creativedv8tion.livejournal.com]

You're a fruit. ;)

[thebitterguy]

If I ever found a fruit that smelled fishy, I think I'd pass.

The confusion stems from religious concerns; if you can't eat meat on Fridays, but you can eat fish, is fish a meat?

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I don't understand the confusion here: if you're eating an animal, that's "meat", if you're eating a plant or mineral, then it's "not meat". I suppose that there are likely liminal things to confound the rule (things like virii, bacteria, amoebae, algae, and other things that defy easy categorization), but in general if it's an animal, it's meat, neh?

[thebitterguy]

It's an issue from when Catholics couldn't eat meat on Friday, but could eat fish.