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Strangely, I've never had anyone argue this to me, but I do get asked, several times per year, if I eat seafood.

aristus 14y ago
In many languages, "meat" roughly equates to "red meat". Fish and fowl are considered different categories. I believe this came about because of a Catholic church ruling that fish did not count against the promise to give up meat during Lent. It also lead to silliness like classing the chigüire / capybara, basically a large swamp-dwelling gerbil, as a fish.
- joeyo 14y ago
  Not just the capybara, but beavers and muskrats too! It actually makes some sense when you consider that Thomas Aquinas' Aristotelianist classification of animals more to do with habitat as anatomy.
jaylevitt 14y ago
My usual answer: "Only Broccoli Fish." When they ask what a Broccoli Fish is, I explain patiently that there's no such thing.
derleth 14y ago
> if I eat seafood Do you kill invasive insects? Frankly, a shrimp or a lobster is pretty much on a level with a cockroach, when you get down to neural complexity and everything relevant to moral vegetarianism, as opposed to vegetarianism for health reasons. Bony fish are not much more complex. Things like sea cucumber don't even have brains: They have nerves, but they lack any centralized structure for them to converge on. Same with jellyfish. So I suppose my point is that it isn't a dumb question, at least if you're a vegetarian for moral reasons related to killing a living being with emotions.
- whichdan 14y ago
  You make a very good point, and if you excuse my snarkiness, I shall now describe myself as "an exclusive consumer of plant cells" instead of "vegetarian."
- jamesbritt 14y ago
  Lobsters may feel pain. http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/7536/does-a-lobster-feel-little-no-pain-when-boiled-alive http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/7536/does-a-lobs...
  - derleth 14y ago
    If you define 'feel pain' correctly, single-celled organisms have been observed to feel pain in that they move away from noxious chemicals.
whatusername 14y ago
How about Oysters? http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2010/04/consider_the_oyster.html http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2010/04/consider_the...

In many languages, "meat" roughly equates to "red meat". Fish and fowl are considered different categories. I believe this came about because of a Catholic church ruling that fish did not count against the promise to give up meat during Lent. It also lead to silliness like classing the chigüire / capybara, basically a large swamp-dwelling gerbil, as a fish.

joeyo 14y ago
Not just the capybara, but beavers and muskrats too! It actually makes some sense when you consider that Thomas Aquinas' Aristotelianist classification of animals more to do with habitat as anatomy.

jaylevitt 14y ago

My usual answer: "Only Broccoli Fish." When they ask what a Broccoli Fish is, I explain patiently that there's no such thing.

derleth 14y ago

> if I eat seafood Do you kill invasive insects? Frankly, a shrimp or a lobster is pretty much on a level with a cockroach, when you get down to neural complexity and everything relevant to moral vegetarianism, as opposed to vegetarianism for health reasons. Bony fish are not much more complex. Things like sea cucumber don't even have brains: They have nerves, but they lack any centralized structure for them to converge on. Same with jellyfish. So I suppose my point is that it isn't a dumb question, at least if you're a vegetarian for moral reasons related to killing a living being with emotions.

whichdan 14y ago
You make a very good point, and if you excuse my snarkiness, I shall now describe myself as "an exclusive consumer of plant cells" instead of "vegetarian."
jamesbritt 14y ago
Lobsters may feel pain. http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/7536/does-a-lobster-feel-little-no-pain-when-boiled-alive http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/7536/does-a-lobs...
- derleth 14y ago
  If you define 'feel pain' correctly, single-celled organisms have been observed to feel pain in that they move away from noxious chemicals.

whatusername 14y ago

How about Oysters? http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2010/04/consider_the_oyster.html http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2010/04/consider_the...