# Eating capybaras on Fridays

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-capybaras-on-fridays/389626>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 26, 2007, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-capybaras-on-fridays/389626 "2007-01-26T21:36:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2007, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-capybaras-on-fridays/389626/41 "2007-01-30T20:32:38Z")

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Then you could eat hot dogs on Friday- certainly no meat in them.

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**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2007, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-capybaras-on-fridays/389626/42 "2007-01-30T20:51:00Z")

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[QUOTE=sciurophobic]  
Catholics can eat during a fast?  
[/QUOTE]  
Yep, if they’re 18 to 59, and if they are 14-17 and can handle it. Not required if you have health issues. As mentioned, one regular meal, two small meals not adding up to one meal, and no solid food between meals.

My friend used to fast for Ramadan and I remember us plowing into the Entenmann’s doughnuts after it was nighttime.

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2007, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-capybaras-on-fridays/389626/43 "2007-01-30T21:33:09Z")

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I suspect that every religion which has a concept of fasting (which is probably darned near all of them) defines it a little differently. Judaism does, for instance, allow drinking water during a fast, right? Because Muslims don’t allow even that. On the other hand, the Catholic fasts for Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are 24 hours, so you won’t get a big dinner just after sundown, as you would in Islam or Judaism.

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**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2007, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-capybaras-on-fridays/389626/44 "2007-01-31T00:28:17Z")

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[QUOTE=JillGat]  
I wrote to Emilio Herrera, a capybara expert in Venezuela. He’s one of the guys who has stated that the Catholic Church in Venezuela allows consumption of capybaras during Lent, classifying this meat as fish. I asked him for more info. on this and this is what he wrote to me:

[/QUOTE]

I was his student in Ecology class at Uni. He is an awesome guy. I guess I should have written to him instead of to my parish priest. His paper was where I had gotten the additional tidbit about it being on the XVIII century.

Padre Sojo is a very celebrated man in Venezuela. With that additional bit, I can continue to search spanish sites for additional info. Will post results as they pop out.

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