# Is fish meat? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 29, 2008, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fish-meat/447341 "2008-04-29T12:16:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2008, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fish-meat/447341/61 "2008-04-30T00:08:05Z")
[QUOTE=Guinastasia] I never understood, though, how it’s not allowed to eat cold, leftover meatloaf, but a big lobster dinner is alright. [/QUOTE] I was raised a Methodist, and think we didn’t do stuff because it was fun. When I joined up with Mrs. Plant’s outfit, I discovered we don’t so stuff because there are rules. She eats these fake bacon bit things on her salads. They are made out of soy beans and are Kosher. They look, smell and taste like bacon, but it’s ok to eat them because they aren’t bacon. So cold yucky meatloaf breaks the rule, but a nice steamed lobster doesn’t. Well, it does for me, dammit. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Geek\_Mecha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecae2f/32.png) [@Geek\_Mecha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geek_Mecha)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2008, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fish-meat/447341/62 "2008-04-30T00:11:39Z")
I think your husband was making the same distinction restaurants do when it comes to animal flesh. Many restaurants, especially Chinese ones, divide their fare by type, and they distinguish meat (as in beef and pork) from fowl and seafood, even though all are technically meats. In such cases, “meat” is understood to be red meat. You are correct that fish is a kind of meat, but meat isn’t just defined as generic animal flesh. ---
**Author:** ![Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brown_eyed_girl/32/3574_2.png) [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brown_Eyed_Girl)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2008, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fish-meat/447341/63 "2008-04-30T00:17:55Z")
[QUOTE=carnivorousplant] I was raised a Methodist, and think we didn’t do stuff because it was fun. When I joined up with Mrs. Plant’s outfit, I discovered we don’t so stuff because there are rules. She eats these fake bacon bit things on her salads. They are made out of soy beans and are Kosher. They look, smell and taste like bacon, but it’s ok to eat them because they aren’t bacon. [/QUOTE] The irony is that if nobody had ever eaten real bacon due to the rules, Mrs. Plant would not have the pleasure of enjoying fake bacon. Thank Og for atheists, eh? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2008, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fish-meat/447341/64 "2008-04-30T00:23:04Z")
[QUOTE=Brown Eyed Girl] Thank Og for atheists, eh? 😉 [/QUOTE] Indeed. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2008, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fish-meat/447341/65 "2008-04-30T00:34:33Z")
[QUOTE=calm kiwi] A steak is meat, a chicken breast is meat, esgargot is meat, a fillet of fish is meat, spinach? Not meat. If it is green it is either not meat or meat past it’s expiry date. Fish is absolutely meat! [/QUOTE] Yep. If it walks, swims, flies, crawls, or locomotes in any way, shape, fashion or form under its own power, on land, in the sea or in the air, the flesh is meat. A halibut? Meat. A Chicken? Meat. A Moose? Meat. A Worm? Meat. A Mantis? Meat. If it does stuff, it’s meat. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2008, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fish-meat/447341/66 "2008-04-30T00:38:08Z")
[QUOTE=Biggirl] See now “the animals that live on land” and “the creatures of the sea” makes perfect sense to me as distinctions. How did we get from that to “fish isn’t meat”? [/QUOTE] This is rather like the argument above whether the tomato is a fruit or a vegetable. It is not an either/or question, but rather a matter of the specific definition being employed at the time. Botanically, tomatoes are fruits. In the culinary sense, tomatoes are vegetables. In fact, the tomato is both a fruit that is served as a vegetable, and a vegetable that is a kind of fruit. There is no actual conflict there. Similarly, in a broad or scientific sense, all animal flesh may be regarded as meat. But of course, that is not the sense in which most people use the word. In a culinary sense, “meat” refers to the flesh of mammals. Usually a distinction is made from that and the meats of birds, which is regarded as “poultry,” and fish and shellfish, regarded as “seafood.” In Spanish the distinction is even more restrictive. All though _carne_ means “meat” in a generic sense, in practice it means beef. Since it was a cooking show, your husband was right and you were wrong. If it had been a show about biology, you perhaps might have had a point. ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2008, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fish-meat/447341/67 "2008-04-30T01:06:59Z")
[QUOTE=Biggirl] That’s kinda, well, ridiculous. According to that phrase, red herring isn’t fish. [/QUOTE] No, just a different kind of fish. 🙂 Discussion of “red herrings” and that phrase from [World Wide Words](http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/herring.htm). > [@World Wide Words](#): > > There’s a proverb which dates from medieval times: neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red herring, meaning in essence “neither one thing nor another; not fitting into any known category”. The full sense of this now rather opaque saying is: “neither fresh fish for the clergy, nor meat for the mass of people, nor red herrings for the poor”. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2008, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fish-meat/447341/68 "2008-04-30T01:10:01Z")
[QUOTE=Biggirl] Well now your talking about shellfish which is even less of a meat than fish is. Really, I don’t understand how many people say fish isn’t meat. The majority of the people I asked IRL said this. When pressed for a rational as to _why_ it isn’t meat, most said “Because it’s fish!” all incredulous as if I was the crazy one. But once I asked for their definition of meat, things began to even out. Let’s not even get into mollusks! [/QUOTE] Oh, I agree that fish is meat. But what I was that it’s not meat in the Catholic Church. You can eat a big shrimp platter, but not leftover meatloaf on Fridays. And that’s fasting, somehow? Doesn’t make sense. ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2008, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fish-meat/447341/69 "2008-04-30T01:22:53Z")
[QUOTE=Guinastasia] You can eat a big shrimp platter, but not leftover meatloaf on Fridays. And that’s fasting, somehow? [/QUOTE] Not “fasting”; abstinence from meat. Not quite the same thing. (As I understand it, IANACatholic, etc). ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2008, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fish-meat/447341/70 "2008-04-30T01:50:50Z")
Of course fish is meat. Chicken is meat. Rattlesnake filet is meat. Frog legs is meat. Chocolate covered ants… well, I sure wouldn’t serve them to a vegetarian. Yeah, meat. ---
**Author:** ![Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brown_eyed_girl/32/3574_2.png) [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brown_Eyed_Girl)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2008, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fish-meat/447341/71 "2008-04-30T01:53:27Z")
[QUOTE=Apollyon] Not “fasting”; abstinence from meat. Not quite the same thing. (As I understand it, IANACatholic, etc). [/QUOTE] But the question is what is the purpose behind no meat? IANC either, but fish and shellfish are ok, it may be because it has nothing to do with the reason a Catholic must abstain from meat. Could the significance be that abstaining from meat represents a sacrifice by the normally meat-eating (and loving) populace? Cuz if you really, really wanted a burger, but you didn’t have one in the name of Jesus, then you really would be sacrificing something. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2008, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fish-meat/447341/72 "2008-04-30T03:13:44Z")
[QUOTE=Apollyon] Not “fasting”; abstinence from meat. Not quite the same thing. (As I understand it, IANACatholic, etc). [/QUOTE] You’re right, I’m sorry-I should have said abstinence. ---
**Author:** ![LifeOnWry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@LifeOnWry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeOnWry)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2008, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fish-meat/447341/73 "2008-04-30T04:33:32Z")
I call myself a pescatarian, but since most people aren’t familiar with the word, I have to explain it sometimes. I do not eat warm-blooded animal meat. I DO eat fish (also eggs and dairy.) Unless there’s a discussion about dietary specifics, though, I tend to say I’m a vegetarian, since that’s a word people know, and it describes the bulk of my diet. Or veg-aquarian, a word which I think my friend Jennie made up. I’d say fish is meat. Since the reasons for my diet aren’t dictated by my ethics or religion, and I don’t have to answer to anyone else, I don’t normally get worked up over the question, though. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2008, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fish-meat/447341/74 "2008-04-30T04:59:15Z")
For me: meat = body parts So fish is meat. _Unfertilized_ eggs (chicken menstrual cycle, essentially), milk, cheese, etc are not meat. ---
**Author:** ![ToeJam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dfb087/32.png) [@ToeJam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ToeJam)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2008, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fish-meat/447341/75 "2008-04-30T05:37:03Z")
[QUOTE=OpalCat] For me: meat = body parts So fish is meat. _Unfertilized_ eggs (chicken menstrual cycle, essentially), milk, cheese, etc are not meat. [/QUOTE] I agree with the above on the “non-meat” criteria list. But basically for me: If it falls into the [Animalia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animalia) Kingdom, it’s Meat. As it’s an animal of SOME sort. I think it’s the simplest and easiest definition of Meat vs. Not Meat. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2008, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fish-meat/447341/76 "2008-04-30T10:17:11Z")
[QUOTE=silenus] No, it isn’t. At least to a lot of people from a number of cultures. A phrase like “Neither fish nor flesh nor good red herring” doesn’t just pop up because people like the sounds. [/QUOTE] People have been debating this without anyone yet pointed out that this phrase is in itself a red herring, as it doesn’t actually contain the word “meat” in it. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2008, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fish-meat/447341/77 "2008-04-30T14:21:48Z")
[QUOTE=Colibri] In a culinary sense, “meat” refers to the flesh of mammals. Usually a distinction is made from that and the meats of birds, which is regarded as “poultry,” and fish and shellfish, regarded as “seafood.” [/QUOTE] Mark Bittman’s encyclopedic cookbook, _How to Cook Everything_, has chapters on fish, poultry, and meat. The meat chapter contains recipes for various bits of the bodies of mammals. The rabbit and hare recipes, though, are in the poultry chapter, because he says they cook very much like chicken (and says you can substitute chicken if you can’t get rabbit or hare or don’t want to cook with it). I have to take his word that it’s like chicken culinarily- I’ve never cooked or eaten rabbit or hare, and probably never will now that I keep kosher. > [@Brown Eyed Girl](#): > > But the question is what is the purpose behind no meat? IANC either, but fish and shellfish are ok, it may be because it has nothing to do with the reason a Catholic must abstain from meat. I can’t speak for the Catholics, but I can say there is no reason given in the Torah for the rules of keeping kosher. The “official” explanation (as far as there can be any such thing in Judaism- we don’t have any central authority like the Pope to keep us all doing and believing the same things) is that they’re rules given to us by God for reasons known only to God. Any explanation you’ve heard for why such-and-such isn’t kosher is 100% pure speculation. Since we don’t know the reasons for the kosher rules, all we can do is keep to the letter of the law- we don’t know what the spirit of the law was intended to be. Interestingly enough, the Talmud says that, for every non-kosher food or combination of foods, there is a kosher equivalent that tastes the same or at least similar that is perfectly OK to eat. There’s a long Jewish tradition of stuff like kosher “bacon” bits. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2008, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fish-meat/447341/78 "2008-04-30T14:30:40Z")
[QUOTE=Anne Neville] Interestingly enough, the Talmud says that, for every non-kosher food or combination of foods, there is a kosher equivalent that tastes the same or at least similar that is perfectly OK to eat. [/QUOTE] Which would lead one to believe there were no lobsters in Babylonia or Jerusalem at the time. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2008, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fish-meat/447341/79 "2008-04-30T14:41:04Z")
[QUOTE=carnivorousplant] Which would lead one to believe there were no lobsters in Babylonia or Jerusalem at the time. 🙂 [/QUOTE] You can get imitation crab or lobster made from pollock or other fish at kosher markets. It’s not that close to crab or lobster (I think suitably seasoned white fish such as sole can come closer), but it’s good. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2008, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fish-meat/447341/80 "2008-04-30T14:48:11Z")
[QUOTE=Anne Neville] but it’s good. [/QUOTE] I beg to differ, it’s fish. I hate fish, probably from the smell of cleaning aquariums. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fish-meat/447341.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fish-meat/447341.md?page=5)