Why do so many so-called vegetarians insist that fish is not meat?

I understand that vegans are true vegetarians, but fish is meat.

A point to make that was inspired by some of the answers. Could one call themself a part-time vegetarian if they ate meat occasionally? Say, on spacial occasions or holidays?

I do not know why people claim that they are vegetarians if they eat fish. I have gotten into arguments with "vegetarians" about that exact topic! It annoys me because I have been a REAL vegetarian (no fish, red or poultry or gelatin) for four years. And you are completely right: fish is ANIMAL FLESH!!!!! Why don't some people get that? And if people eat any kind of meat occasionally, they are not a vegetarian or even a "part-time vegetarian". I call that being a CARNIVORE!!!! Doy!!! Eating meat occasionally= carnivorious behavior!!! Oh, and by the way, I am 12 years old!

BTW. It was difficult to pick best answer as many of the posts were very thoughtful. I am not labeling anyone, pointing my finger, nor am I critisizing anyone. Report Abuse

Either they get the misinformation from the Internet, or they like to play semantics with the word "meat" so they can (for whatever reason) take on a label without actually living the lifestyle.

Why they try to force themselves to "belong" in the vegetarian category is beyond me. Vegetarians get enough crap from meat eaters... why decide to take that on when you don't actually believe in vegetarianism? I suppose it may make them feel special.

However, thanks to fish-eaters, vegetarians get even more crap thanks to the complete hypocrisy of picking and choosing which animal carcasses to eat.

This is why I simply say, "Vegetarians do not eat animals." It is true of the definition and it doesn't leave room for semantic ridiculousness.

I then direct them to http://www.vegsoc.org/newveg/fft/basics.... (an actual credible vegetarian site) where they can read the following information and much more:

"Vegetarians don鈥檛 eat:
鈥?Meat
鈥?Poultry
鈥?Game
鈥?Fish, shellfish and crustacea
鈥?Slaughterhouse by-products such as gelatine, rennet and animal fats.
People who don鈥檛 eat red meat but do eat chicken or fish are making a very important first step, but they aren鈥檛 vegetarians. We usually call such people meat-reducers."
~The Vegetarian Society.

:)

sorry dont know

I don't understand what's the problem. It's just a label. Vegetarianism is not a religion. People choose their own diets and they have the right to include or exclude whatever they want using the rules they think are right.
Who cares about the name?
Who cares if they are vegetarians and eat fish or eggs?
You eat what you want and call yourself what you want. Don't go around looking for reasons to fight and separate people.

"Vegetarian" is just shorthand for those people that restrict their meat intake. I think it is technically a misnomer, since your right, fish is flesh. It just becomes to difficult with everyone's eating choices to come up with names. For examply "poultry-ovo-lacto-pesce- vegetarian" would be a pretty big mouthful for someone that doesn't eat red meat or pork. I don't think they are insisting fish isn't meat per se, they are insisting that they consider themselves vegetarians because they don't eat mammals or birds.

Fish IS meat. It was alive. It had blood, breathed, ate, drank, grew, and reacted to stimuli, etc. ALL things that made it "living." That makes it meat.

Fish is meat.

A vegan will not eat anything that is considered from animal source, but there are all kinds of vegetarions, but a person who eats fish is their choice. Becoming aware of what foods are best for you is what is important.

of course it's meat.

Most of us here know fish is meat. We also know that vegetarians don't eat fish but sadly..there are much false info on the internet that says different.

Indeed , it is meat.

The defintion of a vegetarian is someone who "does not eat meat, fish, poultry or slaughter by-products"

This has been the formally accepted moderated defintion ifor 140 years.

Anything else is just made up nonsense that has been fueled in the past 10 years by the internet.

People that eat fish or even fish oil ARE NOT vegetarian. They are misinformed or ignorant. If someone tells you that they are vegetarian and eat fish, kindly advise them to not use "popular" labels on him/herself that are completely inaccurate.

point blank any one who says they are vegetarian and still eat seafood in my eyes are not TRUE vegetarians.yes u are right fish is meat.

Yeah, fish is meat, but I try not to condemn people for their diet choices. If they just stop eating beef, that's that much less money going to the industry. I say every little bit people can do is great.

They may belong to an authoritarian religious group.

I agree but it could be based on the so-called studies that have "proven" that fish cannot feel pain. But if you went by the fish is fish rule then poultry might be considered poultry and not meat. Fish are still animals and I still would not eat them!

I agree is Sabine M.... Fish is Fish, Chicken is Chicken, Beef if Beef, ect... there is no such thing as meat.

What it comes down to is some people are complete morons. If anyone claims to be vegetarian and eats fish, just laugh at them and walk away.

Because they're either desperate for the title or have too little understanding of speciesism and Animal Liberation philosophy, as well as respect for true vegetarians and vegans to realise the difference.

A woman I used to know somehow: "You're vegetarian aren't you?
Me: "Sort of, I'm vegan."
Woman(/idiot): "That's great, I was vegetarian for 10 years - ask me any questions you need to know."
Me: "...Were you? Nice."
Idiot: "Yeah! I ate chicken, and fish though."

*throttle*

Some say it's "easier" when ordering food, explaining things.

...Whatever.

As far as I understand it, the only non-plant based veg*an suitable foods that didn't come out of a lab and petrie dish are mushrooms, and yeast.

"Pescetarians"

...Whatever.

I am vegan and I don't understand that either. Those who eat fish and call themselves vegetarian are called pescatarians, one of the many 'dialects' of vegetarianism, like ovo-lacto and vegan.

I recently met someone like this. We were at lunch and he was telling me how long he'd been a vegetarian as he was eating his fish burrito.

I don't know why. I'm sure Catholicism's influence is a big part of it. Maybe they just think of meat as land animals and that makes fish fair game. A lot of people give up meat for health reasons so when someone comes along and makes ridiculous claims like fish is good for you because it has healthy oil then people believe it (see post of the imposter VeganConscript who is actually a troll meat-eater pretending to be a long-time contributing memeber of this section and has been spouting incorrect information which, personally, I think is very vindictive and karma will get him in the end). The TRUTH is, fish is just as fatty as many meats and causes high cholesterol and disease just like other animal proteins. Somewhere alng the line people got the idea that chicken and fish and turkey are "heart healthy" - dangerously wrong! If you look at a site like http://www.nutritiondata.com/ and compare different servings of different types of animal flesh and the saturated fats they contain, you'll see what I mean. The same type of healthy oils in fish can be found in much better places that won't contribute to heart disease (like walnuts). It's truly disturbing that such incorrect health information gets distributed. Please spread the word!

Yes, of course it's meat. Just another example of people redefining things so that they can justify behavior or just feel good about themselves. We don't have to deal with the veggie freaks up here in Montana, I'm still waiting to "meat" one some day. One of my favorite bumper stickers "save a cow, eat a vegetarian"

Fish is a type of meat, but it's not a red meat (steak, veal...). It is lighter in calories and fat, too. Some vegetarians don't eat RED meat, which doesn't exclude fish from their diet.

The only "meat" I eat is fish. I don't call myself a "vegetarian". I am just a person that doesn't eat any other meat besides fish. I do this because I want to. Why do I need a label?
I believe a TRUE vegetarian is someone that doesn't eat "anything with a face." Last time a checked, a fish has a face.

Good question. I for one love animals I think they are delicious.

Many of the vegetarians or vegans you hear from are the militant ones that define themselves as sole possessors of "the Truth" and hence determine what is legitimately "vegetarian" or "vegan"

The vegetarian community as a whole is not as fanatical. The crazies are classified as "strict vegetarians" but more likely come from the "vegan" branch. Moreover, there are ovo, ovo-lacto, pesco-, pollo, suffixes added to the word vegetarian. You will find no such thing among vegans.

Interesting enough, I read recently that the most healthy diet in the world . . . as selected by the WHO and based on criteria too numerous to mention is the indigenous Okinawan diet that most accurately is considered a pesco-vegetarian diet. I believe they said incidence of "fish eating" is 10-20% of their total diet.

However those who eat no "flesh" at all usually do so on ethical rather than dietary grounds. And of course "ethical" considerations can often rise to the level of fundamentalism . . . as in religion . . . and so you have the crazies that seem to indunate the V&V forum.

This comes from religion... At one time catholics were forbidden to eat "meat" on Friday. Why? I don't know... But were allowed to eat fish.. So people assume You have Meat and then Fish.. I personally think its the stupidest thing I've ever heard..

The answer to this goes back many a year. First, there are two types of vegetarian, vegetarian and vegan. Technically, both are supposed to be herbavorous but many vegetarians will eat fish thus making them omnivorous like the other 99% of the human race. The argument was that animals feel pain when slaughtered and therefore it is wrong to eat meat. However, if any of those vegetarians actually seen the suffering that fish have to endure, I'm sure that fish will be off their menu. An animal is slaughtered quickly and endures only a couple of minutes of pain whereas a fish is first caught in a net and struggles for up to three or four hours. Then the fish is brought out of the water and is slowly suffocated. After a period of anything between 10 minutes and one or two hours of slow suffocation the fish then ha it's stomach cut open, whilst it is still living and is gutted whilst alive. Therefore, vegetarians are hypocrites whereas vegans are true vegetarians as they are herbivors and only eat vegetation. Finally, it is also not uncommon for some vegetarians to use dairy produce; milk in tea, cream on scones, ice-cream, cakes made with eggs etc. etc. So there's your answer. You have hypocrites and you have vegetarians. Hypocrites are called vegetarians and vegetarians are called vegan.

Really fish is not meat! But I don't eat it anyways!

Why do you care? To each their own. Fish is Fish and not meat.
I guess it depends on what their reason is for being a vegetarian. If it's for health reasons you could see that eating fish may have a different value.
Off course, if someone is vegetarian because they oppose animal killing, they would probably not eat fish either.