Why is it okay for some vegetarians to eat fish?

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03 Aug 2012, 11:05 pm

Different people choose their eating patterns for different reasons. Not all vegetarians are vegetarians for the same reasons, and I'm sure not all fish eaters are for the same reasons either. For some an eating pattern is part of a religious practice. For others it's a matter of conscience, for others I'm sure there are other reasons. The point of what I'm saying is that it's simply a choice. There are no rules except those that a person imposes on him- or herself. Just as with religion and politics, people differ.

My Catholic cousins used to not eat red meat on Fridays, but they could eat fish. I never knew the reason why fish was allowed, only that it was a matter of giving something up, just as Christians still do during Lent, and people of other faiths do at other times, such as Ramadan, and some Jewish holy days. It's not always a matter of not wanting to kill anything, which isn't really possible anyway unless someone figures out a way to eat without killing any animals or plants. I guess that's where fruitarians have the high ground. :roll:

In any case, it's a choice. You'd have to ask the individual person their individual reasons to really learn the answer.

Vexcalibur
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03 Aug 2012, 11:21 pm

It is ok to anyone to eat fish. Or cow for that matter.

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naturalplastic
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04 Aug 2012, 3:46 am

Ilka wrote:

naturalplastic wrote:

The statement "eating a fruit kills the fruit" doesnt make any sense. Eating a fruit doesnt kill anything. The plant that produced the fruit WANTS you to eat it so the plant can disperse it genes and reproduce by having its seeds pass through your gut ( or having you throw away the apple core on the ground). Thats the whole reason fruit evolved- so plants can exploit us animals to propagate. If you didnt eat the fruit it would just rot on the ground, or it would sprout at the foot of the parent tree and compete with its parent and die.

The point is we do not propagate anything. Other animals do, but we eat the fruit and put the core (seed) in the trash bin. We are killing the fruit. We are completely wasting its purpose of producing new life.

Except we DO propagate stuff. We devote billions of acres of land to agriculture. Apples propagate more by exploiting us humans (who throw away apple cores) than they do by exploiting any other animal species.

Last edited by naturalplastic on 04 Aug 2012, 5:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

enrico_dandolo
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04 Aug 2012, 4:32 am

visagrunt wrote:

Why is it okay?

Because all people get to decide for themselves what they will eat. We seem too hung up on labels, trying to define our food choices within rigid frameworks of nomenclature.

This.

Also, different people are vegetarian for different reasons.

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04 Aug 2012, 3:27 pm

Ilka wrote:

naturalplastic wrote:

so seed predation is bad but if you save and plant them it is ok.
One should also say no to nuts and grain?

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naturalplastic
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04 Aug 2012, 3:46 pm

JakobVirgil wrote:

Ilka wrote:

naturalplastic wrote:

so seed predation is bad but if you save and plant them it is ok.
One should also say no to nuts and grain?

Her point is that there is no moral difference between eating a peach and eating a..maybe not a human... but eating a cow. Its killing a whole organism.

My point is that eating a peach is to the peach tree what consuming clipped hair or clipped nails is to a human. Its tissue that the organism sluffs off and expels anyway. So it does not even injure any plant-much less kill it.

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04 Aug 2012, 4:09 pm

This thread reminds me of a joke:

A farmer and his family are asleep one night when their house catches fire. One of the pigs smells the smoke and breaks out of his pen, smashing his way into the house, squealing loudly to alert everyone to the fire. The pig braves the flames and climbs the stairs, grabbing a little baby out of its cradle and carrying him downstairs in his mouth and outside to safety.

Over the next few days the pig becomes a top story in the local newspapers and finally a national TV crew pick up on the story and send a team over to the farm. When they arrive, the farmer and his family are tucking into a pork dinner and he leaves off to answer their questions and show them the heroic pig. The reporter notices the pig only has three legs and asks the farmer if he lost a leg during the fire. "No" replied the farmer. "The pig has done right by us, so it only seems right that we don't eat him all at once"

JakobVirgil
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04 Aug 2012, 5:11 pm

naturalplastic wrote:

JakobVirgil wrote:

Ilka wrote:

naturalplastic wrote:

so seed predation is bad but if you save and plant them it is ok.
One should also say no to nuts and grain?

What about the seeds of annuals that have gone their course.
Is eating Celery worse than eating Watermelon?
Eating Carrots (kills the plant) worse than drinking Milk (nothing dies)?
Vegans take the opposite tack on that one.

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Their hungry thirsty roots??

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Kurgan
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04 Aug 2012, 6:30 pm

You can't eat fish and at the same time be a vegetarian.

naturalplastic
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04 Aug 2012, 7:35 pm

JakobVirgil wrote:

naturalplastic wrote:

JakobVirgil wrote:

Ilka wrote:

naturalplastic wrote:

so seed predation is bad but if you save and plant them it is ok.
One should also say no to nuts and grain?

I would think so-that drinking milk is less immoral than eating a carrot.

But you would have to ask a fruitarian.
Not an apologist for fruitarians, but I do see their whacky logic- that eating fruit doesnt kill anything so its morally superior even to vegitarianism- except if you subsisted only a strictly fruitarian diet you would being killing yourself!

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04 Aug 2012, 7:35 pm

Kurgan wrote:

You can't eat fish and at the same time be a vegetarian.

show me in the bible.

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We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots??

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thewhitrbbit
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04 Aug 2012, 11:04 pm

Simple; they aren't vegetarians.

People who eat only fish are called pescatarians.

naturalplastic
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04 Aug 2012, 11:42 pm

thewhitrbbit wrote:

Simple; they aren't vegetarians.

People who eat only fish are called pescatarians.

I think we all can agree on that.

Non tetrapod eating folks who still eat fish cant call themselves "vegetarians".

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