The Definition of Meat
This has really been bugging me lately, because a bunch of both omnivores and vegetarians/vegans don't seem to understand what "meat" is. Gah! even Wikipedia has it wrong! I was going to link to them to back me up, but they are full of it as well. (Here's the article, just in case you want to see what they have to say: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat)
Okay, meat is muscle tissue from an animal. Things like lungs, hearts, livers, intestines, and tongues are all still meat! They may not be composed of skeletal muscle, but they are composed of muscle (smooth muscle for the most part, although heart muscle is striated like the skeletal muscles.) However, tendons, bones, skin, nails, hair, ligaments, etc. are NOT meat! NO MUSCLE= NO MEAT. Still animal products yes, but not meat.
Now then, as to the type of animal that the muscle tissue is coming from, that is completely irrelevant, because what we are dealing with is still animal muscle fibers. Shrimp are animals. Cows are animals. Chickens, despite what so many people seem to think, are animals. Grrr. As such, the dead muscles of fish, birds, amphibians, reptiles, shellfish, and various other invertebrates are all "MEAT." (I'm pretty certain that insects also have some sort of muscles, if we really want to debate the merits of "meaty" insects we can get into that later)
As such, If someone says they are vegetarian, please don't ask, "but You'll still eat shrimp and fish, right?" or "Ok, but how about chicken?" If someone wants to say that they only eat one of those they'll tell you that they are pescatarians or pesco-vegetarians (fish) or that they are pollotarians or pollo-vegetarians (chicken), or semi-vegetarian, or flexitarian. Purists and militant types will freely tell you that these are not "real vegetarians" and go on and on about the evils of saying one thing and doing another, how eating meat gives a bad name to all "real" vegetarians, etc. I'd say they need to pull certain parts of their anatomy out of certain other parts of their anatomy and realize that they are not the lifestyle police. If a vegan wants to go out and eat sushi every once in a while, more power to them. I hardly think that a sushi dinner once a month, even, will somehow cancel the good that they are doing the rest of the time for their bodies, the environment, and animals (if animal welfare is even one of their concerns) If a vegetarian doesn't check at a restaraunt to make sure that their cheese has the right kind of rennet and enzymes in it, it reallys isn't the end of the world. I mean, it's hard enough at most places to find something on the menu that doesn't have meat in it to begin with, or to specially request something that doesn't have meat. And then the waiter/waitress is all like "and would you like chicken or shrimp on that" after you've already specifically asked for the overpriced salad with the meat REMOVED! Ahhh!
Ok, sorry, rant is over. Back to your regularly scheduled happy, bouncy Heather.