Question: why do people not consider fish as meat?

Dawn Lau answered on 22 Jun 2016:

I think it’s a cultural thing. Meat is, by definition, animal flesh. Since fish are animals, the flesh of fish is meat. However, a lot of the older generation where I grew up in Hong Kong think that meat comes from animals with four legs. To them, fish are seen as less intelligent, and therefore less animal-like, than mammals. I believe in some religions where they have dietary laws (e.g. Jewish dietary law), it is written such that the word for meat does not include fish. So I think there are religious and cultural reasons for this.

It drives me a bit nuts when someone tells me they’re vegetarian but eat fish, though! That’s a pescatarian.