Pescatarianism puzzles me

[cos]

I've been wondering, why are there so many people out there who categorically won't eat any animals from land or air, but will eat any animlas from the sea?

I've heard lots of different reasons why people choose to be vegetarian. Some of them are,

- Moral objection to killing animals for food.
- Environmental impact.
- Saw a dead animal and got grossed out at the thought.
- Cruelty of factory farms.
- Health, and the idea that humans weren't evolved to eat so much meat.

There are more, though I think this list covers the majority more or less. And some of them, I feel too, though I choose to not eat meat most days but still eat it sometimes, rather than categorically never at all. Still, I benefit from the people who made vegetarianism a movement and continue it, because they're the reason our economy has adapted to make a lot of no-meat and less-meat options available. So I thank them for it.

But if you're going to make exceptions to a general policy of no meat, why does the exception "if it's from the water, it's fine" make sense?

People whose main reason for avoiding meat are animal cruelty issues, generally make exceptions for humanely raised meat. If someone does that, and applies a similar logic to seafood, that makes sense. That's not what I'm wondering about.

Environmentally, fishing is far far more destructive to nature than some kinds of land meat, especially poultry. And poultry's carbon cost is also less than that of fish. Shellfish such as clams and oysters are actually a net benefit to the environment, and eating more of them to support shellfish farming is a good thing. Shrimp, on the other hand, are mostly caught by bottom trawling, so cheap shrimp may be the most environmentally destructive food in the world.

Moral objections, or just gross feelings about eating animals... those seem like they should apply to animals from the sea as well. I know for some people it's a matter of how much of a consciousness something has, but I assume people who see it that way would sooner eat a chicken than a tuna! Not even mentioning the fact that so much of commercial fishing kills sea turtles and dolphins and porpoises as a side effect.

[BTW, as a related thing I've also been wondering why there isn't a common practice of avoiding all meat except for poultry & shells, since that seems to make sense from a carbon and ecosystem impact standpoint. But that's a tangent to my question here.]

And when it comes to health, top predators of the see accumulate toxins, so I'd expect a health-oriented mostly-vegetarian who makes some exceptions to also avoid fish like tuna, and make exceptions not just for shells but also for occasional land meat as well.

Do you or someone you know practice pescatarianism, where all land meat and poultry is off limits, but all/most seafood is acceptable? Can you tell me what reasoning or motivation lies behind this, for you or them personally?

Comments

[hathor]

I actually asked a pescatarian friend this. His response was that he hates vegetables, and he hates fish - though not as much - and so he wants to take out as many of them as possible before he dies.

I'm pretty sure this was his response to being asked to justify his pescatarianism and having any answer he gave "but what about"ed.

Re: Pescatarianism puzzles me

[cos]

*nod* but it really doesn't help to understand why people do it :(

[anhinga_anhinga]

I think correlation with level of consciousness is important (I remember my dad once formulated it as the following future moral criterion: "people will eventually stop eating those animals which show that they care about their offspring").

And correlation with health is important (omega-3 vs saturated fat, in particular).

Re: Pescatarianism puzzles me

[cos]

"those animals which show that they care about their offspring"

Oh, that's an interesting one. It hadn't occurred to me to use that standard. Even the lowliest bird beats the most advanced fish, because of different reproductive strategies. Do you know any actual pescatarians for whom this is the motivation?

Re: Pescatarianism puzzles me

[anhinga_anhinga]

I am not sure. I think it is mostly the instinctive feel that warm-blooded animals are closer to us (easier to empathize with).

Although, I believe there are some non-warm-blooded species which still care about offspring (but then it would be a per-species consideration, not a blanket thing).

I do think that a moral part of this is mostly a matter of empathy (so "looking a fish in the eyes more often" might change things; but I would say that care about offspring certainly does demonstrate to us that the animal cares at all, and makes it much easier to empathize with that animal)...

Re: Pescatarianism puzzles me

[flexagon]

Regarding the "instinctive" feel of it, I have a pescatarian friend who would prefer to eat meat for nutrition reasons but gets nightmares (mostly about people eating her cats) every time she even considers it. Shrimp and salmon don't give her nightmares, so she relies on these for some of her protein and omega-3s. The fact that it's not under her control gives credence to the "instinctive empathy levels" argument.

I value intelligence, and am personally more likely to avoid octopus than any other meat. Though to be fair I have never tried eating cat or dog, or any other animal primarily kept as a pet in the Western world. It's possible I would have a reaction to eating those.

Re: Pescatarianism puzzles me

[(Anonymous)]

I suspect that this is at the base for a lot of pescatarians: they find it easier to eat what they can’t empathize with, and fish are something from an alien medium which aren’t relatably cute/nurturing. (I once heard of someone who wouldn’t eat anything with a face, which left mostly shellfish.) I would bet that your typical pescatarian would not eat octopus upon learning of their ingenuity.

For the record, apart from sustainable fishing practices, the standard I try to apply to meat is “not from a farm” (except happy poultry), which makes venison my preferred meat, to work on the deer overpopulation problem.

Re: Pescatarianism puzzles me

[ceelove]

That was me. Didn’t notice that DW logged me out.

[someonefromthewater]

Do you or someone you know practice pescatarianism, where all land meat and poultry is off limits, but all/most seafood is acceptable? Can you tell me what reasoning or motivation lies behind this, for you or them personally?

It's a good diet for weight loss (which is what a lot of people mean by "health"). The pescatarians I've known were primarily trying to lose weight.

[eirias]

I know some pescatarians and I think for some of them it's an uneasy truce between "I feel squicky eating animals" and "animal meat is tasty/convenient/nutritious." Like, for some people it's a transition state between vegetarian and omnivorous. My guess is that the truce goes this way rather than eating birds and not fish because of some intuition that birds are more "like us" than fish are. Not sure if this is an intuitive phylogeny thing, or a familiarity thing, or what.

I also think it's interesting to think about which exemplars can be food and which can't. Like, people eat chickens, but people don't in general eat eagles. Why not?

That info about shrimp is good, thanks. I hadn't realized.

[elusiveat]

in general eat eagles. Why not?

I have a general curiosity about why humans generally eat low on the food chain in terrestrial creatures but that goes completely out the window for seafood.

[antimony]

There's also a ton of people who avoid meat except for chicken and fish, even if there's not a handy name for them. (I grew up in a region where "vegetarian" was often interpreted as this, and would routinely get offered so-do-you-want-chicken-or-fish.) So your "why isn't there a common practice..." hypothetical isn't, in my experience? This was in a very landlocked area, so while by the time I was growing up, most of the fish was ocean fish trucked in just like shellfish, but fish was still seen as "simple" whereas shellfish was exotic/expensive, even though it wasn't usually freshwater/local fish.

[jered]

Conveniently today: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/vegan

[sparr]

I am leaning away from eating mammals. The intelligence of the animal matters to me, and afaik fish as much dumber than chickens. Less trainable, at least.

[elusiveat]

The intelligence of the animal matters to me, and afaik fish as much dumber than chickens. Less trainable, at least.

Do you know of specific evidence for this?

I have no idea myself, but "fish" is a huge phylogenetic category so I'm naturally suspicious of the generalization.

Plus domesticated chickens aren't renowned for their intellect ; )

[elusiveat]

I have no idea what the reasons are, but there seems to be some pretty deep historical background behind the cultural tendency to put aquatic life into a different category, at least in European traditions.

E.g., in this recent article about Tudor Christmas practices:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/tudor_christmas

"...the period of advent was a time for abstinence, when you were not allowed meat or dairy."

...

"However, the fasting period wasn’t as difficult for people with titles and money, who added fish and other aquatic delights to their diet during advent. “To be fair, the fish dishes at the time were quite something. So if you were wealthy, it wasn’t a time of hardship, you just ate porpoise and beavers’ tail rather than beef and venison,” she says."

Anyone know the origins of various Christian practices of sometimes abstaining from "meat" consumption?

[elusiveat]

I also remember hearing a story (NPR?) a while back about the Italian practice of eating songbirds, which they catch in nets, and the fact that Americans tend to be thoroughly squicked by this practice despite being basically comfortable doing the same thing to fish.