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amatulic t1_j301pp6 wrote

Fish isn't considered an "animal"? It's conspicuously absent from that chart, and seafood is my primary source of meat. Due to that, I am skeptical of the value and correctness of this chart.

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CSDragon t1_j30w3wr wrote

So, yes and no. Linguistically the words "animal" and "meat" are old words, older than the classification of kingdom, phylum, order, etc. And back in the day they referred specifically to land mammals and the flesh thereof. And those definitions of the word are still culturally relevant in some places

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qeny1 t1_j32xt0i wrote

Yep, definitely a big omission. The page notes "Not shown here, Americans also each eat about 16 pounds of seafood, with shrimp the biggest component at over 4 pounds. This represents on the order of several ten billion fish and shellfish."

There are probably a few relevant factors in their decision to omit all sea animals:

  • Perhaps the data isn't as good or as clear for number of sea animals. Sometimes it may be measured by weight, and then there are the problems of bycatch and sea animal bodies that are fed to farmed fish.
  • Historically, traditionally, sometimes the word "meat" has referred to mammal (and bird) flesh. Maybe this is because fish are and other sea animals are seen as quite different than mammals (and birds).
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Holyvigil t1_j32s6uq wrote

So is Goat. That's a pretty big animal to eat.

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