question about fish, et al.....

[Guest guest]

Along the same lines, I need a couple quick responses for my 4 yr-old son's

father (we are divorced). He's always " respected " my wishes about raising

him vegetarian, until the past couple of weeks. He has started the " fish

isn't meat; poultry isn't meat " thing. When I say they are living

animals/creatures, etc., he then starts saying that vegetables were living

until I killed them to eat them, etc.

 

Forget loads of literature; I just need some snappy comebacks. My son is

VERY stubborn and he will not eat meat or fish. Although I can't be sure he

wouldn't trick him. He told me that he went to lunch with Granny and had

veggie chicky nuggets in a restaurant -- Granny told him they were. When I

pointed out that no restaurant serves veggie chik nuggets (at least where we

are), he said he had a quesadilla. I'm not sure if he was covering for

Granny or he only had ice cream and was trying to hide that from me, but I

definitely wouldn't put it past them to trick him, otherwise he would never

eat meat.

 

So what responses has everyone given that fish and chicken aren't meat?

That vegetables are alive too and you are killing them?

 

Thanks,

Lori

 

Message: 8

Wed, 06 Oct 2004 14:11:55 -0000

" mn_proffitt " <mn_proffitt

question about fish....

 

I have a question about fish:

 

I personally don't eat it because I do not like it...But, is it

considered a meat?

~Michelle

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 10/8/04 9:13:45 AM, llugar writes:

 

 

> So what responses has everyone given that fish and chicken aren't meat?

> That vegetables are alive too and you are killing them?

>

My response to the former would be that if it bleeds, has eyes and/or a

mother, it's an animal and animal parts are meat.

 

My reply to the latter would be that if he can't tell the difference between

a carrot and a cow, you had ample reason to divorce him for someone smarter...

 

With all best wishes,

Jill

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Lori,

 

I've had comments like that too - " But don't you have to 'kill' plants to

eat them? " And yes, the fish question is very common (like people don't

think it's a living animal - duh!). Well, I sometimes would respond that I

don't eat anything that once had blood coursing through their veins.

Sometimes people don't care to hear my in-depth reasons of being veg*n, so

quick little comments like that would do the trick.

 

HTH,

Melodese

[Guest guest]

On Thu, 7 Oct 2004, Lori Lugar wrote:

 

> So what responses has everyone given that fish and chicken aren't meat?

> That vegetables are alive too and you are killing them?

 

I don't know what your reasons are for being vegetarian (health, animal

rights, etc.), but for me the point behind not eating meat is that I don't

eat anything with a mind. If certain vegetables were capable of suffering

or of enjoying their lives, I would avoid those too, but the evidence

pretty clearly indicates there are no sentient vegetables.

 

If it's a snappy comeback you want, you could phrase vegetarianism as " I

don't eat anything that tries to get away. "

 

----

Patricia Bullington-McGuire <patricia

 

The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, discovered

three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the

purely hypothetical. They were all, one might say, nonexistent, but each

nonexisted in an entirely different way ...

-- Stanislaw Lem, " Cyberiad "