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Clearly Veg reports:
Barbara Hendricks, Germany's environment minister, has banned meat in all official functions and called for only vegetarian food to be served. The ban became clear through an email "to department heads from a senior civil servant in the environment ministry", according to The Telegraph . The e-mail noted that the ministry had a responsibility and should set an example to combat the "negative effects of meat consumption", with a statement by the ministry reading:
"We're not telling anyone what they should eat. But we want to set a good example for climate protection, because vegetarian food is more climate-friendly than meat and fish."
Unsurprisingly, the ban has caused a lot of controversy. Minister of food and agriculture Christian Schmidt, who has previously stated that he will push for a ban on "misleading" vegan labels such as vegan curry sausages, stated that he will not be having this "Veggie Day through the back door", and that "meat and fish are also part of a balanced diet".
[Ed Note: This submission vandalized by cmn32480.]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Taibhsear on Friday February 24 2017, @03:01PM
meat and fish
Possibly offtopic but as a scientist (and someone who knows that words have meanings) it bugs me to no end when people keep saying things this way. I don't understand the absurd reasons people seem to put fish and other seafood into some strange unnecessary isolated category (particularly christians).
FISH
IS
MEAT
If it has muscles, it's meat.
(Score: 4, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday February 24 2017, @03:44PM
If it has muscles, it's meat.
Well, that's YOUR definition, but historically that's a pretty recent definition of the word.
Words can have different definitions or connotations depending on context. There are a number of potentially valid reasons to separate "fish" as a culinary category from the muscles of mammals and birds, etc. -- for example, types of preparation are often very different, and fish have a unique nutritional profile that makes it a bit different from other "meat" (in general). Plus, there is a longstanding historical distinction between the groups, as in the traditional Catholic prohibition of "meat" on Fridays while allowing fish.
Also, the word "meat" in English originally just meant "food." Eventually it developed a sense of the "important" food, like the most substantive dish of the meal. Since animal flesh was more nutritious (and tastier to most), it became the center of formal meals. But we still use the category of "meat" as "important element" all the time in English -- "get to the 'meat' of the argument," etc. And we still use it even when not talking about animals at all to refer to the "good part" of food, e.g., the "meat" of a nut (as opposed to the shell) or even of a peach (as opposed to the skin, pit, etc.). And from this perspective, fish in traditional formal dining was considered a separate item from the "main course": you had the "fish" and then the "meat," i.e., the primary course.
And historically, "meat" in different regions and dialects referred to various types of foods. In areas of the U.S. a century or more ago, "meat" referred exclusively to pork and would generally not be used to refer to beef, mutton, etc. In some areas of South Asia, "meat" often referred only to mutton or goat. In other contexts, a distinction is made between beef as "meat" vs. all other things.
Bottom line: "meat" means a whole bunch of different things depending on context. Not everyone understands it to mean "the muscles of all animals."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 24 2017, @08:11PM
the word "meat" in English originally just meant "food".
Eventually it developed a sense of the "important" food, like the most substantive dish of the meal.
"If you don't eat your meat, how can you have any pudding?"
Brit:USAian :: pudding:dessert
In areas of the U.S. a century or more ago, "meat" referred exclusively to pork
This is news to me.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 24 2017, @08:20PM
Yeah. If people are restrictive about what meat means in the US, meat would be beef, not pork.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 24 2017, @11:24PM
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.''
(Score: 2) by Taibhsear on Tuesday February 28 2017, @03:49PM
Well, that's YOUR definition
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/meat?s=t [dictionary.com]
noun
1. the flesh of animals as used for food.
It's literally the first entry.
Do you happen to have a citation for the historical contexts you mentioned? I'm genuinely curious. I've never heard any of that except the nut part.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday February 24 2017, @04:15PM
I've met three vegetarians that still ate fish...
I don't understand it but "it's a thing". When asked about it they all said the vegetarianism was for health reasons and not moral ones. I think the name just sucks. How about, "i don't eat land meat" or something?
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday February 24 2017, @04:34PM
Some eat chicken as well. I suspect it is because chicken takes less land/food to raise than other meats.
Vatted meat will make things even more confusing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 24 2017, @07:08PM
i am considering the option of eating only meat from non-mammals.
if there's an objective way of deciding what to eat, we may as well look at the tree of life and choose to not eat things that are objectively close to us.
also, i think farmed mammals consume more resources per kg of end product than farmed birds or fish.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Taibhsear on Tuesday February 28 2017, @03:45PM
That's called pescatarian.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Friday February 24 2017, @04:29PM
don't understand the absurd reasons people seem to put fish and other seafood into some strange unnecessary isolated category
I think "cuteness" is a factor. Hence why some (silly) people balk at eating horses and rabbits. Fish aren't very cuddly, but I think it might be hard to sell whole, steamed clownfish since Finding Nemo came out.
As for the German decision, I really don't see a problem with an environmental agency promoting vegetarian food - apart from the environmental message it avoids having to pussy-foot around a lot of silly (non-medical) dietary "requirements" when mass catering.
(particularly christians).
What particular combination of misconceptions leads you to try and subject religion to logical analysis?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 24 2017, @08:14PM
steamed clownfish
Every discussion has to be about Trump.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 24 2017, @05:27PM
You may know that words have meanings, but you obviously don't know too much about what meanings the words have. You think because you use the word with a specific meaning, that meaning must be the only "correct" one.
Actually already the idea of there existing a "correct" meaning of a word is highly questionable. A word means what people use it to mean. Not more, not less. And if different people use it to mean different things, it means different things to different people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 24 2017, @05:43PM
i see you are not a wizard from earthsea : )
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthsea)
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday February 24 2017, @07:15PM
I think you're objecting to Zipf's law in action. Common words tend to adopt shorter forms, and "red meat" is considerably longer than just meat. Actually something that accurately reflects what is meant would be even longer since you'd also need to include pork, which is also called (by marketers) "the other white meat".
Your meaning is quite useful within the correct context, outside that context, it's annoyingly verbose.
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