Is there a good reason NOT to eat fish?!

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

I don't eat seafood, but I have no problems with others doing it. Do what's best for you. There are very healthy pescatarians out there, as there are actually many benefits to eating fish, so I suggest you do what's best for you.

They are animals and thus not part of the vegan diet, but I don't fault those that choose to eat fish. I had a pseudo-vegatarian friend that chose to only eat shrimp. I was fine with that. My choice not to is just that: my choice. I would steer clear of those on the endangered list though.

I went off fish a week later when I became vegetarian, fish was the only meat I particularly liked but they feel pain like any other animal, that is where the ethics come in.
Fish however is supposed to be good for you if you eat it twice a week I have learned to live without it though. I do not know of any negative benefits of eating fish other than the ethical ones.

well, if you eat seafood you are not a vegetarian. you are a pescaterian (i'm not sure if i spelled that right). Anyways, i don't eat fish because fish were also living thing and it died, therefore, it is meat. that's just me, there are other reasons why people chose to eat or not to eat fish and seafood

i'm a vegetarian

Seafood in general is very healthy, high protein and relatively low in fat, much better for you than red meat. It is very hard to get all the right proteins/amino acids you need from a strictly vegetarian diet. I say go for it. If you want to research it to see that the fish/seafood you are eating are treated in an ethical manner that's up to you.

I'm a vegetarian and have been since my birth, but I do know that fish isn't unhealthy.

The reason not to eat fish is the moral and ethical issues. Poor fish, its life ending, when its live need not end, because there are vegetarian options for the SAME nutrients.

As for health issues, there aren't any big ones I can think of.

Eat it if you want, the only reason not to is moral/ethical issues (as I said earlier).

hello i amy a yong veggie and i eat fish as i do not consider it meat as sutch i do not buy farmed fish or trawler caught and i buy sustnible fish so i dont eat a lot of fish HOWEVER i dont think that you can have a healthy diet without fish sorry just my view

now give me my thums down !

kind regards
alex

alexanderstevens75@yahoo.com

It's just a personal preference. I don't eat fish personally because they are still an animal who has to die. I also find fish to br pretty unappetizing.. it grosses me out.

too much mercury can cause mercury poisoning theres mercury in fish

All animals from the ocean have mercury in them. It's a living animal. Fish are friends, not food.:) ~finding nemo

cause it smells bad

Because it makes u smell like a cat

FIshing is one of the most barbaric practices.

It's worse almost than livestock farming, all the appalling action takes place unerneath the surface of the water, so you don't see the damage.
You only mention health reasons for not eating meat. That is your perogative.
Once I'd been made aware of the disgusting activity of fishing I couldn't take any part in eating fish.
They are fished in huge nets- the smaller fish get trapped and have their backs broken, fins snalled off, dolphins have their beaks snapped off in the dredging process - only the right sized fish actually get
used, all the rest, even if they are eating food, are dumped back. Most of them are alive but barely- like they are injured, broken in half, have tails and fins snapped off and can't feed or swim, so they just float til they die. It is disgusting.

In shark fin soup- the tails and fins are hacked off, while the fish is alive, then the body is dumped back.
The shark is alive, with no tail, no fins. It' can't swim, or feed.
I can't imagine a worse way to die,

So although you son't mention animal welfare, and I can respect that, because it's not the reasom I started being vegetarian, you should be aware this is how your fish comes to you. Every fisherman fishes this way.
Half the time, a cod boat will catch thousands of ling and hake too- they die, or are half alive, but have to be thrown back, because the boat is not lisenced to catch them. It is the most barbaric disgusting practice, and ironically it ill be banned in the future- fishing is not sustainable, and cod supplies worldwide are disappearing, as are many many other fish.
So in the future it will be illegal to fish at all- now it is illegal to fish cetain types that were plentiful even 20 years ago.

You say you're in it for moral reasons, so considering that you know that something had to die to make it on your plate should be enough.

If you're really craving it, I would say, why not go out and catch your own? That measn that you're not supporting over fishing, or the other weirdness that the militant vegan posting above is talking about, and see if you can really deal with a fish dying to fill your tummy.

I am not a vegan, but I have found that for vegans who are doubting themselves or their path, a reminder of where life spawns from, and where life goes to (your dinner plate) can reignite some satisfaction in "doing the rabbit-like thing".

As for myself, I'm happy to eat meat, but I am someone who has a spiritual reason for doing so. If your spirit is not one that can handle the idea of death being part of life, then by all means, remove the death from your diet. That only makes sense.

Because it's unsustainable. The ones you say are thrown back are dead, this is called bycatch and is a horrendous waste and can be a threatening process to vulnerable species.

Fishing methods can be extremely harmful to the environment, driftnetting catches and drowns all sorts of marine reptiles and mammals including endangered species such as green sea turtles. Long line fishing kills sea birds and dolphins in the thousands as they are attracted to the fishes hooked on the lines and become hooked themselves. Trawling uses nets which scrape across the sea bed and leave nothing but destruction in their wake, the target crustaceans (usually prawns aka shrimp) make up a very small proportion of the animals caught by this method and the rest is bycatch.

Many fisheries have collapsed due to overexploitation (eg north sea cod, anchovy) and other species have become endangered because too little is known about the biology of the species before it is exploited and the species is unable to restock itself (eg some species do not reproduce until they are extremely old, in some cases as much as 100 years old such as orange roughy and some shark species).

Aquaculture is also very bad. Large fishes need to be fed smaller fishes, which are caught from fishing! There are huge levels of environmental contaminants from the wastes which are emptied into nearby estuaries and waterways. The farmed species may not be local and can escape into these same waterways during floods, which poses threats to indigenous fishes and other species if predators such as trout or other salmonids become established in their habitats.

So really there is no good reason to eat fishes unless you live on a small island and cannot get sufficient nutrients from plants.

vegan biologist

No. Fish is very healthy, and there is no reason to deprive yourself of fish.

Many of the healthiest cultures in the history of mankind ate diets rich in fish.