Where do people get the ridiculous idea that fish and poultry are not made of meat?

I think it might come from the definition of the word “meat”. Some places defines it as something from mammals. Some define at as coming from any animal. Around here in Western NY “meat” is also the edible stuff inside of nuts. (I don’t know if that is universal usage or regional.)
Vegetarians can eat the flesh of an avocado, with the meat of walnuts or hickory nuts on top and not feel guilty.

Since you are not a native English speaker, you may not be aware of all the niceties of our language. It is a question of usage, not composition.

Meat is animal flesh. I have a couple of family members who say things like “oh, I don’t eat meat” yet they eat chicken and fish. I tell them “that’s meat” and I get that deer in the headlights look from them…. I have known them my whole life and don’t know where they get that idea from.

What @LuckyGuy and @janbb said. Language is all about context and semantics, not just definitions.

In Italian, the word my family used to use for beef and pork was carne, which simply meant “flesh”. Then, you get to the words for chicken & fish (pollo & pesce respectively) which are totally different and have no reference to “flesh”.
Also, I thought about Catholicism and how fish are not important enough to be counted as meat.

Dietary definitions are conveniently massaged to fit whatever restriction the eater imposes on himself. Consider what the Catholics defined as fish just to keep meat on the table on Fridays.

I think that it is a way to justify their eating behavior so that they feel good about it.

@gondwanalon Meat and fish have been used as separate terms for far longer than there have been pescatarians.

I think of “meat” being a generic term for animal flesh, even though we commonly separate meat, poultry and fish. If I went to someone’s house and they talked about dinner, and I said “what about the meat?” I’d expect them to discuss whatever animal flesh they were going to have, be it beef, pork, chicken or fish, or shell fish, and I’d expect that they would understand that’s what I was asking.

@janbb “Meat and fish have been used as separate terms for far longer than there have been pescatarians.”

Actually, I think this is exactly why some vegetarians think they can easily exclude either fish or poultry from the “meat” definition. It is a cultural tradition they don’t even remember, but it somehow allows them to forget why they are vegetarian in the first place. Unless one is a vegetarian solely to prevent clogged arteries, there’s no sensible reason to include fish or fowl in a vegetarian diet.

If one is a vegetarian to avoid the killing of animals for food (unless they are growing and harvesting everything they eat themselves, and doing so in a closed environment [hydroponics comes to mind] ) then they are seriously uninformed about how the food gets to them.
The whole idea of “justifying” to another person what one eats is bizarre.

Does anyone else here call the edible part inside of a nut “the meat”?

We also use it to denote the important part. For example “The meat of the issue is the misapplication of the sensor.”

@dappled_leaves brings up a good point about Catholics. In the primarily Italian (Catholic ) neighborhood Fish Fry Friday was so they could eat it and still say they were following the no meat on Friday rule.

Fish are friends not food

@janbb Yes you are right. People have justifying such behavior for a long time. Easting fish muscle is also thought to be healthier for you than eating mammal muscle or bird muscle. But nowadays with wide spread heavy metal contamination perhaps more justification in in order.

As I said on the other Q’s about this. The Catholics have no meat Friday, but they can eat fish, so they think of fish as not meat. Even some non-Catholics think that way. I use meat to mean anything that is the flesh of an animal, it doesn’t have to be a mammal.

People who say fish is fish, not meat, well what about Alligator meat? I think that is a well accepted term. People also say turkey meat, but then some people consider turkey to be poultry or fowl.

In supermarkets often the meat department contains, lamb, beef, poultry, and pork. Seafood often has a separate counter or section. So what? The dairy department usually contains eggs. I don’t consider eggs to be dairy.

I don’t think it is wrong to define meat as only mammals, I also don’t think it is wrong to consider all animals, including those living in bodies of water, meat. They are both right. They are used differently by different people in different regions of the US, you just need to know to clarify if you aren’t sure what someone is trying to say.

In Spanish I am pretty sure they use carne to mean only mammal meat, and that translates as meat, so people who speak that as a first language, might use meat in English that way.

I, like @JLeslie and @dappled_leaves think the distinction has a religious basis.

I consider the flesh of fish and mammals to be meat.

So what’s everybody cooking for Christmas dinner?