page_title: Fish as food
section_title: Vegetarianism
hierarchical_section_title: Fish as food / Vegetarianism
caption_attribution_description: Seared ahi and wasabi beurre blanc sauce from Bali Hai Restaurant, Hanalei Bay Resort, Princeville, Kauai
context_page_description: Many species of fish are consumed as food in virtually all regions around the world. Fish has been an important source of protein and other nutrients for humans throughout history.
  English does not have a special culinary name for food prepared from these animals, as it does with pig vs. pork, and unlike Spanish pescado vs. pez. In culinary and fishery contexts, fish may include shellfish, such as molluscs, crustaceans and echinoderms; more explicitly, seafood covers both fish and other marine life used as food.
  Since 1961, the average annual increase in global apparent food fish consumption has outpaced population growth and
  exceeded consumption of meat from all terrestrial animals, combined and individually, except poultry. In per capita terms, food fish consumption has grown from 9.0 kg in 1961 to 20.2 kg in 2015, at an average rate of about 1.5 percent per year. The expansion in consumption has been driven not only by increased production, but also by a combination of many other factors, including
  reduced wastage, better utilization, improved distribution channels and growing demand, linked with population growth, rising incomes and urbanization.
context_section_description: Since fish is animal flesh, the Vegetarian Society has stated that vegetarian diets cannot contain fish.
  The neologism pescetarians covers those who eat fish and other seafood, but not mammals and birds. Pescatarians may consume fish based solely upon the idea that the fish are not factory farmed as land animals are (i.e., their problem is with the capitalist-industrial production of meat, not with the consumption of animal foods themselves). Some eat fish with the justification that fish have less sophisticated nervous systems than land-dwelling animals. Others may choose to consume only wild fish based upon the lack of confinement, while choosing to not consume fish that have been farmed.
  A 1999 metastudy combined data from five studies from western countries. The metastudy reported mortality ratios, where lower numbers indicated fewer deaths, for pescetarians to be 0.82, vegetarians to be 0.84, occasional meat eaters to be 0.84. Regular meat eaters and vegans shared the highest mortality ratio of 1.00. However, the "lower mortality was due largely to the relatively low prevalence of smoking in these [vegetarian] cohorts".
caption: Hawaiian food: Seared ahi and wasabi beurre blanc sauce
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