At university we had an end of project show, to show what animations we had made like a movie premier, there was caviar and my tutor wouldnt take no for an answer and didnt understand why i wouldnt try some..its not meat afterall and i am not(100%) vegan.i always found caviar odd in comparrision to hens eggs in any case. I didnt know they killed the fish to get the eggs, in that respect for me at least it makes them instantly non veg. Killing an animal for something is not vegetarian.
Are fish eggs vegetarian?
- Thread starter Poppy
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AeryFairy
Anachronism
I had vegan caviar once... Not bad, but wouldn't seek it out.
Don't think I'd consider caviar vegetarian, as they kill the fish to get it. As a vegetarian, my philosophy was always 'if someone has to die to get this, I don't want it'.
Then again, I don't think I'd say someone wasn't a vegetarian for eating it.
Don't think I'd consider caviar vegetarian, as they kill the fish to get it. As a vegetarian, my philosophy was always 'if someone has to die to get this, I don't want it'.
Then again, I don't think I'd say someone wasn't a vegetarian for eating it.
I just googled up how caviar is harvested and it is even worse than I had thought. They actually slit the fish that is
alive to collect the eggs ! Disgusting and just as bad as Foie Gras !
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2005/10/how_do_they_harvest_caviar.html
alive to collect the eggs ! Disgusting and just as bad as Foie Gras !
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2005/10/how_do_they_harvest_caviar.html
SummerRain
I dreamed that God would be forgiving.
This was always my attitude as a vegetarian too, for the same reasons I didn't wear leather as a vegetarian either.
I can see it's a grey area though. If you define vegetarian as "does not eat animal flesh" I guess caviar are vegetarian, if you define vegetarian as "does not eat things that kill animals" I guess it isn't. I think the latter is how most people see vegetarianism though.
There's a clear distinction from chickens eggs though, since the animals are either killed or severely injured to get the eggs.
I suppose it also depends on ones intentions within vegetarianism.
One person might not want to eat meat, but is fine wearing leather or even fur. Personally I see my vegetarianism as a path to vegan, which means that I think more about how items are taken/obtained from an animal.
Its the whole Health V Ethics debate.
Some people do eat veggie but arent doing it to save animals, thats just a happy by product.
(Im not good at expressing my thoughts)
One person might not want to eat meat, but is fine wearing leather or even fur. Personally I see my vegetarianism as a path to vegan, which means that I think more about how items are taken/obtained from an animal.
Its the whole Health V Ethics debate.
Some people do eat veggie but arent doing it to save animals, thats just a happy by product.
(Im not good at expressing my thoughts)
I'd say that, if the process to get something causes the animal to die, then it's not vegetarian. Leather is usually a subtly different case: the animals are generally killed primarily for their meat, and the leather is a byproduct. But the fish are apparently killed specifically to get their eggs.
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At first thought I'd say they're not vegetarian, but I guess it seems odd to only consider chicken eggs as vegetarian and not others.
To the fish being killed in order to obtain the eggs, while generally true (the majority of the time), it's not always the case:
http://www.ifis.org/resources/features/sustainable-caviar-production-save-our-sturgeon!/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/recipes/4569441/Caviar-Golden-eggs.html
To the fish being killed in order to obtain the eggs, while generally true (the majority of the time), it's not always the case:
http://www.ifis.org/resources/features/sustainable-caviar-production-save-our-sturgeon!/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/recipes/4569441/Caviar-Golden-eggs.html
Blobbenstein
.......
Which would make turtle eggs vegetarian???
what about ants' eggs? A bit small maybe but maybe they are delicious....
Blobbenstein
.......
It says they still have to make a cut in the fish to get the eggs out, although they seem to think the fish can cope well and more eggs can be "harvested" this way later, and that the fish can live out its natural lifespan despite the procedures. Still, I personally wouldn't consider this procedure vegetarian. As a counter-example you could amputate non-vital parts of animals to eat, but as long as the amputations are done professionally and they are given the correct medical care, then I'm sure they can still live out their natural lifespan ...
kibbleforlola
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Yep. And I think that it comes down to the fact that fish aren't "cute", honestly. If you amputate say, a deer's leg to eat, that deer is obviously going to be in pain and look distressed and it being a fuzzy woodland creature, most people, even meat eaters, are going to feel pity for it. But because fish are incapable of showing their distress through facial expressions, people seem to have a slice 'em, dice 'em attitude. I don't think either is veg.
SummerRain
I dreamed that God would be forgiving.
Which would make turtle eggs vegetarian???
Why wouldn't ostrich eggs be vegetarian?
ledboots
Peace
If they were fertilized, they aren't vegetarian by my standards. That's another reason I think fish eggs aren't vegetarian, because they are fertile and would hatch fish if not taken and eaten.
Blobbenstein
.......
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/suffolk/6643407.stmBoy hatches chick from shop egg
Miles with his chick
A nine-year-old boy has hatched a chick from a box of free-range eggs which his mother bought in a Suffolk supermarket.
The chick, named Celia, hatched three weeks after Miles Orford, of Great Ashfield, placed six free-range Cotswold Legbar eggs in an incubator.
They wouldn't hatch unless incubated though.
kibbleforlola
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Aren't fish eggs usually fertilized outside the body? So if they're "harvested" (ugh, I hate that word in regards to animals) from inside the fish, then they aren't capable of hatching. Right? Or am I confusing my biology, it has been a while.
I was unsure about whether fish eggs are always fertilized. The links nog posted seem to suggest sturgeon eggs used for caviar are not.
Most fish eggs are fertilized outside the fishes' bodies. The only exception I can think of offhand are livebearing fish (such as the popular aquarium fish guppies, swordtails, platies, and mollies): the eggs develop inside her, and young fish are born a little later.
Oh, to be clear, I'm not making a claim about whether it's vegetarian or not, just responding to fish needing to be killed or always killed for their eggs. My understanding is that it's the norm, but not necessarily an absolute.
I do not support or approve of that practice at any rate.
Having said that, this youtube video shows an example of 'milking' a bred, factory farmed fish of it's eggs:
(I don't know if there needs to be a warning, but it made me sad that the fish live in those conditions as well as fish taken out of water to be massaged, likened it to milking them of their eggs.)
