I stopped eating terrestrial meat in 2016, a few years after my dad suffered a serious heart attack. I made the decision mainly for health reasons, but the ethical and environmental benefits gave me the push I needed. My thinking was simple: giving up meat might extend my life, and as a bonus, I wouldn’t have to face the ethical dilemma of knowing what happens in factory farms while eating their products anyway.
Fish is different. The health risks aren’t the same. Taking B12 supplements while avoiding meat leads to better health outcomes than eating meat, but the same can’t be said for taking algae oil compared to eating whole fish.
Still, the ethical concerns remain. Fish are sentient, and they feel pain and fear. I like fish, but I know I could give it up. I keep eating fish because a pescetarian diet has been shown to lead to better health outcomes than any other diet at scale.
In that way, my approach isn’t far from how humans ate for millennia. They killed animals and ate their flesh with reverence. They didn’t kill because they enjoyed killing. They killed because they had to.
I don’t have to kill terrestrial animals to have a healthy diet, but I do feel I need to eat fish. I don’t have to be happy about it.