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I cooked it, thus making it safe.. no I was not on drugs, nor drunk. I like salmon so.... didnt think it was a huge deal, as for all of you that like bacon.. you are aware that some people keep the old potbellys as pets right?

I know people keep potbelly pigs as pets...but I don't eat them. And alot of potbelly pig owners don't eat them. Even if I owned a potbelly pig, it wouldn't be for food.

I think the pigs we eat as bacon and sausage are different from potbelly pigs. I think.

I don't eat any fish or seafood, so of course I wouldn't even think about eating tropical fish. I think its gross though. Look at the ingredients on the fish food you feed them....you ate it.

*Kristin*

Geeze GirlyGirl, I hope you never start a garden .... I guess you'll starve to death

Cooking makes no difference to a huge amount of heavy metals and toxins.

A fish tank is not a produce garden. Find your brain, reboot it, and make sure the logic circuits are working this time.

Im still wondering if youre joking or suffering from emotional stunting and an abnormally low IQ.

As if pet fish doent have enough suffering with transport and shops without you eating them too. Its contrary to most of care ideas we have or are trying to promote. You arent kevin kline in a fish called wanda, youre just not that cool.He wasnt eating real fish. This is just another childish thing thought up by someone without a clear idea of the consequences. Generally its advised that you think before you act.There are enough sustainability problems in the hobby as it is without you starting to eat the bloody fish. Not clever.

Sort it out.

Longhaired, I am not joking.. but I'm sure if I was you wouldn't/couldn't fathom the thought. you need to lighten up buddy! if reading a million books on fish keeping is what would take to make me have a higher IQ.. then no thanks, I would rather have a life. honestly, wake up. are you afraid to walk, or drive a car.. oh no , what if you slip while feeding your fish and hit your head on the coffee table, and pass out?? life is full of risks , ps: I am that cool

Okay, if you want to eat fish that other people consider pets, I guess that's allright...it never seems to bother other people in foreign countries so what the hay, but one thing about what you said when you started this thread has been bothering me:

Im not sure if anyone remembers or not, but a few months ago, I posted about the fish that my roommate talked me into eating, after we found it floating

What did that fish die of???? Most folks that do routinely eat these types of fish pull them out of the water alive and, presumeably, healthy. This fish was already dead of what??? That seems to be the unanswered question here and why would you want to eat a fish that was already dead of "who knows what"? Was is disease? In that case....blech Was it old-age? Again...blech
Was it ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate poisoning? BLECH That's just sick. Sorry....calls 'em as I sees 'em.

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~~Melissa~~
"Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder."

how do you think that cute little chicken, whose breast you ate lastnight was killed?
A) gently laid down and quickly killed as to not feel pain.
B) lived a nice full life, and it was just his time to go.
C) was forced in a line of a million then had an automated blade whack half of his head off while he is hanging from his legs, convulsing from the pain, only hoping to bleed to death soon enough.
nothing we eat died the way we want, its not a perfect world. Kids in Somolia, would kill for that fish, and you just toss it down the toilet?? I say waste not, want not...

Ummm...okay, the chicken was mechanically killed by having it's head chopped off...at least I know why it died. Great! So what? If I saw a dead chicken out in the yard, I'm not going to go out there and grab it and cook it up not knowing what killed it. Your argument doesn't make any sense. Yes, cattle is slaughtered by being shot in the head, chickens are mangled by whirling blades, fresh caught fish get their heads chopped off. The point is, these creatures were alive and PRESUMEABLY healthy. I think we can safely say that your fish was not since it was floating just before your little snack.

Not a dinner specimen IMO....and starvation (in places like Somalia) is a different argument too....I'm sure if people get hungry enough they would eat a LOT of stuff that they never would otherwise (can anyone say Donner party???)....were you that hungry?

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~~Melissa~~
"Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder."

no, clue how he died, lets just say, ammonia poision(for conversation) I am fine, its been a few months. So I went out and took that risk for all of man kind and it worked. you all should be thanking me, now you know you dont have to waste that tasty little friend. Think of me, like Christopher Columbus

Well, I'm not too sure about Christopher Columbus, but I will give you the title 'lab rat'. They're fine too,for a while, then later comes.......

I hope nothing bad happens to you sir.

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~~Melissa~~
"Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder."

well thank you Madam, I am sure I will be fine

Let's explore this a little further.

Now I will be the first to admit that our choice of which creatures are to be eaten and which are not can seem, to the untrained eye, somewhat arbitrary, though anyone foolish enugh to try sampling something that was armed with toxins for self defence, for example, would probably edit themselves out of the gene pool in fairly short order. However, as arbitrary as the dividing line between 'food' and 'non food' might seem, there is usually a purpose behind it.

The examples of farmed animals that have been quoted above are, however, misleading precisely because a decision was taken from the word 'go' that they would be food. Their treatment while being raised was geared toward making those animals good, healthy animals because our state of the art of knowledge has advanced to the point that we know the risks involved when animals that aren't good, healthy animals wind up in the food chain. We've also learned a few hard lessons along the way, including some recent ones - BSE here in the UK being a prime example. This goes a long way toward explaining why legislation governing food standards in advanced nations is complex and detailed - we have numerous hard scientific facts to hand that tell us what is safe in the food chain and what is not. I am sure that quite a few people in impoverished parts of the Third World would love to avail themselves of [1] a guaranteed food supply that ensures that they and their children aren't starving, and [2] a food supply that is, as far as we can so make it possible, free of unwanted nasty medical surprises further down the line. People in the Third World make food choices that seem perilously risky to us precisely because they don't have any other choice at the moment. Give them that choice, and they would probably elect to join us fortunates in the advanced nations who enjoy not only sufficient to eat, but an absence of worries over whether or not their food was going to do them harm. A point graphically brought home to those unfortunate Japanese fishermen and their families who were stricken by Minamata Disease that I covered above. Admittedly, given the different tastes of people around the world, those same Third World denizens might make some exotic choices of livestock if they had the means to engage in Western-style food production for themselves, but this is, in part, an irrelevance because they would choose to integrate into their food production system species that have been food choices for them historically. Which is, after all, what we have done.

Leaving such practical considerations aside, another issue starts to raise itself here. Namely the blurring of certain boundaries. Historically, humans have chosen to keep animal companions that are not intended as food, originally for utilitarian purposes, but also because we find them fascinating and emotionally satisfying to nurture. Look into the eyes of a little girl cuddling a fluffy bunny rabbit and you need no further demonstration of this. The creatures we choose to lavish such attentions on we come to regard as being, in a sense, part of us. Apart from maintaining a valuable connection with the natural world that is increasingly distanced from dwellers of large cities, animal husbandry of pets, be it rabbits, cats, dogs, or the beloved fishes of the FPilians here, teaches us valuable lessons about caring for others and for our wider environment that are wonderfully effective. It's all very well to read articles in newspapers or passages in textbooks about the value of biodiversity and the rainforests, for example, but when you have something in your living room from one of those places that you have cared for and nurtured, and possibly even persuaded to breed, you possess a connection to that issue that is considerably stronger than someone who doesn't have that blessing. I'm sure, for example, that Cup_of_Lifenoodles has engaged in a LOT of hard intellectual (and physical) effort with respect to his collection of L-number Plecs, some of which still provide him with considerable spawning and breeding challenges even after his hard work. Likewise, I've learned a lot from my Panda Corys - including, lamentably, just how disastrous a pollution incident can be for them thanks to those nice people at the water company being over-generous with the aluminium sulphate at the treatment plant in October 2005.

One of the valuable lessons all of this teaches us, is that the throwaway culture of planned obsolescence is at variance with the natural world in a potentially catastrophic fashion. And thus, to anyone sufficiently receptive to being educated thus, should cause us to think harder about sustainability - not as some abstract idea, but in practical terms that genuinely make a difference. Granting that special status upon our aquarium fishes, as creatures we strive to nurture and care for, gives us the intellectual and practical tools to make that difference, even if only in a small way. Enough of us doing that in a small way can soon add up to a significant difference on a much larger scale if we actually bother to sit and think about this.

If, however, one engages in the kind of casual experimentation that has been highlighted in this thread, one risks undoing all of that. Now while some may consider it an 'interesting intellectual exercise' to do this, I personally do not possess the level of decadence required to engage in such practices as a 'philosophical' experiment. Even if one chooses to be charitable and consider it thus, there is still something suspect at the heart of any notion which allows one to make a flash, arbitrary decision that a creature once afforded that special status I have described above is now, somehow, no longer deserving of this. Indeed, the ramifications of this are, if examined in depth, chilling.

Even if my Panda Corys were a recognised 'edible' species, there is no way on earth that I would consider casually tossing them into a stir-fry - when they go to the great aquarium in the sky, I lament their passing and try with my limited capabilities to afford them some brief ceremonial of passage into the next life. It's one of the aspects of our species that marks the development of humans to a greater stage of advancement - the capacity to consider other creatures as worthwhile and precious. I don't suddenly think to myself "oh, they might be tasty on the barbecue" for the same reasons that I didn't do that to my pet dog when I had one, or for that matter to my mother when she died. Which, if one takes this particular piece of experimentation to its logical conclusion, is one of the less than happy moral journeys one risks undertaking.

Read and digest the above, dear friend, and pause to consider the potential consequences of crossing some established lines ...


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Farmed fish are another option, but they often tend to have more unhealthy fats. Give and take, I suppose.

Actually, I've heard studies showing that farmed fish are worse off than their free swimming counterparts. Aside from the unhealthy fat profile, they have been shown to have higher concentrations of PCB's and other wonderful things. Due to fish farms being in coastal areas, I guess. I rarely eat fish, except for the rare wild-caught salmon but that's usually prohibitively expensive. I take the fish oil capsules instead.

I don't have huge problems with the OP eating a "pet"; after all, as somebody pointed out, the definitions of "pet animal" and "livestock animal" are different for every culture. My cute kitty might look like somebody else's tasty dinner. My neighbor and I might both keep cute bunny rabbits, but my neighbor may keep them for a different reason than I: to skin them and throw them in the soup pot. I would claim no moral superiority, after all, I eat factory-raised chickens and so forth; I just prefer not to do the killing myself. The thing that is the grossest to me here, is the fact that the fish was consumed after dying of unknown causes, and that whatever noxious chemicals or pathogens that existed in its tissues were eaten.

Ok, ethical pet-eating problems aside:
If someone were serious about home-raising say, tilapia, for a food source, wouldn't it be less dangerous than eating farmed or wild caught fish? Since they would presumably be using municipal water, which is cleared of heavy metals and farm runoff? Depending, of course, on what you were feeding the fish and what (if any) chemicals you used to treat diseases. I have heard of using tilapia with hydroponic setups and actually it seems like an interesting idea.

I dont know why you are all attempting to educate this person on the risks involved in eating a fish from an aquarium.... he aint listening.

Go buy some fresh fish from a shop. Its really not that expensive and i'm sure it would be much healthier for you and a more satisfying tasty meal.

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Before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes. That way you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

I found a hotdog in my wheelie bin. Strange. I don't remember it from any recent fridge clear out. I flicked the maggots off and ate it. Not even any ketchup on it. Didn't bother to heat it up since the wheelie was standing in the sun.

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~~~ My fish blow kisses at me all day long ~~~

I dont know why you are all attempting to educate this person on the risks involved in eating a fish from an aquarium.... he aint listening.

Who knows? I guess you just can't reason with some people. It's mighty fun trying though.....

Oh yeah, wish-ga, what's a "wheelie bin"? Not being familiar with Aussieism....can you tell me what that is?

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~~Melissa~~
"Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder."

First of all I simply must agree

Second, if you like to eat fish, you should try species for sale in grociery stores tht are packaged. Those are much more safe. You may even be able to find some exotic species that are yummy.

Also, you should keep in mind that these fish can be expensive. Around here Parrots and Jack Dempsys run for $5 a piece or more. Thats really expensive for just a little bit of food.

While I am not a vegitarian, I do not eat fish very often (I think I had some last summer) If I kept a chicken or a cow for a pet, I wouldn't eat any chicken or cows either. ^_^

I don't want to raise anymore issues or start another argument, but I strongly believe that people who don't care for thier pets (like those who eat them) shouldn't have them.

Inky

>>>Wheelie bin<<<

....basically a garbage bin on wheels.

Thanks! That clears it up. LOL That's what we have for our garbage here where I live. Roll it out to the curb every Wednesday and Saturday and maybe they'll come get your trash. I'm not sure we call it anything in particular except the garbage can....which doesn't do much about distinguishing it from the regular can with no wheels that does not go to the curb.

I think I'll borrow y'all word for it and start calling it a wheelie bin. I love it!! International cooperation.

Wish-ga, put that hot dog back in the wheelie bin before you get some hideous disease!!!

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~~Melissa~~
"Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder."

that is just disturbing and disgusting, like eating ur dog after it dies of cancer or something!! and besides, why did it die? who knows, u could end up with fish TB or tapeworms or something. just gross!

Melafix is for fishies, not for people. Trust me, I know from personal experience.

maybe in a few years when this dude is diagnosed with cancer or TB, he'll have a good explaination.. He's the freak that decided to eat his family pet.. :: Shrugs :: there are people out there that have eaten human beings.. although its not for me, i really cant say anything.. i raised pigs for slaughter, bred sheep, and raised show cattle for presumably slaughter as well. anywho.. whatever this guy does.. it doesnt concern me. and im sure none of us with half a brain would think to eat that sailfin molly that passed last week. seriously... someone get this guy a good hobby, cuz fishkeeping isnt working out for him!

*Chelle*
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I love the fishes cuz they're SOOO delicious...

Another thought occured to me. If you felt a little loopy after eating your parrot why would you try to eat another fish? Isn't that your body telling you no?

Also, I hope you didn't have the parrots injected with dye

Inky

I used to drive past a paper mill every day, where we would always see people fishing off the side of the road (directly downstream). Used to joke about whether they might wonder why their kids had 12 toes...