Meat is the edible flesh of animals, primarily skeletal muscle along with the fat, connective tissue, and sometimes organs that come with it. That sounds simple enough, but the answer gets more complicated depending on whether you’re asking a biologist, a food regulator, a religious authority, or a grocery store. Chicken, beef, and pork are universally considered meat, but fish, organ meats, and newer products like cell-cultured protein all fall into gray areas depending on the context.
What Meat Actually Is, Biologically
At its most basic, meat is animal skeletal muscle. That muscle is about 90% muscle fibers and 10% connective tissue and fat. The muscle fibers are long, spindle-shaped cells packed with proteins, primarily actin and myosin, that allow the animal to move. Between and around those fibers sits connective tissue made largely of collagen, plus intramuscular fat (the marbling you see in a steak). A pigment called myoglobin gives muscle its red color by carrying oxygen to cells, which is why beef and lamb are darker than chicken breast.
In livestock and fish, muscle mass accounts for roughly 35 to 60% of the animal’s total body weight. That’s the portion we’re typically eating when we eat “meat” in the everyday sense. But the category extends beyond pure muscle to include fat, tendons, and other tissues that come along with a cut.
Which Animals Count Under U.S. Law
In the United States, two federal agencies split responsibility for regulating meat based on the type of animal. The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service handles what the law calls “amenable species”: cattle, sheep, swine, goats, and domesticated poultry (chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, guinea fowl, ratites like ostriches, and squab). These are the animals covered by the Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Poultry Products Inspection Act.
Everything else falls to the FDA. That includes game meats and what regulators call “non-amenable” species: bison, deer, elk, antelope, reindeer, rabbit, water buffalo, raccoon, squirrel, opossum, muskrat, and non-aquatic reptiles like alligator. Wild birds such as pheasant, quail, grouse, and wild turkey are also FDA-regulated. All of these are legally considered meat, just overseen by a different agency.
Is Poultry Considered Meat?
Yes. Poultry is meat. The reason people sometimes think otherwise is that U.S. regulations treat poultry separately from “red meat” livestock like cattle and pigs. The USDA regulates them under different laws, and grocery stores, nutrition labels, and cookbooks often list poultry as its own category. But chicken, turkey, duck, and other birds are animal flesh, and they meet every biological and legal definition of meat.
Where Fish and Seafood Fall
Fish and shellfish are animal tissue, so biologically they qualify as meat. In everyday language, though, most people distinguish “meat” from “seafood,” and this distinction has deep roots. Nutritional guidelines typically separate the two categories, and many religious traditions treat them differently. The most well-known example: during Lent, Catholics abstain from meat on certain days but are permitted to eat fish and shellfish. Under Church law, “meat” refers specifically to land animals and birds. Fish are in a separate classification entirely.
Organ Meats and Offal
Organs and other non-muscle parts of an animal are classified as “variety meats” or offal. This category covers a wide range of edible parts:
- Red offal: heart, tongue, lungs, kidneys, liver, spleen
- White offal: brains, sweetbreads (thymus glands), stomach lining (tripe), testicles
- Extremities: feet, tail, head, skin
Poultry giblets, including the heart, gizzard, neck, and liver, fall into the same category. All of these are considered meat. They may not be skeletal muscle, but they are edible animal tissue sold and regulated as meat products.
Religious Definitions of Meat
Religious dietary laws draw their own boundaries around what counts as meat, and those boundaries don’t always match the biological ones.
In Catholic tradition, the Lenten abstinence from meat applies to land animals and birds. Chickens, cows, sheep, and pigs are all off-limits on abstinence days. Fish and shellfish, both salt and freshwater species, are permitted because they fall outside the Church’s classification of meat.
Jewish dietary law (kashrut) defines meat as coming from mammals that both chew their cud and have split hooves, meaning cows, sheep, and goats qualify but rabbits and pigs do not. Kosher poultry includes chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, and Cornish hens, while predatory and scavenger birds are forbidden. Under kosher rules, meat and dairy cannot be mixed, and a third category called “pareve” (neutral) includes fish, eggs, and plant foods, which are not classified as meat. All kosher meat must be slaughtered and prepared according to specific procedures, and any trace of blood must be removed before cooking.
Cell-Cultured Meat
Meat grown from animal cells in a lab, rather than taken from a slaughtered animal, is a newer category that regulators are still working through. The FDA and USDA share oversight: the FDA handles the cell-culturing process up through harvest, and the USDA takes over for production and labeling of the final product. All labeling for cultured meat from livestock or poultry cells must be pre-approved by the USDA.
As of early 2025, the FDA has completed pre-market safety reviews for cultured chicken and cultured pork fat products. These products are real animal cells, genetically identical to what you’d find in conventional meat, just grown differently. Whether consumers and the market will treat them as “real” meat is still an evolving question, but from a regulatory standpoint, they are animal-derived food products subject to meat labeling laws.
Plant-Based Products and the “Meat” Label
Plant-based burgers, sausages, and nuggets are not meat. They’re made from proteins derived from soy, peas, wheat, or other plants and processed to mimic the taste and texture of meat. However, a heated legal battle has played out across several U.S. states over whether these products can use words like “meat,” “burger,” or “sausage” on their packaging.
States including Arkansas, Mississippi, and California passed laws restricting plant-based companies from using meat-related terminology on labels. Plant-based food companies challenged these laws in court, arguing the restrictions violated free speech. In Arkansas, a federal court sided with the plant-based company and blocked enforcement of the labeling restrictions. The outcome has varied by state, and the legal landscape continues to shift. For now, you’ll commonly see terms like “plant-based burger” or “meatless sausage” on packaging, which use meat terminology as a reference point while clarifying the product isn’t animal-derived.
A Quick Way to Think About It
If the question is purely biological, meat is any edible animal tissue: muscle, fat, organs, connective tissue, from any species. If the question is legal, the answer depends on your country’s regulatory framework, but in the U.S., meat covers everything from beef and chicken to bison, alligator, and rabbit. If the question is religious or cultural, the lines shift again: fish may or may not count, certain animals may be excluded, and the definition often depends on which tradition you’re following.