At last week's Holy Thursday Seder Supper - a parishioner asked me if Jesus was a vegetarian or a pescaterian (someone who only eats fish). She said that many vegetarian websites and blogs in their lists of "famous vegetarians" claim that Jesus fits this bill!
I immediately thought of all the stories in the Bible where Jesus is eating - most frequently there are stories involving Jesus eating fish (the loaves and fishes, eating on the beach, etc.), but no stories specifically about Jesus eating meat. However, he was a devout Jew and for 33 years, celebrated Passover each year. For sure, he would have eaten lamb at those meals. Because of his lifestyle as itinerant preacher, he often ate "out" - in other people's homes. He most certainly would not have refused meat at those meals.
Not satisfied with my own thoughts about the subject, I did some searching this morning about the question. Here's what I came up with (by the way, I have met Jason Evert before and had lengthy conversations with him. He is a catholic apologist - someone who's trained to answer questions about the faith using scripture and church documents as sources for his answers).
I think that the thought behind Jesus being a vegetarian (or pescaterian) may be us, in today's world imposing our values on Jesus' time. The Jews had no qualms about killing animals for food, because they didn't do it in excessive or cruel ways. Often animals we're raised by families for food and were killed "humanely" following what we know of today as "kosher" rules.
Jesus certainly would not look kindly on our modern day feed beef lots, chickens cramped into small cages, etc. so if he were alive today, he'd source his meat from a small farm or even raise his own animals for food. I think he his day, too, meat wasn't eaten as often as it is today, I think it was more of a special occasion thing, like Passover.
I would caution they when you see things about Jesus on "secular" websites - search also what the church says about the issue. Sometimes secular sources like to claim things about Jesus that we either have no evidence for, or just suits their claims (as an extreme example - some "Christians" claim that the bible opposes gay marriage. Well there's just no mention of gay marriage in the bible, because it didn't exist during biblical times!)
Hope this answers your question.
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