When Are Rabbits Vegetables?

[@RareEarthSeries]

Thanks to everyone who asked about our Patreon. I'll put out a full video when I get the time, but for those who want to jump the gun and get on board from the start, here's the link: www.patreon.com/rareearth It means a huge deal that so many have asked us to start an account. I never thought anyone would watch these videos, let alone support them.

[@lowpolyduck]

Is the Bible Apocryphal?

[@AndrewMalkin]

5:56 I like the last two sentences, "Always research what you see on KZbin. Don't let anyone think for you; most people can barely think for themselves."

[@CipherAce95]

There's a similar story in my hometown in Germany: the rich people sometimes wanted to eat pork during lent, so they had their cooks throw a pig down one of the wells near the stable, and once it had drowned they hoisted it up like you would pull a fish from the water. Then they claimed it as fish and ate it. (Probably a case of a not-so-true story people tell each other, but who knows?)

[@yoshiiinblack]

Well, I bet you know Maultaschen. It's almost the same with them. If God can't see the meat inside, it's ok. The don't have the nicknme "Herrgottsbscheißerle" for no reason. XD

[@KnakuanaRka]

Golden Eagle Even if they can swim well, I doubt they could get out of the well, so they would eventually get tired and drown.

[@PenitentHollow]

I tried to watch this but the instructions on your shirt made it difficult.

[@Cyssane]

The Catholics also used to count a certain type of plump tasty goose as a fish, so they could keep eating it during Lent. They decided that since they could never find the goose's eggs (because they migrated to Arctic breeding grounds, which was unknown animal behaviour at the time), then they must be breeding near the barnacle-covered rocks which were around the same area that the geese liked to hang out. Therefore the barnacles must be immature geese -- hence the goose was really a fish. They even called it the "barnacle goose".

[@november8039]

Plus the barnacles kind of look like the goose's head so I guess people just assumed the geese grew headfirst out of the fucking ground

[@naiknaik8812]

@@november8039 I feel not good being a Catholic now.

[@EebstertheGreat]

It's really amazing how well those mollusks imitate birds.

[@jonathanbush6197]

YES Cyssane. THAT'S RIGHT Cyssane.

[@VonRibbitt]

This is so interesting, its really fascinating how various things can change from culture to culture

[@hatebagel5982]

Hey wait a minute rabbits aren't fish

[@Jakers457]

Waaaaaat

[@RepublikSivizien]

Hey wait a minute a minute is gone.

[@XoBalticoX]

hate bagel I

[@ditodevice1950]

Hey Wait a minute... Did you wait a minute or instaclicked show more?

[@ditodevice1950]

TOLD YOU TO WAIT A MINUTE XD

[@Juliano0365]

If rabbits are birds, flying fish are both fish and birds?

[@thorlong2983]

They are all vegetables, like pizza~.

[@quoth_raven]

Flying fish are rabbits

[@stevenedy2085]

@quoth the raven So rabbits are flying fish and birds?

[@lazydroidproductions1087]

Still vegetables either way so doesn’t matter

[@andreleblanc1963]

So when I'm hunting rabbit, am I actually fishing?

[@MJ-cq6gz]

Yes. Or possibly gardening.

[@thorlong2983]

*Farming~

[@CrazyCircles1]

No, you're harvesting. Remember: Rabbits are Fish and that makes them vegetables. And vegetables are harvested.

[@stephenwaldron4213]

Didn't he say rabbits were birds?

[@stephenwaldron4213]

4:44

[@al.kenzie]

Evan had the same super dry sense of humor his dad does and I love it.

[@Aine197]

I love your videos! And I am astonished by the general quality of their comment sections. So many interesting discussions!

[@oliwiabieniek]

Grandma's cooking, we've all been there

[@PSquared-oo7vq]

By the title, I was actually expecting a bit on how people in medieval Europe decided that (baby?) rabbits were fish, and as such could be eaten during Lent. There were a couple of such "exemptions," as I recall.

[@dwoods7255]

Well done. They also called the wild boar, yama no kujira. Mountain whale, thus putting it back on the menu....

[@cerberus144]

When your name is Evan, and you see "Evan is kind of an Idiot" in the credits (ಠ_ಠ)

[@ejsl98]

:(

[@ditodevice1950]

Read it as Evan is Kind (friendly).............................................. of an idiot (meaning the one who owns you is an idiot... dunno like your boss or something)

[@gonderage]

Well the one distinction between you and Hadfield is that he's not Gross

[@TheMrzippie]

I just feel like this series is getting better and better. Always love the end screen gags too!

[@StefanTravis]

Odd that we don't have a word for this kind of paper-thin rationalisation. The closest is probably "bullshitting".

[@righteousham]

Actually there is a term: Rules Lawyering.

[@hollyboop5631]

This guy sometimes looks spooky while talking of really weird things, still I enjoy it a lot, lol. Great job!

[@Ryulin18]

@3:00 - is everything on that table moving strangely for other people?

[@pIacehoIders]

Ryulin18 earthquake

[@pIacehoIders]

it was just the italian guy filming without a tripod

[@stephenwaldron4213]

The burger is only as good as the beef. The beef is only as good as the cow. The cow is only as good as the grass. The grass is only as good as the manure. So next time you have the perfect burger, think of what wonderful shit went into making it...

[@luciferangelica]

Stephen Waldron you're like hamlet

[@daanwilmer]

So that's why people say "this is some good shit!"

[@Rahul_G.G.]

so the cycle of life continues

[@horseenthusiast9903]

Oh hey, Yurok and Japanese have similar counting systems!

[@triciasyring7865]

Stumbled onto rare earth and im staying! Love it!

[@MickeyD2012]

That's not funny. My mother was a vegetable.

[@tycevandeberg8846]

man, i love fish especially the beaver!

[@jameshanson401]

Wow that’s a lot of research you put into this! Very well explained, gambate!

[@JWvdv]

in medival times you could not eat meat on sunday's so what some peasents would do was to push a cow into the water. since it came from the water it was fish

[@RJLbwb]

Sir, your video is nuanced, attempts to inform the viewer, avoids absolutes and refuses to demonify any modern group in it's conclusions. Remember this is the Internet were people come to argue such weighty matters like if Genghis Khan would have preferred a Bren or Spandue machine gun.

[@dula16]

Hey vsauce Chris here

[@warm-corecyclones6430]

Great video! "...Evan who apparently isn't great at determining which mountain we were supposed to climb before reaching the top" Now I want to hear that story!

[@CyberViking97]

I love these videos please keep up the amazing work!

[@Nieieieee]

i really like these please more!

[@Rama_Guru]

The Buddhist temples in Hawaii are from Japan, they eat meet and drink beer, and the monks ate called ministers.

[@michaeldavis9190]

I've taken this as a challenge to never say that word out loud or in text as long as I live.

[@m3an]

If anyone is wondering why beavers and other mammals where considered fish in catholicism: that way people (especially monks) could still eat meat during days on which they should've only eaten fish.

[@shortfuse875]

And thats how beavers became extinct in Britain

[@Rodrigo_Vega]

And because they were aquatic. There wasn't taxonomy back then and the bible says something like God creating all the creatures in the sea, the beast of the land and the birds of the sky. So that's a way to say what is what. If the animals lives on water, it's a fish, if it flies it's a bird. I've read a medieval bestiary that said bees are birds. Sounds kind of silly to us, but it made sense to them.

[@Axeman375]

Nice theory Stephen, but in Europe we have the Eurasian beaver. It's like m3an said, they did it too cheat Lent. And in Catholicism there was a big list of meats, that weren't considered meats for example escargots, squirrels, guinea pigs, certain birds, the aforementioned beavers, capibaras, fishes and under some popes even salt cured meat.

[@eth3rn4l]

seigeengine a noun is representative of a concept, through a semantic field that evolves both in space and time. Obviously, still today, the "same word" meaning the primary translation in any language often encompasses other ideas than your original word :)

[@Gabdube]

The "that way people could still eat meat during days on which they should've only eaten fish" sentence makes no sense. The restriction is that you can only eat fish meat on those days, and shouldn't eat non-fish meat. Or does the term "meat" in English only apply to the flesh of mammals, birds and reptiles? In French there is no category distinction based on what animal the flesh comes from. Beef meat, salmon meat, crab meat, snail meat, that's all just different kinds in the same category of "meat" ("viande"). Meat is flesh that is food, therefore all animals have meat if you are eating them. The catholic restrictions applied to what _kinds_ of meat were allowed.

[@mush2938]

Birds are vegetables when they don't show any awareness.

[@encellon]

We always institute our sacred ideals. Yet once inherent problems unavoidably collide with reality -- people being people -- we usually overreact to our sudden distaste for our status quo -- and diametrically opposite to every established ideal -- we often institute disruptive and antagonistic alternatives. This typically leads to a period of chaos and eventually a hybridized system of thought derived from the wreckage -- which then becomes a new status quo, and the starting point of the next cycle.

[@faxezu]

I love the endcard, as always!

[@yoshiiinblack]

Learning Japanese, I already knew that, but I still think it's a funny story.

[@Vincent89297]

Was it really a new counter? The 羽 counter uses the kanji for feathers, which makes me think it was already the counter for birds.

[@etherdog]

The phrase "you are what you eat" sprang to mind, and rabbits are herbivores, so rabbits must be vegetables. Oh, it is also bad form to pass through tori gates the way you did. Did you suffer an unfortunate situation after that?

[@patrickpullman8348]

This made me think of the beginning of Foucault's _Order of Things_

[@inquisitor8191]

Weren’t pigs when drowned considered fish and thus suitable for fasting?

[@simonedward6536]

Another great video mate! But I can't bring myself to watch the spider one. Yup... I'm weak.

[@josephgroves3176]

That's similar to why rabbits are fish and fish&chips is no Friday in England: an old Elizabethan law to stimulate the fishing industry forced everyone to eat fish on Fridays, but for those too far inland they were allowed rabbits

[@CirageNoir]

We pretty much wiped out tortoises in France because they were considered "ground fish".

[@draganoiugeorge6010]

wait.the baby story was in QI, not that it must be true..just that i heard it before.. but id like to know what happened really? too expensive?

[@recklessroges]

Nicely wrapped up.

[@TheRacoonRanger]

Noticing the camera man back up through the gap in the little gates, I gotta ask, how often does he back up into things and trip?

[@jpoconnor2857]

Speaking of Japanese language groupings I'd love to see a video on the Kototama.

[@richarddeese1991]

Thanks! NOTE: As a general rule, vegetables aren't "endemic", though they can be *_indigenous._* Also, I think Elmer Fudd would have *_really_* been confused as to whether it was Duck Season or Wabbit Season! (until he figured out it was both) :) tavi

[@shellyhassler7945]

So eloquent.

[@-.._.-_...-_.._-..__..._.-.-.-]

Great video! (no apocryphal symbol)

[@milesgemini4029]

Mt Koya is so beautiful, I was only in Japan for a week and it the only place I visited besides Tokyo and Osaka

[@Tatti12321]

Khmer actually uses these categories and their unbelievably easy to use. Its not that confusing once you get used to it.

[@neepgang4091]

If you eat a capybara that's a fast track straight to hell

[@richardpearce2186]

@ the title: after you hit it with a hammer.

[@puellanivis]

Interesting… in Stardew Valley, rabbits are put in coups with the dinosaurs (noting that birds are dinosaurs, and there is an explicit non-avian dinosaur in the game as well), rather than in the Stable with the mammals. Of course, this likely had far more to do with size when the developers were classifying what goes where, but still… that the Japanese have the same counting class for both rabbits and birds seems interesting when combined with the games classification system.

[@Matteus2109]

The stricter the religion, the greater the sophistry.

[@lefthandedrightminded3087]

that coup thing definetly happened

[@SirhecklefishM]

Imma go eat me some vegetables now

[@Empyrean55]

like the change of title

[@thorlong2983]

I like the credits page.

[@StanSerebryakov]

The first 90 seconds are so marvellous, "WTH" 🤔

[@Schnipah]

Well, my family calls me a vegetable, so...

[@ndblckmore]

Hahaha, I also pooped my pants on my 30th birthday.. Good times.. *sigh*

[@daanwilmer]

Now I'm scared for when I turn 30...

[@ehow5678]

Evolutionarily speaking a rabbit is much closer to a bird than a beaver is to a fish

[@ehow5678]

Also a long time ago one of my cousins decided to tie a carrot to a fishing pole and "fish" for rabbits

[@hrgaming4plebs570]

Well there's a saying "You are what you eat" and rabbits kinda eat vegetables...........

[@richardross3815]

So....I should put carrots?..in my bait box?...lol

[@juststardust8103]

Now, I'm really confused about what I've just eaten....

[@skg8399]

so mayonnaise is a instrument

[@KaiserMattTygore927]

"Rabbits are birds"

[@trampslikeus3575]

This is why counting different things in Japanese is strange, and counting rabbits there's different words. Sorry I don't know it.

[@ericburkenbine349]

Sounds like my kind of Monks!

[@Frahamen]

counter words don't just sound confusing. They are.

[@dandemsky7157]

I always thought rabbits were vegetables tbh. They're made of carrots.

[@harbingerofsarcasm2510]

Christiany makes a point about not having dietary restrictions. It's in the book of Hebrews I believe. (Catholics do forgo meat during lent)

[@WouldntULikeToKnow.]

Doesn't the Bible specify dietary restrictions such as shellfish? Not that Christians follow them...

[@harbingerofsarcasm2510]

@@WouldntULikeToKnow. Most Christians who believe in the divine inspiration of the letters in the new testament believe that a new covenant was formed when christ died on the cross superceeding the law of the old testament. This is why the vast majority of Christians don't keep kosher.

[@ben_hewitson_AU]

So good!

[@Ivan-td7kb]

Using fingers as a substitute for long skinny things is nothing unique btw, the english language has a dish called "fish fingers" because it's shaped like fingers.

[@plore]

1:44 was he being serious?

[@MasterFallenHero]

I really hate this story, it dug up a suppressed memory. I was a foreign exchange student to Japan in high school. I confused this with the particle "wa" when I read it in a text and never bothered to learned how to properly use it until in Japan. So instead of saying "ichiwa" or whatever it was, I just made up my own gibberish in front of several peers.

[@Regnilse]

Humans really are the weirdest animals.

[@Zulthar42069]

Anything can be a vegetable, like my cousin tod

[@willyreeves319]

and today in California somehow bees are fish

[@num2gardena79]

I hit spacebar to pause the video when I saw his shirt, only to realise that I really wanted to keep watching.

[@adamroodog1718]

So a Catholic can eat beaver during lent?

[@MARKSTRINGFELLOW1]

Wild boar was mountain whale

[@caspermac]

Once I take up more vlogging, I might have to use your apocryphal ding

[@StarAtom]

I heard that there are vegan restaurants in Japan now. Slowly slowly countries start taking examples from each other.

[@florin-titusniculescu5871]

here goes down the drain my idea that at least buddhism, of all religions, is free of obvious absurdities.

[@ZarlanTheGreen]

Chicken is my favourite vegetable ;)

[@laurathomas7131]

A little TMI at the beginning. 😂

[@wopwopkross]

I would like an early bird rabbit steak with extra bbq saus

[@mattchung1]

And Ducks are actually Witches

[@thomasdarby6084]

So that means... although my ex wife said I was an Ass, and my son calls me an Old Goat--- I am really a vegetable?

[@misterdinner3648]

Wait... this isnt a VSauce video?

[@adud6764]

But we already have a word for this. Religion.

[@godwillodindo6826]

in my culture (local tribe) chicken is vegetable..

[@satatik21]

Japan has a nasty history of not having a complete or authentic transmission of Buddhism at many points in its history. I'm not saying it didn't have it in some places or times, but a lot of people were not practicing authentically, and this was an endemic problem. I'll give an example: the idea that you can't kill plants was only prevalent in some forms of Buddhism, and not all. They didn't know this though... Or the warrior monks of Japan who fought in wars. Their temple complex was burned down and they were all killed. Or Zen becoming watered down and very political. There were many issues. Dogen and Kukkai were the main two heroes everyone should know about in Japanese Buddhism.

[@Rodrigo_Vega]

You have a neat channel going, but it's mostly just "Rare Japan" which isn't that rare a culture nowadays : P Would you please make videos on more obscure cultures? You'd hava a new watcher here.

[@RareEarthSeries]

Rodrigo Vega See the opening video of the series, and it will all be clear. :)

[@Rodrigo_Vega]

OH. Haha, you know I just notice who you are and what your channel really is. That's cool. I'll be here. But still, Japan, Australia, even South-East Asia are pretty popular to the public and first-worldish. I'm personally going through sort of a crush with North Africa, maybe you could do a video series on the region one day! Anyway, I'm sure you'll make an interesting video whenever you go. Keep up the good work.

[@luciferangelica]

Rodrigo Vega or how 'bout sub-saharan africa, some of the regions most neglected by the rest of the world

[@bluesap7318]

Yeahhh.....