Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. In its broadest sense, meat may be considered as any clean, sound, dressed or properly prepared edible part of animals that are in good health at the time of slaughter.

Most humans are omnivorous, and have hunted and killed animals for meat since prehistoric times. However, the flesh of carnivorous animals--that is, animals that eat the flesh of other animals--is so seldom eaten by man, that the term meat is usually restricted to the flesh of all animals except these.  The advent of civilization allowed the domestication of animals such as cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry, and eventually their use in meat production on an industrial scale.

But even this meaning of meat is too broad; indeed, as the term is generally used in a more restrictive sense and refers particularly to the flesh of the mammalian species (cattle, pigs, sheep, lambs, etc.), mostly domestic animals raised for human consumption, and does not include poultry, game, fish, seafood and some other rare animals.

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