The OED reports the following definitions for meat (I report the first two):
- Food; nourishment for people or animals; especially solid food, as opposite to drink. Now archaic and dialectal. OE.
S. Johnson: The horses could not travel all day without rest or meat.
Shelley: He had… meat and drink enough.
Proverb: One man's meat is another man's poison.
- A kind of food, an article of food. Obsolete except in sweetmeat. OE.