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That's what seems odd? It's no more odd than aliens speaking English in the first place.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the language here is not only used to transmit the ideas in the story, but convey feeling. With the use of "meat" as a pejorative, you're supposed to understand the feeling of contempt and almost repulsion that these beings have towards us.

Odd, how?

They're not unfamiliar with biological systems containing meat, they describe beings that are a "meat head with an electron plasma brain inside..."

We have a word for wood, yet we would be astonished by consciousness and civilization coming from plants...

"Meat" here reminds particular mammals that other mammals, other animals, are sentient as well. For many it is just meat.

Another great interpretation of the story would be via speciesism/anthropocentrism, we consider ourselves better than other animals, but for the aliens, we would all be "meat".