It’s free-range, organic and tastes like an exceptionally tender eye fillet. I am referring to the whale meat, lightly roasted in black pepper, I enjoyed Tuesday night in Tokyo.
The Japanese delegates at the conference I am attending here in Tokyo thought it unusual I was keen to try whale.
“Its taboo for Westerners,” was one remark.
Of course whale is not on the menu here at the New Otani Hotel, but it is available downtown. It was a New Zealand friend, David, a computer programmer who has lived in Tokyo five years now, who took me to the restaurant that served whale.
Like me he has no respect for the high profile anti-whaling positions of our respective countries or the idea that some food should be taboo.
The word taboo was a discovery and addition to the English language from Captain James Cook. Visiting the Pacific island of Tonga in 1777, the Captain noted in his journal that ‘taboo’ signifies a thing is forbidden.
The emergence of whale meat as taboo is a hallmark of the arbitary and religious nature of modern environmentalism.
Little Whale Steaks, Tokyo, September 9, 2008
I like it how western society (Especially Australians0 Criticize the Japanese for killing whales. I urge any Australian to go to the whaling museum in Eden or the one in Albany W.A and find out why Australia no longer hunts whales (As we did up until the late 70's. The answer is quite simple . . Australia killed that many of them that it became non profitable as a commodity. So every time you hear an Australian get on their high horse and say Japan should not harvest whale because Australia doesn’t . . Take it with a pinch of salt. The only reason Australia doesn’t hunt is because they can’t make enough profit out of it!
[...] Jennifer Marohasy Whale Meat as a Western Taboo Posted by root 18 hours ago (https://climatelab.com.au) Comment from ian mott september 12th 2008 at 9 23 am powered by wordpress theme design by andreas viklund and internet thinking Discuss | Bury | News | jennifer marohasy whale meat as a western taboo [...]
I see mention of my book, The Last Whale.
The issues today are the same as in 1977 when anti-whaling activisits took direct action campaign against Australia's last whaling station; cruelty and the record of the whaling industry in decimating species of whales one after the other. Yes, there was, and still is, a widespread notion that whales are 'special'.
But Australia's last whalers tell me: "The whales die hard." I believe them. They are the experts and I went out with them hunting sperm whales twice, in 1977 and 1978.
We could debate whether Minke whales are a population from which a sustainable harvest can be taken (and I notice this whale population has been revised downwards by the IWC) but the real point is cruelty. these whales suffer and long and painful death.
And there is nothing their deaths provide for mankind that cannot be found elsewhere. We will not stop stop hunger but rather their meat ends up in restaurants to to benefit of the better off.
I went to a whale restaurant in Japan in 1980. There isn't even anything special about the meat in terms of taste of consistency.
We don't need their meat.
Jennifer, you're just wrong.
Ian Mott, you failed to mention that, in the real world, most of the grain that is fed to animals is grain that was grown for humans but has been downgraded. This downgrade can be due to a number of factors like excess moisture at harvest time or insufficient moisture at other times that reduces the protein content of the harvest.
But these vegans insist on deluding themselves that a large portion of the worlds farmers are deliberately setting out to grow a crop (stock feed) that fetches a lower price.
Sometimes some specific stock feed crops are grown as part of a rotation to maintain soil condition but, again, the notion that this can be sustainably taken out of the mix in favour of a purely human consumption crop rotation is just plain ignorance.
But veganism was always entirely between the ears of the vegan, with zero link to reality.
Nice little wank, Gordon, but hardly credible. You may not be aware that your alien analogy already has a human dimension. Humans all over the world forego a life in the "wild" in exchange for a comfortable suburban house, full stomachs for their family, good health care and education and security from predation. In exchange for this they spend almost half their conscious life working for someone else when they would rather be doing something else. And at the end of it all they die sooner than they might have due to stress etc.
So when we farm animals we are doing nothing much more than what we do to ourselves. The only minimal difference is that our residual protein and minerals are not utilised after our death.
So spare us all your second rate folk psychology and your narcissistic overestimation of your "awareness". It is only one rung up from astrology.
And your suggestion that we don't "need" to eat meat is just plain ignorant. Most of the meat consumed by humans is derived from the conversion of rangeland shrubs and grasses. And humans are unable to obtain the nutrients they need from this vast resource.
The argument run by vegans, that all meat animals are fed on grains is plain bull$hit. They are only fed grain for a few months prior to sale. So the much vaunted substitution of feed grain for human consumption is illusory.
And to replace the nutrients supplied by animals with cropped grains etc would require a major expansion of the cropped area into zones that are totally unsuitable.
Are you really so stupid as to think that there is some vast area of land out there that no-one has bothered to cultivate yet?
Give us a break.
Very good comment Gordon. I remember the first time I visited a factory farm for pigs. I did this during a course for horses in the Swedish Veterinary Institute. Actually , during this time I had no interest in animal welfare issues , and the factory farm was pointed out as the best managed pig farm in Sweden.
The stench of manure was overwhelming, even for me that is used to horse pooh. The poor animals lived in very cramped conditions and the lighs were turned off , because the animals were so distressed and did a " cannibal" work on each other, biting each others pig" tails" .
I will never forget these unlucky critters!