And it is a glorious deep red flesh that permiates the soul. Whale meat.
Well not really... it's kind of "meh".
Actually, to be honest I wasn't even initially planning on making a blog about this food. I do too much food stuff as is I bet, and honestly, there wasn't much to report.
But what about the ethics of whaling? The taste? Is it worth it? Isn't it toxic?
So let's discuss.
Delightfully Deep Color eh? All for about 4 bucks.
I'm not really sure where to begin on this one. I think for starters I'll just summarize the taste; I'm sure some people are curious, and I am a connoisseur of this stuff after all. The best way I could explain it (and in retrospect it makes sense) is if someone took the flavor of beef, that deep, iron like, somewhat metalic, bold and rich flavor, and mixed it with the texture of a soft raw fish, like tuna. It's surprisingly lean tasting, again, tuna comes to mind on the mouth feel, but I couldn't help feeling like on the nose especially, this steak thing was wafting up.
Though to be fair, the taste was somewhat masked by the small dollop of grated ginger on each piece. But that's what I felt it was like. Steak + tuna = whale.
It makes sense because mammals have blood, and aquatic animals have softer flesh. When you don't have to fight gravity, your muscles don't need to do as much work.
I'm pretty sure that's true. I read it somewhere.
Anyways!
Why is the idea of eating whale so perposterous to the majority of American consumers? It really IS just hard to say that whale consumption is "bad" or "wrong" for me (Yes, I am covering both right/wrong and good/bad here, I'm not an ethics phd people!). I'll list out the points I'm sure to come across in this stance. I'll try to cover them as best I can.
For those who don't want to read this extremely lengthy paper, skip to the bottom
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1. Whales are cuuuuute, how can you eat those things?? / Animal death is cruel!
- I really don't feel like covering this one, but I suppose I have to. If you don't like animals dying, that's fine. But I love cow and chicken and pig and fish; I don't plan on stopping myself from eating their deliciousness. We are always cruel to animals in their death, because our conception of killing is cruel. If that is what you think, by all means believe it, but to me, the death of an animal is normal. It happens all the time.
(Yes this is the naturalistic fallacy)
The point I'm trying to make is that this claim is not an ethical claim but a claim of personal preference disguised as one. It's like if I hate cargo shorts and so I tell everyone not to wear them, this doesn't make the cargo shorts wearing act wrong: it's just a preference. Untill there is some actual proof that cruelty against animals is wrong (good luck with that), this claim has no weight in the debate of whale consumption.
I'm so sure I'm going to get flack for this stance.
Anyways.
2. Whale is highly toxic.
- I'd like to bring a study in to cover this one briefly.
http://luna.pos.to/whale/jwa_v22_freeman.html
I'll just quote:
"...two distinguished University of California cancer experts, Dr. Bruce Ames and Dr. Lois Gold, observe that a cup of coffee contains over one thousand chemicals, of which more than half of those tested cause cancer in laboratory animals."
In short, while mercury contamination in whales is certainly a possibility, the amount of whale consumed as well as the frequency of consumption also comes into play. Conversely, people drink coffee substantially in America, but the lack of bans on coffee suggests a sort of hypocrisy if we argue that whale consumption is bad. Why ban one before the other when the other is possibly more dangerous? What about tobacco? Alcohol? There are plenty other far more consumed products that do harm to us in very empirically tested ways; a bit of whale is certainly not comparible.
In fact that study up there suggests that the toxic nature of whales itself is debatable.
NEXT.
3. Whales are an important part of the aquatic environment, killing whales hurts the cycle.
- I really hate to pull out the "we do worse stuff" claim again, but this is an environmental claim. We dump insane amounts of toxic waste into the ocean, deforest huge masses of land each day, and you mean to tell me that killing whales has a higher priority in being banned?
Furthermore, in some instances, whale killing is done on ACCIDENT by shipping crews. The WWF even admits this!
"In fact, ship strikes are to blame for 90 percent of Northern right whale deaths for which the cause is known"
http://www.panda.org/what_we_do/endangered_species/cetaceans/threats/shipping/
So I just can't take this claim seriously either. Why is a full ban necessary? What about restrictions that allow sustainability instead? I have no problem with the idea of conserving the environment, but this does not require a full on ban. This claim is merely suggesting over farming should be stopped, which I can agree with. Saying that over farming is bad does not mean consumption is also bad.
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This is turning into a paper of a blog, so I'll just say this.
I don't see what the big fuss is all about. Just some environmental/animal rights shenanigans.
And yet, if you must know, despite my clear adamant defense of whale consumption, I doubt I'm gonna eat it any time soon.
I mean it tastes ALRIGHT. Too expensive in my opinion. I could buy a huge salmon steak for that price. (or 8 nigiri pieces at toppi kaiten zushi, delish!)
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