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This strikes me as a first-world privileged thing, similar to how Europe built its industrial revolution on coal but now tries to prevent others from doing the
by jdmichal 6y ago
This strikes me as a first-world privileged thing, similar to how Europe built its industrial revolution on coal but now tries to prevent others from doing the same thing. Even in the US we eat domesticated livestock (cattle), cultivated but not domesticated livestock (bison), and entirely wild animals (deer). Any of these could vector a novel illness to humans.
- modeless 6y agoI'd be fine with banning consumption of wild deer, for example.
- carl_dr 6y agoAbout 350,000 deer are culled in the UK each year, the population is actively managed in many places of the country for various reasons [1]. Because of this, venison is not uncommon in our supermarkets. Should we just destroy the corpses instead? [1] https://www.bds.org.uk/index.php/advice-education/why-manage-deer https://www.bds.org.uk/index.php/advice-education/why-manage...
- modeless 6y agoYes, if the risk of transmitting pandemic causing viruses to humans is as high as for bats.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mtgp1000 6y agoNot all animal species carry the same risk. This isn't about privilege - or at least not anymore. Mainland Chinese learned to eat anything and everything that moved after food shortages and famines caused by e.g. the four pests and such. This is cultural. as are the unsanitary conditions at wet markets, and completely unscientific "traditional medicine" and the common notion that live beings taste better if tortured before death. Stop bending over backwards to excuse antisocial behavior. Not all cultural practices are positive and need to be celebrated.
- yorwba 6y ago> Mainland Chinese learned to eat anything and everything that moved That's an incredibly broad brush you're painting with there. China has as much culinary diversity as geographic regions with smaller countries. If you throw it all in one pot, you might end up with "anything and everything", but almost nobody would eat all that. If it looks as if there was such a thing as "Chinese food", then only because the majority of early Chinese immigrants to North America came from only four counties in Guangdong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siyi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siyi , establishing a standard for Chinese restaurants that later ones had to follow to seem "authentic". "Weird" food is generally confined to regional delicacies. E.g. 土笋冻 (sipunculid worm jelly) is pretty much only made in Quanzhou in Fujian, even though the worms it's made of can be found elsewhere. (The Chinese Wikipedia article mentions they actually have to import them now because the local stock suffered from pollution.) https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9C%9F%E7%AC%8B%E5%86%BB https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9C%9F%E7%AC%8B%E5%86%BB