5 ms·

Eating Meat Was Banned in Japan for Centuries

37 points by respinal 6y ago

thebas 6y ago
I believe that one day in the future, if get global warming in check, that meat eating will be seen as we see slavery today.
- jraph 6y ago
  I'd really like to be able to travel to the future to know this and many other things. And I wonder, if this were possible, whether I'd like to stay there or come back (for other reason than living with friends and family).
- antepodius 6y ago
  I reckon that eventually, there'll be 'lab-grown' meat that tastes better than animal-grown meat, while being healthier. Humans are omnivorous; we're presumably adapted for some amount of animal protein. Even if meat-eating goes out of style, once there's no moral hazard involved we'll gravitate back to it.
  - 1_player 6y ago
    This is the solution. Hiding our heads in the sand saying meat is bad means ignoring our biology. Give me meat, give me vegetables, don't give me artificial mixtures filled with flavor enhancers and preservatives because we've decided human bodies don't need meat and animal protein. The only way is find out how to grow an indistinguishable piece of muscle meat (and organ) in a lab, without animal suffering. Though in an ideal world sustainable animal husbandry would be best, but would never work in our hyper-capitalistic hyper-consumeristic reality, so let's find a compromise.
    - antepodius 6y ago
      It's not so clear to me that the abbatoir of nature is that great, inherently. You could probably make a decent moral case for wiping out all life on earth, should there be no prospects for it to transcend the bloodbath and disease and botflies and rape and knocking the gazelle to the ground, pinning it as you rip out its living entrails.
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    There are however a few vegan activists who oppose lab-grown meat (and things like the Awesome Burger) on the grounds that we will never truly love our animal brothers and sisters and treat them justly, until we have lost the very appetite for meat.
    - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
      That sounds a little desperate. I 'truly love' few things. I'll give that one a miss.
    - senkora 6y ago
      People who have made a difficult personal sacrifice for their ideals often react poorly to that sacrifice becoming obsolete, and transform the now unnecessary sacrifice into a social marker. In this case: meat is enjoyable, but eating it is unethical, so I will make the sacrifice not to eat it. If it becomes possible to eat meat while still being ethical, then I still won’t because it marks me as someone who is willing to make a sacrifice to be ethical.
    - odomojuli 6y ago
      They're missing an opportunity. We've had jackfruit for a while now and synthetic meat is nothing new in some sense. This is like policing the aesthetics of the Maillard reaction. Framing the argument strictly in terms of consumption without inspecting the conditions of production also betrays a wider perspective on how we can achieve ethical or sustainable practices. And certainly it's inimical to the reality that there needs to be reform at the institutional and corporate tier of practice with higher priority rather than castigate individual and cultural consumption.
  - odomojuli 6y ago
    Not even eventually, I prefer the taste of certain synthetic meat because it tastes more charbroiled and bloody than meat in some cases. Not only is it already good enough is what I'm saying, I think there's a preference in taste to have it overcome some of the disadvantages in freshness that meat poses.
odomojuli 6y ago
There's this light fiction / short story by Kanagaki Robun called the Beefeater which I think is an appropriate companion piece to this article. https://aboutjapan.japansociety.org/beefeater https://aboutjapan.japansociety.org/beefeater There's also this urban myth that went around in the 1980s while Japan was negotiating beef exports with the Beef Caucus in the USA. Basically, Japan put forward the reasoning that their intestines are longer and therefore meat does not sit well with us, leading to colon cancer, and the line of thinking goes on and on. My Japanese mother even explained this to me as a child when I developed an appetite for eating ridiculously large In-N-Out burgers. https://apnews.com/article/8fff51f61de3400636ec9af70a2680d8 https://apnews.com/article/8fff51f61de3400636ec9af70a2680d8 I still see articles frequently suggesting that the Western diet is inherently bad for Asians and leads to colon cancer. Red meat's one thing, but beef means more McDonalds and more McDonalds means more international relations. Beef export is the reason why razing rainforests and violating indigenous lands is profitable. Every import of beef means extended trade relations with Australia or USA or whoever's selling it. I believe China is set up for the next 60 years to import beef from the USA.
- sdrothrock 6y ago
  The long intestine bit is a common piece of nihonijinron. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihonjinron https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihonjinron
- sn41 6y ago
  Do you know if some of these ideas came from India? Many of ancient Japanese customs were influenced by Buddhism. These arguments are also common among Indians, about 40 percent of whom are vegetarians. On a related note, /diagnosed/ colon cancer is relatively rare in India (1) whereas diabetes and diseases like osteoporosis are common. (1)https://main.icmr.nic.in/sites/default/files/guidelines/Colorectal%2520Cancer_0.pdf https://main.icmr.nic.in/sites/default/files/guidelines/Colo...
  - odomojuli 6y ago
    The ethnic untouchable caste burakumin who would work with cattle and leather were discriminated by almost every Buddhist sect. I don't think most of the spirit of the religion comes from India directly. There's plenty of Sanskrit in the language but most ideas matriculated through Korean and Chinese schools of thought is my understanding.
disown 6y ago
The headline says "meat was banned" but according to the article the eating of birds, fish, dolphins, whales, etc were not banned. Last I checked the birds, fish, dolphins, whales, etc are animals and meat is the flesh of animals. > Even before Buddhism, meat wasn’t an essential part of the Japanese diet. Seems like it was essential and desired, but people couldn't get as much of it as they wanted because of the lack of resources. If meat wasn't essential, it wouldn't take a decree from the emperor along with religious edicts to "ban meat". Also, the ban didn't mean much as meat was consumed regardless. "Plus, the Japanese aristocracy never completely gave up the practice. There are records of taxes paid and gifts sent to emperors in the form of pork, beef, and even milk. Meat was still taboo among the upper classes, but it was often treated as a special food with medicinal properties. (Even Buddhist monks could occasionally consume meat on doctor’s orders.) In the 18th century, the Hikone Clan sent their annual gift of beef pickled in sake to the shogun in packages labeled as medicine. Birds were more acceptable as foodstuff than mammals, and dolphin and whale was frequently eaten, as they were considered fish." If I recall, the japanese, particularly the elites, simply bypassed the ban by labeling land animals like pigs - land whales or claiming the meat as medicine. Also, as the article noted, the "banning of the meat" simply weakened the japanese people ( especially the lower class ) physically and mentally. It stunted people's physical and mental development and probably made it easier for the elites to control. But in the long term, it left them too weak to defend themselves from meat eaters.
gumby 6y ago
This article is confusing as it says "meat" is banned yet describes eating fish and crustaceans. Does the author mean mammals, or all warm blooded animals, or simply land animals? (the author also writes about exceptions, but they merely prove the rule, so don't challenge the idea of a "ban" -- I just don't understand what is banned).
- odomojuli 6y ago
  Meat is considered separate from fish in the language. For the most part, 肉 (niku: meat) refers to mostly land animals and in context, the ban was to discourage the consumption of domesticated animals and game which would invite pestilence and strain on limited space for agriculture. Eating meat in Japan is still kind of impractical, there just isn't that much space, and it pollutes a lot. Lookup how much water, alfalfa, acreage and methane output is required just to breed a single cow. Fun fact, English and Latin is kind of similar in the meanings of 'meat' and 'carne' with regards to religious diet.

37 points by respinal 6y ago

I believe that one day in the future, if get global warming in check, that meat eating will be seen as we see slavery today.

jraph 6y ago
I'd really like to be able to travel to the future to know this and many other things. And I wonder, if this were possible, whether I'd like to stay there or come back (for other reason than living with friends and family).
antepodius 6y ago
I reckon that eventually, there'll be 'lab-grown' meat that tastes better than animal-grown meat, while being healthier. Humans are omnivorous; we're presumably adapted for some amount of animal protein. Even if meat-eating goes out of style, once there's no moral hazard involved we'll gravitate back to it.
- 1_player 6y ago
  This is the solution. Hiding our heads in the sand saying meat is bad means ignoring our biology. Give me meat, give me vegetables, don't give me artificial mixtures filled with flavor enhancers and preservatives because we've decided human bodies don't need meat and animal protein. The only way is find out how to grow an indistinguishable piece of muscle meat (and organ) in a lab, without animal suffering. Though in an ideal world sustainable animal husbandry would be best, but would never work in our hyper-capitalistic hyper-consumeristic reality, so let's find a compromise.
  - antepodius 6y ago
    It's not so clear to me that the abbatoir of nature is that great, inherently. You could probably make a decent moral case for wiping out all life on earth, should there be no prospects for it to transcend the bloodbath and disease and botflies and rape and knocking the gazelle to the ground, pinning it as you rip out its living entrails.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  There are however a few vegan activists who oppose lab-grown meat (and things like the Awesome Burger) on the grounds that we will never truly love our animal brothers and sisters and treat them justly, until we have lost the very appetite for meat.
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    That sounds a little desperate. I 'truly love' few things. I'll give that one a miss.
  - senkora 6y ago
    People who have made a difficult personal sacrifice for their ideals often react poorly to that sacrifice becoming obsolete, and transform the now unnecessary sacrifice into a social marker. In this case: meat is enjoyable, but eating it is unethical, so I will make the sacrifice not to eat it. If it becomes possible to eat meat while still being ethical, then I still won’t because it marks me as someone who is willing to make a sacrifice to be ethical.
  - odomojuli 6y ago
    They're missing an opportunity. We've had jackfruit for a while now and synthetic meat is nothing new in some sense. This is like policing the aesthetics of the Maillard reaction. Framing the argument strictly in terms of consumption without inspecting the conditions of production also betrays a wider perspective on how we can achieve ethical or sustainable practices. And certainly it's inimical to the reality that there needs to be reform at the institutional and corporate tier of practice with higher priority rather than castigate individual and cultural consumption.
- odomojuli 6y ago
  Not even eventually, I prefer the taste of certain synthetic meat because it tastes more charbroiled and bloody than meat in some cases. Not only is it already good enough is what I'm saying, I think there's a preference in taste to have it overcome some of the disadvantages in freshness that meat poses.

odomojuli 6y ago

There's this light fiction / short story by Kanagaki Robun called the Beefeater which I think is an appropriate companion piece to this article. https://aboutjapan.japansociety.org/beefeater https://aboutjapan.japansociety.org/beefeater There's also this urban myth that went around in the 1980s while Japan was negotiating beef exports with the Beef Caucus in the USA. Basically, Japan put forward the reasoning that their intestines are longer and therefore meat does not sit well with us, leading to colon cancer, and the line of thinking goes on and on. My Japanese mother even explained this to me as a child when I developed an appetite for eating ridiculously large In-N-Out burgers. https://apnews.com/article/8fff51f61de3400636ec9af70a2680d8 https://apnews.com/article/8fff51f61de3400636ec9af70a2680d8 I still see articles frequently suggesting that the Western diet is inherently bad for Asians and leads to colon cancer. Red meat's one thing, but beef means more McDonalds and more McDonalds means more international relations. Beef export is the reason why razing rainforests and violating indigenous lands is profitable. Every import of beef means extended trade relations with Australia or USA or whoever's selling it. I believe China is set up for the next 60 years to import beef from the USA.

sdrothrock 6y ago
The long intestine bit is a common piece of nihonijinron. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihonjinron https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihonjinron
sn41 6y ago
Do you know if some of these ideas came from India? Many of ancient Japanese customs were influenced by Buddhism. These arguments are also common among Indians, about 40 percent of whom are vegetarians. On a related note, /diagnosed/ colon cancer is relatively rare in India (1) whereas diabetes and diseases like osteoporosis are common. (1)https://main.icmr.nic.in/sites/default/files/guidelines/Colorectal%2520Cancer_0.pdf https://main.icmr.nic.in/sites/default/files/guidelines/Colo...
- odomojuli 6y ago
  The ethnic untouchable caste burakumin who would work with cattle and leather were discriminated by almost every Buddhist sect. I don't think most of the spirit of the religion comes from India directly. There's plenty of Sanskrit in the language but most ideas matriculated through Korean and Chinese schools of thought is my understanding.

disown 6y ago

The headline says "meat was banned" but according to the article the eating of birds, fish, dolphins, whales, etc were not banned. Last I checked the birds, fish, dolphins, whales, etc are animals and meat is the flesh of animals. > Even before Buddhism, meat wasn’t an essential part of the Japanese diet. Seems like it was essential and desired, but people couldn't get as much of it as they wanted because of the lack of resources. If meat wasn't essential, it wouldn't take a decree from the emperor along with religious edicts to "ban meat". Also, the ban didn't mean much as meat was consumed regardless. "Plus, the Japanese aristocracy never completely gave up the practice. There are records of taxes paid and gifts sent to emperors in the form of pork, beef, and even milk. Meat was still taboo among the upper classes, but it was often treated as a special food with medicinal properties. (Even Buddhist monks could occasionally consume meat on doctor’s orders.) In the 18th century, the Hikone Clan sent their annual gift of beef pickled in sake to the shogun in packages labeled as medicine. Birds were more acceptable as foodstuff than mammals, and dolphin and whale was frequently eaten, as they were considered fish." If I recall, the japanese, particularly the elites, simply bypassed the ban by labeling land animals like pigs - land whales or claiming the meat as medicine. Also, as the article noted, the "banning of the meat" simply weakened the japanese people ( especially the lower class ) physically and mentally. It stunted people's physical and mental development and probably made it easier for the elites to control. But in the long term, it left them too weak to defend themselves from meat eaters.

gumby 6y ago

This article is confusing as it says "meat" is banned yet describes eating fish and crustaceans. Does the author mean mammals, or all warm blooded animals, or simply land animals? (the author also writes about exceptions, but they merely prove the rule, so don't challenge the idea of a "ban" -- I just don't understand what is banned).

odomojuli 6y ago
Meat is considered separate from fish in the language. For the most part, 肉 (niku: meat) refers to mostly land animals and in context, the ban was to discourage the consumption of domesticated animals and game which would invite pestilence and strain on limited space for agriculture. Eating meat in Japan is still kind of impractical, there just isn't that much space, and it pollutes a lot. Lookup how much water, alfalfa, acreage and methane output is required just to breed a single cow. Fun fact, English and Latin is kind of similar in the meanings of 'meat' and 'carne' with regards to religious diet.