this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2023
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If it lived on the surface and tasted like shrimp I'd have to be convinced once and only once.
The thing is most people here are completely revolted by the idea of eating insects and would not consider trying to eat one to find out. It's a lot more being viscerally repelled than any analysis of flavor.
Okay but that's entirely a cultural thing. There are cultures that readily and enthusiastically eat insects. There are cultures that are disgusted by pork, or beef. There's at least one culture I can think of where the average person is viscerally disgusted by the idea of eating garlic or onion because harvesting the plant necessitates killing it.
The presumption in this whole thread is that there is something essential to insects that makes them wrong and bad to eat. Everyone in this thread is, of course, welcome to eat anything that they like, but if you're disgusted by insects that's something that's been cultivated in you rather than something inherent to insects.
Besides, there are a near infinite number of things we eat routinely that I think most of us would find disgusting if we hadn't been conditioned to it. Think about oysters. Who was the first person to think "I'm gonna bash this rock with that rock and eat the booger that lives in the middle?" Someone who was absolutely right, because oysters are delicious, but still had to be very brave to try it at first. Don't even get me started on the myriad cultured and fermented foods that we all eat on the regular...
Sure, it's absolutely a cultural thing. If you look back to what I said originally, I specified people in North America. I'm aware that it's different in other cultures and I agree. The fermented food thing is interesting too, like, cheese... okay, we'll squirt some stuff out of a large mammal's breasts, leave it sitting around in a cave to be digested by bacteria for a while, then consume it with great joy. And of course, some cultures like China don't consume milk or cheese at all (last I knew), while in nearby Mongolia, fermented yak's milk is popular. On some level that would be horrifying, such as I am horrified by 'stinky tofu' but I love bleu cheese. I also have similar feelings about oysters and clams, like, why would I eat this bizarre weird bug living on the bottom of a lake?
So really what I mean is it's interesting how people have such firm feelings and beliefs about what sort of food is appetizing or not based on culture. It's essentially all upbringing, societal pressure, familiarity and habit, and nothing at all about rationality.
If it's a cultural thing that means at one time it wasn't that way, and it can change back. That's all.
I agree, it's definitely. My instinct tells me to simply not eat beef, yet everyone around me does, and so I'm dragged into this. Insects, on the other hand, aren't so gross to me, given the right species.