Janie Kullmar
Section H01
Section 3/3
Food is a universally understood concept. It has a
ubiquitous place in society. It is necessary and sometimes very simple but it
is still respected as an art form and used to show status about identity. It is
a huge cultural indicator, recently there has been a big push for fitness. People
have latched on to strange diets like the vegans, locavores, paleo, gluten
free. There are also those absolutely bizzarre people known as raw vegans. Look
that up. Likely you will be impressed and confused in equal measure. Just so
you eating bugs is called "entomophagy."
Philosophy has not historically discussed food. However as
resources are being used up I think that it has been discussed more frequently.
I am going to discuss in this post what I speculate different philosophers or
people groups would say based mostly on the texts that we have read in class
and on this website about food and philosophy. http://www.food.unt.edu/philfood/
and http://philosophy.about.com/od/Philosophical-Branches/a/Philosophy-Of-Food.htm.
Groups and bugs.
Religion. Islam and Judaism both have dictates on diets.
This includes bugs! Both say that eating grasshoppers and locusts is acceptable
but most other bugs are not permitted.
Health and Diet groups.
Locavores could grow their own bugs but eating bugs that
have been treated with pesticides could be dangerous.
A paleo diet site describes bugs as the "True Paleo
Protien."
Health nuts in general - marketers are approaching this food
source from a health perspective more so than anything else.
Socrates worred his wife because he took, and presumably
ate, very little. I think he would have appreciated the high protein in bugs
because they get the job done so efficiently. His frequent questions about
norms indicates that he would have questioned our food practices and eating
bugs does seem to make sense but we are not doing it.
Plato separated human desires and food would have been part
of the Appetite. This was considered to be a very very powerful force. Plato
may have been despondant about changing dietary habits. Bugs are encouraged as
a food source primarily because it is better for the Earth. It would seem that
it would be advocated for by reason which ultimately would have been able to
control everything else.
Aristotle said that pleasure should not be sought out for
pleasure's sake and that happiness was tied to virtue. This indicates that
eating food that makes you feel good for the planet would make you happy. So go
my friend eat bugs.
An addendum for those of you who read my post last week I
have some interesting additions. I learned this week that there is a place in
Italy that has traditional dish featuring cheese and bugs and there are a few
places in Eastern Europe as well that eat bugs. If you ever eat lobster you are
eating a type of anthropod which is in the same family as crickets. Also if you
are really concerned about bugs you should remember that you are probably
already ingesting them on accident in food like flour and chocolate. HAHA you
can't escape.
Here are some videos about eating bugs
Woodley eat bugs! She says it in this interview starting at 1:40. I realize that she says lots of crazy things about basically everything. here is the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=52&v=ysKTldPt1SU
I highly recommend that you watch this video. It has a lot of history and cultural context.
my previous blog posts are
and
"...you are probably already ingesting them on accident in food like flour and chocolate. HAHA you can't escape."
ReplyDeleteOh no.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Food_Defect_Action_Levels
Oh. No.
awesome report very interesting ben is correct. i think insects are personally nasty to it, and the paleo diet is very controversial in the weight loss world. people say our bodies have evolved from eating insects and other ancestral organism. one study shows more and more people are becoming less lactose intolerant from over 1000s years ago thus we evolved to be able to drink milk. just some biology to think about when ur doing this research
ReplyDeleteawesome report very interesting ben is correct. i think insects are personally nasty to it, and the paleo diet is very controversial in the weight loss world. people say our bodies have evolved from eating insects and other ancestral organism. one study shows more and more people are becoming less lactose intolerant from over 1000s years ago thus we evolved to be able to drink milk. just some biology to think about when ur doing this research
ReplyDeleteThere is a growing literature of "food ethics" beginning (for me anyway) with Michael Pollan. I don't think he's advocated bug-eating, but maybe we need to amend his famous little slogan: "Eat food, mostly plants (and their coevolutionary compadres the insects), not too much." Bon appetit!
ReplyDelete