A glimpse into Thistle's head (Food-related stuff)

[thistlechaser]

People sometimes think I'm odd for not liking seafood. I don't eat shrimp or fish or lobster or squid or anything from the sea. I'm currently watching a cooking show, and I'm seeing at least part of the reason why.

Fish-type-things disgust me. The guy is cleaning shrimp. Have you ever looked at a shrimp? Horrid, disgusting creatures. Little spider-legs hanging off the bottom, a shell around the outside, and you have to cut into it and "de-vein" it. It's not even really a vein (which would be bad enough), you're cutting out the intestinal track (which runs the whole darned length of the thing?), and it's black. It makes me want to throw up.

Lobsters have all those issues, but even worse: You have to cook them alive. That very thought, just sitting here now, makes my eyes burn with tears. Sure they're lower animals, but you are boiling them alive. It's so wrong and so bad and I hate it.

And plain old fish are just gross, other than the pet ones that people might have in a tank. Scales and heads and eyes (gods, how can you eat something with a head and eyes still attached? Can't you just picture the poor thing when it was alive, swimming around in the ocean?).

I don't want things from the sea or food with eyes or yucky hang-y legs coming off it. When I eat meat, I'm sort of okay with cows and pigs and chickens (so long as they get knocked on the head before being slaughtered, or whatever they do to them). Well, I'm not too thrilled with them, to tell the truth, but since there's so few foods I eat, I often default to chicken, pork, or beef. I don't eat much fruit and hardly any vegetables, and I can't live on mac&cheese long enough, so I have to branch out to those three meats sometimes.

Too bad I can't live on Diet Coke, popcorn, cookies, pizza, and sometimes various pastas... Those make me a happy Thistle.

Comments

[sillysophia.livejournal.com]

You know what's funny? The only seafood I can eat is sushi. But yes, I agree with the shrimp. Too alien/insecty for my tastes.

[daltontrix.livejournal.com]

Can't you just picture the poor thing when it was alive, swimming around in the ocean?).

...Where it gets bitten in half by something bigger than it and dies a slow, painful death. ;)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Hee. Only if it gets caught! And other fish need to eat it, we don't!

[quasilemur.livejournal.com]

The fact that chickens are much filthier than shrimp aside, I'll stop arguing your position on lobsters as soon as you stop killing bugs. Because that's what they are. Bigger because living underwater lets an exoskeleton-bearing creature be larger and still support its weight, but taxonomically a bug. Deal?

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

For the most part, I don't kill bugs. At the very most, I put them outside. Spiders I let stay (got a darned ton of them around). The only thing I kill are ants, because that's personal. (Grr, darned ants! Die die die!)

[quasilemur.livejournal.com]

No dice. You kill ants that didn't specifically attack you, and don't even eat them afterwards.
Besides, it's not fair comparing processed chicken to whole shrimp. I hate to tell you, but most animals must have their heads and intestines removed before they can be eaten...It's fairly difficult for them to get along without them whilst alive, you see. At least shrimp guts are only a couple of inches long, with no twisting. And are mostly full of sand, as opposed to bird crap.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

No dice. You kill ants that didn't specifically attack you, and don't even eat them afterwards.

Yes dice. I may not eat them (blech!), but they are attacking me and invading my home and trying to eat my food. Thus they die, and the sooner the better. Ants are bad, ants should be dead (or stay out of my apartment, their choice).

but most animals must have their heads and intestines removed before they can be eaten...

Yes. No head and no guts = good. Head + guts = bad. Bad. Blech.

[quasilemur.livejournal.com]

Killing an ant that stings you is one thing. No court in the world would convict you. But the ones that are simply trying to survive are inexcusable. Just because lobsters live underwater, where your house isn't, doesn't mean poor, poor ants have to die. And your murderous attitude doesn't help your position.

Yes. No head and no guts = good. Head + guts = bad. Bad. Blech.

So buy peeled, deveined, ready-to-eat shrimp and shut up. They have it, you know.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Ants are free to live... outside my house. I've spoken to them in reasonable tones. I've given them options. I've talked to them like adults. They refused to listen, they gave me no choice. Any ants that come into my apartment now die. I've been reasonable about this!

So buy peeled, deveined, ready-to-eat shrimp and shut up. They have it, you know.

But the're still shrimp. Blech!

[quasilemur.livejournal.com]

I've spoken to them in reasonable tones. I've given them options. I've talked to them like adults. They refused to listen, they gave me no choice.

Now, now, dear. Ants can't understand language. Assuming they had actual brains, they're still just bugs. So either learn to communicate through ant pheremones, or hang up that particular argument. Lobsters are boiled alive, and you either crush ants alive or poison them until they perish, thrashing and suffocating while they desperately try to regain motor control. And chickens stand around covered in their own shit and parasites until someone wrings their neck. Then they lie around in their own shit and parasites.

But the're still shrimp. Blech!

Assuming that position comes from tasting it (preferably more than once, to make sure), then I have no problem with it. Heck, I'm not a particularly big fan of shrimp myself, usually. But it's not, so I do. That, and you're just too much fun to screw with.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Mean stuff about killin' ants.

But I have no choice! They make me do it! I don't want to kill them! *sniffle* I don't ever kill them outside, so they should just stay out there!

That, and you're just too much fun to screw with.

Yeah, but you got to at least buy me a beer first...

[quasilemur.livejournal.com]

But I have no choice! They make me do it! I don't want to kill them! *sniffle*

Oh, turning repentant, eh? Too late for that, Crusher McGee!

I don't ever kill them outside, so they should just stay out there!

Explain, precisely, how an ant is supposed to know the difference, let alone the concept of property. They're socialists, after all. ;)

Beef, it's what's for dinner

[spenceraloysius.livejournal.com]

If you want to know how your burgers and steaks get to you, read this link: http://www.livejournal.com/users/spenceraloysius/13786.html

Cows do not necessarily live in the most congenial of atmospheres, either.

Re: Beef, it's what's for dinner

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Wow, quite an interesting read! Thanks for the link. (Poor cows...)

[sillysophia.livejournal.com]

I do feel sorry for the lobsters though. Boiled /alive/. Poor bastards.

[tersa.livejournal.com]

There are ways to knock them out so they're unconscious when they're put in the boiling pot. And at least it's a quick death that way.

[quasilemur.livejournal.com]

I fail to see how one 'inhumane' bug death is worse than another. Assuming one cares at all, of course. They get crushed into paste all the time, which normally takes much longer to kill them than boiling the lobster, due to the structure of their bodies. And do you know how most insecticides work? Not friendly. Then again, most deadly poisons are somewhat nasty.

Boiling seems quite nasty to we humans, indeed. But we have this material called skin covering our bodies, chock full of nerve endings. The nervous systems of arthropods are extremely rudimentary, allowing them to react to stimuli in a usually appropriate manner. It's just not the same.

[tersa.livejournal.com]

So what's basically saving you, I think, is the fact that cooking shows get their beef, chicken, and pork pre-processed. :)

[spenceraloysius.livejournal.com]

I would be amused by a cooking show where the chef was forced to go out and butcher his/her own meat. Well, amused once. I remember a quote from a romance novel I read where the heroine was asked where fish came from and she replied, "Nice, white paper packages."