And dang, those little birdies look creepy peering out from their eggshells.

Sorry I missed this comment! I forgot to check mark the dang “notify me of follow-up comments” option.

That’s what is strange to me. Why are drumsticks “ok” but baluts “disgusting”?

That’s an easy one – it’s the little face. We have been conditioned to find any tiny little baby animal with a face, cute. Think about it – we remove the head of almost all of our food – even the wildly non-human food, like shrimp or crawfish.

Here’s an example. In April we attended the annual backyard luau thrown by our best friends. The day before, Mrs. Inscrutable and I picked up the pig from the meat packing plant out in our end of the Valley, and took it over to the house. We prepared it traditionally, wrapped in leaves with an apple in it’s mouth, then buried it in a pit with the coals from a fire we had been burning all day long.

The day of the luau came, and the smell was incredibly mouth-watering coming from the pit. Everyone showed up, happy and remarking about the delicious smell. We pulled the pig out of the pit and un-wrapped it, and I heard from the crowd, “Aw… That’s so mean…”

There were quite a few folks that would not touch the pork (which was delicious, btw), because the meat wasn’t sufficiently distanced from the poor, cute widdle piggy with the apple in it’s mouth. They watched us raise it out of the ground, cut it into pieces, and place the meat on the serving tray – and this was waaay too much information for some. Enough so that they became ill, and wouldn’t eat.

Weird, but understandable, I suppose. Like I said, “cultural”. The American culture has created a social group of humans who find the killing and rendering of food animals disgusting – but as long as they don’t actually have to see it happening, they’ll eat it.

That’s why burgers don’t have faces.

In any case, try to rise above your own inhibitions a bit. This is no different than eating a drumstick, an omelet, a hamburger, or sucking the heads off a mess of crawfish. (Yum, BTW.)

It’s not an inhibition thing. I feel the same way towards all those things you mentioned (drumsticks, etc), not just the baluts. That is, I don’t feel right eating any of them.

Based on the few people I showed this link to before posting it (all of whom were not vegetarian), they got squeamish about it.

That’s what is strange to me. Why are drumsticks “ok” but baluts “disgusting”?

And you can call the pro-choice connection flimsy if you want, but the question I’m asking is whether eating this balut (or rather, saying no to eating it) is that different a scenario from being willing to abort a baby at 4 or 5 months.

I think there are many people who would say yes to the abortion but no to the baluts.

What makes the two any different?

Balut is food. End of story. Your squeamishness is cultural, not logical, and it has ZERO to do with being “pro choice”.

Ziztur’s post was funny, tongue-in-beak (heh) humor riffing on the “baby eating atheist” zinger we all hear from time to time.

I enjoyed the post, and the pictures made me hungry. I have never been one of those people who divorces the actual killing, rendering, and preparing of animals from the end product. I know EXACTLY what goes into making a steak out of the quivering, warm, bloody muscle tissue of a freshly killed steer – because I’ve done it myself since I was a kid. I also love eggs, and I have eaten balut before and enjoyed it.

In any case, try to rise above your own inhibitions a bit. This is no different than eating a drumstick, an omelet, a hamburger, or sucking the heads off a mess of crawfish. (Yum, BTW.)

And if you agree with me, how do you justify being pro-choice?

I’m very very disappointed by this. The question only makes sense in this context if you’re buying into the idea that the abortion debate is about when life begins. The pro-lifers want you to think the debate is about when life begins because that’s the only way they can make their argument without revealing they’re sexist motivations. The debate is actually about whether or not women are human beings fully capable of making medical decisions and with full rights to their own bodies. It doesn’t matter if the fetus is alive or not. No one ever has the right to use someone else’s body without their consent, even if it’s only for nine months.

I’ll let your imagination continue from there.

However, this Balut stuff. Well, I wouldn’t eat it given a choice. But hey, to each their own.

isn’t there a moral reason to say no to eating this (possibly NSFW)?

A moral reason? Well, if you’re a moral vegetarian, it’s the same moral reason as for not eating meat.

And if you agree with me, how do you justify being pro-choice?

Um… because even moral vegetarians are not sexist assholes who endorse enslaving women? Well, I suppose moral vegetarians are usually not sexist assholes.

“How are you enjoying your aborted chicken fetuses?”

I’m told she broke into tears and bolted to the facilities to vomit. But you know how stories go.

In all seriousness, though, unless you’re a vegetarian for moral reasons, there’s little practical parallel between abortion and egg consumption. Me, I’m just chalking it up to some cultures enjoying things that other cultures find, well, nasty.

Really, really, really nasty.

That being said… and as disgusting as I think it is… this really is “food”. Human beings are not the only creatures on the face of the earth who eat eggs no matter what stage of development the being inside is at. Morally unethical? No. It’s a duck. We are omnivores as a species. *shrug*

And I don’t think that it has anything at all to do with the abortion issue.

This has absolutely nothing to do with abortion.

There is nothing unethical about this in any way. A vegetarian diet is NOT a morally superior diet. While vegetarian advocates debate whether bonobos are persons, they seem to forget that humans are animals. We are all food!

Those who think this is gross should have their cultural blinders checked. This is simply unfamiliar to you.

What is gross about it anyway? How is this different from eating an egg? Do you just prefer the aesthetics of texture of scrambled eggs over balut? How is this different from eating a fully developed bird.. like.. chicken wings? Do you prefer it breaded, deep fried and covered in BBQ sauce? Or can you pretend the plate of wings you ordered isn’t the wings off of a bunch of chickens?

We like to forget that we’re animals too. Adam and Eve and the Agricultural Revolution have trained us to think we are somehow not animals…

Everything we eat is a life. If you’re not concerned about vegetable rights, consider the carrot that you’re taking out of a rabbits mouth. Consider the natural ecosystems destroyed by the continuous growth of agro industries in order to plant that wheat.

You can’t not take life when you eat. That’s okay, though, because we’re part of the system.

We are all food.