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With Sales Down, Whale Meat Flogged As Source of Strength
beaverdownunder writes "From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: 'Japan's peak whaling body has launched a new campaign to promote whale meat as a nutritious food that enhances physical strength and reduces fatigue. With about 5,000 tonnes of whale meat sitting unwanted in freezers around Japan, the country's Institute for Cetacean Research has decided to launch a new campaign to promote the by-product of its so-called scientific whaling program. Once popular in school lunches, younger generations of Japanese rarely, if ever, eat whale."
The bastards and their ships need to be pulled down to the deep dark ooze of the abyss where tentacled beasties will toy with their souls for eternity.
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Why didn't the poster just include the last sentence so that the summary is just TFA? Also, I wonder how this is being covered on slashdot.jp.
one of the more popular places in Tokyo only charges 5,000 yen(about $50) per person for parties of 2 or more, complete with an all-you-can drink(alcohol, not that soft drink crap they have in the US :P). Doesn't sound very cheap, but there aren't a lot of places you can get an all-you-can-drink with food for less than 5,000 yen. Just FYI, you get fried whale, whale sashimi, whale soup, and some udon noodles for your cash. I actually had it before, not bad.
Monstar L
When extinction became an issue civilised nations agreed to stop whaling.
The exceptions are for indigenous populations like those living in polar regions and some scientific work.
As a result in the short term whales are no longer threatened by extinction but in the long term they still face threats.
Japan's excuse would be laughable if it weren't for the fact when all previous whaling nations would do the same the problem of extinction would surface again.
Where a great nation shows child-like behaviour.
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This is about the stupidest, most idiotic comparison I've ever seen. Congratulations, you fail at the internet.
"Eat this and you, too, can look like a whale!"
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
Not true. Both Japan and Iceland catch Fin Whales which are classified as 'Endangered'
Whale meat again,
Don't know where,
don't know when.
But I'll know whale meat again,
some sunnyyyyyyy day!
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Their claim for health benefits depends on focusing on Balenine and ignoring the high level of polutions the whale process. "Unfortunatelly" Balenine is also present in Chicken (and humans, but that might need "a lot" of advertizing to convince people...) So the "smart" action would be to really think about how to retrain the people involved into something that is not threatening a specie that is in danger of extinction, and that just might be sentient...
From whales to sea kittens, eating stuff from the ocean is now completely absurd. I'm sticking with cows.. yummy, yummy dead cow. Surely no one could object to eating a cow! - HEX
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It'll destroy humanity. I learned it in Star Trek 4.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Tests have shown that whale and dolphin meat has enough mercury to be practically toxic waste. Japanese would be crazy to start eating it, especially in large amounts.
It's not really about whales or their meat. It's about oil and similar resources.
According to international treaties, under certain conditions a country has the right to drill for oil in a certain area if it has traditionally and recently been exploiting the area economically in other ways. This explains a few things about the Japanese whaling programme that would make no sense otherwise. Why they are doing this even though they have no need for the meat, as the article makes clear. But also why they are not making a better effort to disguise the whaling as scientific. Sure, they are arguing before the IWC that it's primarily scientific. But sooner or later they will have to argue before a different body that it's primarily economic, and has always been so. The more obviously economic the programme is, the better it is for their purpose, so long as they can get away with it before the IWC.
we are coming to a point where we can literally grow our foods and we can get our proteins and amino acids from any food source without the process of killing. We really need to encourage these techniques and technologies.
Well, not about the historicity, but about how this is going on ahead because "Japan is pretty tired of the west telling it what to do.".
If that were the case, then the whaling industry would not have 5000 tons sitting unwanted and have to start a completely bogus claim about the meat they can't sell, not even as pet food.
Japan themselves have decided that they really don't need to eat whale meat. The consumption is way down. However, the industry making money off this don't want to find out they're buggy whip manufacturers and are refusing to let the rest of Japan tell them they're not wanted any more (or at most, wanted at a very much reduced level).
This is about greedy corporations in Japan, not about Greedy Western Imperialism.
If people aren't interested in eating whale meat, why not just give up on the hunt and stop killing the things?
Continuing to produce a product no-one is interested in (and that large swathes of the rest of the world would rather you didn't produce) seems stupid to me, especially if they have to divert money from tsunami relief to pay for it.
Is it because of lobbying by the whale fishermen? Concerns from the government about where all the people involved in the industry are gonna get jobs if the industry is shut down? National pride? (i.e. "we have been catching whales for decades, why should we stop now just because someone else tells us to") Something else?
I'm thinking of converting my Hummer to run on whale oil.
According to this, contemporary sperm whale oil production peaked at almost 39 barrels/whale in 1952. At current US daily consumption of ~19 million barrels(and assuming that whale squeezin's are equivalent to inorganic oils), a mere ~488,000 whales per day could entirely eliminate our wasteful demand for oil!
That would exhaust the estimated pre-hunting wild population in about two days; but I'm sure that bold advances in aquaculture will step in to fill the gap.
The funny thing is that whaling is a western thing but post WW2 the Japanese were encouraged to start whaling to augment their diet. And it sorta stuck. When the article claims "once popular in school meals" what they really mean is: once the only meat in school meals. It is like claiming "levertraan" (fishoil) was popular in Holland... it was given to lots of kids to boost their vitamin intake but it sure as hell wasn't popular.
Whaling in Japan is mostly an issue that most don't care about but for a small group it has become an identity issue. It is the same group who claim mass child rape was essential to the Japanese psyche during WW2. (See Yokohama's mayor recent claims). To most Japanese it is an embarrassment but they have trouble not getting accused of being non-japanese the same as everyone has when they are confronting those wrapping themselves in their nations flag.
You might as well post about the NRA and their antics and ask Americans how they feel about it. You get the same kind of "oh gosh, I am embarrassed but they are waving my flag so if I attack them I am a traitor".
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You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I ate whale meat some 12 years ago. I remember a heavy nutty/liver taste to it. Other than that, pretty similar to a very dense steak.
Once popular in school lunches, younger generations of Japanese rarely, if ever, eat whale."
It was quite never popular to begin with. It tastes awful to begin with, and kids hated it. My wife (a Japanese citizen) finds it like repugnant rubber. It was pushed by the government as school lunches, so it was predominant at once. But predominant does not mean "popular" as this case demonstrates.
To be honest, I cannot remember once single Japanese person I know that has actually said anything positive about whale hunting or whale meat, not even older people (and they do eat some crazy, weird tasting food, like natto). Obviously this is just personal, anecdotal evidence, but still.
Unfortunately political apathy and disenfranchisement being part of the current Japanese ethos prevent actual democratic challenges to the ossified bureocratic structures and interests groups that still fight and rationalize the archaic practice of dishing rubber-shit-tasting whale meat as part of a daily breakfast :/
Maybe a better response would be: "no, but your mom has."
Can't speak for the OP but I dont agree with whale hunting, but only because they are endangered. I like the idea of biodiversity.
Assuming you have already decided you are going to eat meat at all, I personally don't see the difference between hunting whales and any other non-endangered animal (say cows) for that purpose.
As near as I can figure, the Japanese government mostly continues to support the whaling industry out of spite. They keep whaling because other countries try to tell them they aren't allowed to do it.