Opinion Food imperialism By Scott T. Hards	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
食べ物に対する支配 食べ物の文化は国によってずいぶん違う。自分が食べることに抵抗を覚えるものがあっても、同じ価値観を他人に押し付けるのは間違っている。

I write this from an island in the Maldives where I'm vacationing. While soaking up the sun's rays on gorgeous beaches is wonderfully relaxing, my wife and I also decided to soak up some local culture by taking an excursion to a nearby village. There, we were treated to one of their traditional snacks: a hard, sliced nut wrapped in a leaf.

Unfortunately, it was like eating a woodchip wrapped in thick spinach. It tasted awful and though I chewed for two minutes, I still couldn't swallow it! Finally, I hid behind a nearby tree and spat out the remainder so as not to offend our guide.

Different strokes for different folks, as we say. I won't ever eat that again, but I'm not going to tell the Maldivians that they should stop because I think it's disgusting. Unfortunately, though, there is a growing body of people and groups who are working to impose their food values on others.

Perhaps the most glaring example of this food imperialism is the international debate on whaling. Despite Japan's presentation of hard, scientific data that proves a limited catch of minke whales poses no danger to the species, the International Whaling Commission recently refused to approve the resumption of commercial hunting. As we know, this forces Japan to pretend and label their whaling efforts "scientific," but who can blame them when the international community has chosen to throw facts and logic out the window?

One of the biggest factors behind this is the existence of huge conservation organizations, such as Greenpeace. Founded to preserve the environment, they now work more to preserve themselves. Even if it's safe to whale, they are loath to acknowledge it, as such an admission would deflate one of their biggest money-raising campaigns. So instead, they create unbalanced "documentaries" with scenes of beautiful humpbacks broaching, edited together with shots of Japanese boats and whale guts (suggesting the killing of humpbacks!), along with a celebrity narrator implying the Japanese and Norwegians are out to rid the world of cetaceans.

Or what about Korea's tradition of eating dogs? There have been campaigns by groups both inside and outside Korea to get that practice to end for no reason except they don't like it. I'm a dog-lover myself, and I don't think I could ever put a piece of "man's best friend" in my mouth, but again, I'm not going to impose my values on Koreans who want to partake. Dogs aren't threatened with extinction after all. In fact, the dogs eaten in Korea are raised on farms specifically for that purpose.

Lately some U.S. states have even started banning the slaughter of horses for food, though I don't have the slightest idea why. I've had some sakura niku here in Japan, and it was pretty good! I haven't heard anything about a horse population crisis, so this also appears to be more food imperialism in action.

While I love whales, horses and dogs, I'm also quite comfortable with my position as a human being at the top of the food chain. I understand that many animals, including humans, eat other animals to live. That's the way the world works. And as long as the animals being eaten are plentiful, I'm not going to listen to anybody tell me what I can or cannot eat, and neither should anyone else.

Shukan ST: July 5, 2002

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