Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Oops

So, rather than writing a note saying that the oatmeal bars contained superworms during class snack time, I verbally told people, which I don’t think traveled very well.

Lesson learned, so the next day I brought some more bars to our school studio and wrote a note on the container with a list containing all the ingredients used in the oatmeal breakfast bars.

I was surprised to learn that some people didn’t read the note, or read it and thought it was a joke and dug in anyways. Some vegetarians ate them without reading or taking the note seriously, which I kind of felt bad about.

Which brings me to a question I’ve been curious to ask for a while:
How do vegetarians or vegans feel about eating insects?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting project!
I had a classmate who refused to eat cornbread when someone told her that insects are often prominent in cornmeal when it's being milled.
In one class we had an exercise where we fried up stoneflies; no vegetarians participated in the activity, but maybe it was because there were quite a few of them and they didn't want to look like sellouts?

Rosanna said...

Thanks for sharing! Interesting story.

I was also wondering if feelings differ between people who are vegetarians for specific reasons (i.e. animal rights, environmental, health, etc.)? Would someone who is vegetarian solely for environmental reasons consider eating this low impact source of protein?

I would like to hear how different types of vegetarians feel (non-vegetarians are of course welcomed to join the discussion)!

Thanks!

Canny Vegan said...

As a newly practicing vegan, I don't find the idea of eating insects particularly troubling. Cultivating cows, pigs, chickens, fish, or any other animals for food creates an enormous impact on world resources. A fraction of that could be used to grow insects to get the same nutritive value. Only the most extreme animal rights activist could possibly object to "insect suffering."

The squeamishness about bugs is another matter. That's a purely cultural thing, I think. Overcoming that is a whole 'nother can of worms — sorry bad pun!