Having an ethical dilemma Veeky Forums. Tl;dr has anyone tried minke whale steak and is it worth eating?

Having an ethical dilemma Veeky Forums. Tl;dr has anyone tried minke whale steak and is it worth eating?

I absolutely love trying different foods from different cultures, it's one of my favorite things to do when I travel. And I love seafood in particular. Trying out the ways that different places prepare fish is awesome.

I've dabbled in vegetarianism and pescetarianism before out of sympathy for animals, but I always came back to eating them. There are a few things I won't eat for this reason, like shark fin soup, and I even try to avoid veal.

Now my girlfriend and I are planning on taking a vacation to Iceland next summer. Here's the thing, I love whales. Orcas are my favorite animal. Would never go to SeaWorld, and I can't wait to go whale watching.

But I started to read about minke whale steak. And I got this curiosity about the taste that I'll never stop until I know what it tastes like. It looks like red meat (since it is a mammal), but I imagine it has a slight fishy taste to it. And it looks really good...

On the one hand, minke whales aren't endangered (yet) and choosing not to eat one will barely dent the economy for it. But at the same time I feel like if I try it, it'll be weighing on my shoulders forever and I'll just be a giant hypocritical dick for eating the animal that I claim to love so much. They're such intelligent beautiful creatures... But then, so are cows and pigs, who don't even have a chance to get away from hunters and live their lives peacefully.

Can someone from Iceland or who's been there and tried it tell me if it's worth a guilty conscience?

They'll be eating it anyway, whether you're there or not. For the most part, they're pretty conscientious about how they harvest whales, so that they'll continue to have them for the future.

What he said

Its not like they catch a whale just for your steak. If you can eat it its something they have anyway, so if you want to feel better say to yourself that the whale shouldnt have died to end in the bin so its better to eat.

Nice back-to-back dubs

This is what I'm trying to tell myself, and I know it makes logical sense, but it just feels like a giant character flaw to claim to be someone who loves whales, respects them, one of my favorite animals etc. and then go ahead and eat one while I'm at it. I could be wrong, but I read also that the whaling industry is dwindling and that 30-40% of the sales in Iceland come from tourism.

Or maybe I'm just a sensitive faggot, I don't know

What better way to truly become one with your favorite animal?

Just try it once. Then your curiosity is satisfied and you can otherwise minimize your own contribution to the demand for overfished or unethically harvested products.

There's nothing inherently immoral about shark fin soup or whale steaks. It's the practices of the fishing industry that need to be addressed. Veal: well, there are currently multiple ways of raising it, and I don't really have any ethical qualms with some of them. I almost never eat veal -- it used to be cheap so was a huge part of my family's traditional recipes, but alas, no more -- so I never worry about it.

Just try what you want to try. We as a civilization have a long way to go before this becomes one of my top moral concerns. The animal rights crowd tend to be conveniently blind to an immense number of far more immediate moral concerns.

>it just feels like a giant character flaw to claim to be someone who loves whales, respects them, one of my favorite animals etc. and then go ahead and eat one while I'm at it
Why? I don't understand how these two attitudes, (respect/favor vs. desire to eat) are incompatible. I love dogs. And while I'd never eat someone's pet, I have zero moral qualms with eating one. Why should I? Same goes for rabbit, beef, pork, etc.

It doesn't taste fishy unless it has a fair amount of fat on it, and it never does in modern cooking. It's lean, a bit gritty an iron-tasting like liver but without the liver flavour. If it's cooked well (not dry) it is absolutely amazing. I know it sounds like a meme, but it has a very rich flavour, and as a person who loves liver but not the liver off-taste this is a better alternative. The only downside to it is that it is very expensive.

T. Norwegian

Well I was certainly leaning towards ignoring it while I was there but this has swayed me the other way.

As long as it isn't endangered, I would say that it's fine.

If you want to taste some really fishy whale meat, pilot whale from the faroese island is pretty out there - especially the dried meat with blubber.