Just curious......

[Forest Nymph]

That is a great question. Maybe it should be its own thread or two.
I also remember reading or listening to someone go on about this. My guess it was Colleen Patrick Goudreau. it was a long time ago so I can't remember.

There is a cultural thing wrapped up in there too. Chinese families serve fish with the head still attached. I've only seen it in movies but the pig with an apple in its mouth.

In the NE Soft shell crab is served on toast with their little legs hanging off the side. In many places, crabs are served in the shell and you have to crack them open yourself. And let's not forget the lobsters.

In one episode of the West Wing, Leo was telling Sam that he had to stop taking his daughter to seafood places cause the first thing she would do is go over to the lobster tank and name all the lobsters. and then no one wanted a lobster.

But they don't make chicken nuggets in the shape of chickens or chicken parts. Although Dr. Praeger's has a fish stick shaped like fish and also has a whole line of veggie patties shaped like dinosaurs and stuff.

And of course, there are animal crackers.

I don't think animal crackers or dinosaur shaped things count, to be perfectly honest, because animal crackers are at least vegetarian and some brands are vegan, but anyway the shapes are cartoonish and bear little connection to real living animals. As a vegan I won't freak out over eating a gingerbread man. There's not enough resemblance to even enter the "uncanny valley."

I know there are cultures who eat the whole animal, I know even before being vegan I was creeped out by lobster tanks, and crawfish with heads on...but I was long averse to eating animals even when my family still forced me, and as a vegetarian in my adult life. Going vegan only intensified this reality so I started to apply this to fish and shrimp. I didn't before. I only cared about mammals and birds. And lobsters because their suffering was so cruel and apparent in public places.

Children though love nuggets and weinies and eating meat products that are far removed from the animal. I know as an adolescent/young adult it was much easier for me to eat chicken fingers than whole chickens or legs.

There might not be more vegans, but I think there would be more Western vegetarians if we stopped this. 1/3 of the population of India is vegetarian, and about half of Asian Buddhists are vegetarian. Plus there's Jains and some vegetarian Taoists. I wonder if this is due to the greater reality of meat coming from animals in Asia. I've read that many people in Asia who are omnis eat quasi vegetarian diets, with meat as a condiment, or only eating fish on a regular basis while having other meat approximately once per month.

MONTH. They only eat meat besides fish once a month.

 

[shyvas]

That is a great question. Maybe it should be its own thread or two.

But they don't make chicken nuggets in the shape of chickens or chicken parts. Although Dr. Praeger's has a fish stick shaped like fish and also has a whole line of veggie patties shaped like dinosaurs and stuff.

And of course, there are animal crackers.

I believe that there are more fish fingers (sticks) sold in supermarkets compared to fresh fish. Some interesting facts on why they were invented :

*The fish finger was developed in an old Birds Eye factory in Great Yarmouth by Mr H A J Scott in the 1950s.

* The American version of the fish finger - the 'fish stick' - is thought to have been invented in the 1920s in Massachusetts. There is speculation that the fish finger was invented to help fisherman find larger markets for their increasingly large catches of cod.

* In its trial stage the fish finger was taste-tested with cod and herring in Southampton and South Wales. Cod was the preferred choice.

* Birds Eye launched the fish finger in the Autumn of 1955 at the Brighton Sales conference.

Fish fingers: 10 things you almost certainly don't know

The first fish finger in Britain was a resounding success when it was launched in 1955. More than 60 years later the frozen brick of fish is just as popular. Here is its history.

www.telegraph.co.uk

It's so very sad to see that a 100 years later, the cod species is more or less protected and may soon become extinct.