"What The Fuck, China?!" or "Bear Commits Murder/Suicide To Escape Torture"

[Seil]

So I was watching Two Best Friends playing Revengening, and Matt tells this story about the Chinese puncturing the stomachs of bears and letting them bleed out. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erPQjxiVCaE&20m55s) I thought that was a little far-fetched. I thought that was a little too Bond villain. So I looked it up, and apparently China is "milking" bears for their bile (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-17188043), which is said to have a whole lot of health benefits. What the fuck, China? (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2095904/Bears-held-harvest-bile-going-hunger-strikes-way-escape-captivity.html)

*Note - feel free to look at the linked stories, where you'll see a lot of fucking depressed bears with tubes coming out of their stomachs.

In a secretly shot video, a Chinese farmer holds up a bag of yellowish bile he has just extracted from a caged bear.

"Some Westerners say this is cruel - but I think the bears are making a contribution to mankind," says the grinning man.

Animal welfare groups have recently stepped up their campaign to end the practice of milking bears for their bile, still legal in China.

They say the animals suffer enormous physical and psychological pain.

But bear bile has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for hundreds of years and it is not proving easy to change habits formed over generations.

Pharmaceutical companies that farm bears are also fighting back to protect their industry, in a public relations battle to win hearts and minds.

Bear bile is a digestive fluid produced in the liver and stored in the gall bladder.

It is valued in traditional Chinese medicine because it is supposed to fight fever, cleanse the liver and improve vision.

Made into a powder, it sells for at least 130 yuan ($21; £13) a gram

So apparently the Chinese are into this, but the bears sure aren't (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2025388/China-Tortured-mother-bear-kills-cub-herself.html):

It has been reported that the mother and cub were being kept in tiny cages known as 'crush cages' which restricted their movement, on a farm in a remote part of North-West of China, according to website Asia One.

One witness told Reminbao.com that the mother bear broke out of its cage when it heard her cub in distress before a worker punctured its stomach to milk the bile.

The mother bear rushed to its cub and hugged it until it eventually strangled it before running head-first into a wall, killing itself.

According to Singapore Seen, the witness, who has not been named, said: 'When a worker wanted to open up her cub’s stomach, the mother bear broke open the cage and went after the cub.

'After failing to release the chained cub, she hugged the cub.

'Then, the mother bear killed the cub to save it from a life of hell.'

Bears can be farmed for their bile for around 20 years, before they stop producing it and are killed.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

Not very surprising to read this, considering another one of their delicacies involves skinning a strapped down donkey, pouring boiling water on the flesh, then carving off said flesh while it is still alive. Hua Jia Lu is what it is called.

But bizarre as these may be every culture has their bizarre/bordering grotesque practices involving food/medicine/whatever involving animals and such. All part of the cultural cornucopia of this quirky creature called the human race. Does that justify some of the acts? In this case certainly not. Hell, in a lot of cases certainly not.

This particular one saddens me. I like bears.

Japan has Ikizuki, dojo tofu, among other things like dancing octopus or dancing fish flakes..forget what either are called.

France has ortolan, foie gras. I could go on, really.

[Sifright]

Another example is people that eat crabs. They get dropped alive into boiling water.

Edit: The crabs get dropped into the boiling water not the people...

[Seil]

I cannot argue that, it is a good point. Crustaceans lack the opportunity to escape their predicament. I will say, however, that there is still a discussion as to whether or not their nervous systems are developed enough to feel what we describe as pain, (http://science.time.com/2013/01/18/do-crabs-feel-pain-maybe-and-maybe-we-should-rethink-eating-them/) as well as the fact that it's relatively quick compared to the twenty years in the OP.

I am aware my outrage is hypocritical here.

[RobinStarwing]

I cannot argue that, it is a good point. Crustaceans lack the opportunity to escape their predicament. I will say, however, that there is still a discussion as to whether or not their nervous systems are developed enough to feel what we describe as pain, (http://science.time.com/2013/01/18/do-crabs-feel-pain-maybe-and-maybe-we-should-rethink-eating-them/) as well as the fact that it's relatively quick compared to the twenty years in the OP.

I am aware my outrage is hypocritical here.

Actually, no it is not I feel.

Reason being is that Crabs are a part of the Food Chain and we eat them. I eat Lobster and Crab and Shrimp myself. I got no issues because to me, this is natural.

Bears though and for this? Yeah...this is wrong on so many levels that I can't even BEGIN to properly express my outrage at this. Suffice it to say I hope these bastards when they die are put in a VERY special level of Hell just for this...a freezing cold Hell with nothing to wear but a lion cloth over their groin while a tube is stuck into them to milk them of their bile for all eternity.

[Magus]

I thought everyone was aware of this. They put the bears in a little tiny cage they can't move in and milk their bile. It's been being done on an industrial scale since the 1980s, first in North Korea and now in China.

[Kim]

Actually, no it is not I feel.

Reason being is that Crabs are a part of the Food Chain and we eat them. I eat Lobster and Crab and Shrimp myself. I got no issues because to me, this is natural.

Bears though and for this? Yeah...this is wrong on so many levels that I can't even BEGIN to properly express my outrage at this. Suffice it to say I hope these bastards when they die are put in a VERY special level of Hell just for this...a freezing cold Hell with nothing to wear but a lion cloth over their groin while a tube is stuck into them to milk them of their bile for all eternity.

This post is a mess of not understanding the "food chain" and an example of the completely arbitrary standards by which we set what animals are "okay" to eat and which aren't.

[Sifright]

This post is a mess of not understanding the "food chain" and an example of the completely arbitrary standards by which we set what animals are "okay" to eat and which aren't.

Pretty much, what we eat is mostly arbitrary. Hell, crustaceans are actually one of the least likely animals for humans to traditionally eat because they spoil so rapidly.

Bear meat at least lasts a decent amount of time before it spoils.

Also Robin, people eat bears and pretty much everything else to that isn't directly poisonous and even then puffer fish get eaten to.

Excusing the treatment of crustaceans when they are cooked alive because you personally eat them is so incredibly ego-centric.

You are being a hypocrite basically.

Edit: I don't say this to insult you but to point out that you are applying your sense of ethics inconsistently.

[CABAL49]

Yeah, the US needs to look at the meat industry as a whole before they can condemn other countries.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

The problem here is that the bears aren't being used for food, they're being used for "traditional medicine," which essentially amounts to quackery. Once they're tapped out of bile, they're killed and discarded outright, even if the meat could have been used for food. Captive breeding is apparently rare and most "farms" are restocked from wild populations, many of which are endangered.

There is a massive difference between this and the Western food industry.

[Sifright]

The problem here is that the bears aren't being used for food, they're being used for "traditional medicine," which essentially amounts to quackery. Once they're tapped out of bile, they're killed and discarded outright, even if the meat could have been used for food. Captive breeding is apparently rare and most "farms" are restocked from wild populations, many of which are endangered.

There is a massive difference between this and the Western food industry.

I'd like to point out quickly using the daily mail as a source for anything is bad.

They are one of the worst junk tabloids in the uk and basically full of false shit.

Edit: not that i'm saying this story isn't true, but the dailymail has basically 0 credibility. If the dailymail suddenly started printing stories that global warming was happening, I'd have to go check the scientific literature to see if suddenly all scientific consensus were overturned and global warming was proven to not be occurring. Thats how little credibility that rag has.

Double edit: Not to say traditional medicine isn't usually quackery but in this case the 'active ingredient' in the bears bile actually does have legitimate medical usage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursodiol

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

I'd like to point out quickly using the daily mail as a source for anything is bad.

They are one of the worst junk tabloids in the uk and basically full of false shit.

Edit: not that i'm saying this story isn't true, but the dailymail has basically 0 credibility. If the dailymail suddenly started printing stories that global warming was happening, I'd have to go check the scientific literature to see if suddenly all scientific consensus were overturned and global warming was proven to not be occurring. Thats how little credibility that rag has.


Just, you know, to expand on this a bit: Two threads (At the time of this post) below this one you'll find a thread which is also about things the Daily Mail said.

[Aerozord]

I dont mind the practice of cooking crab alive because crab have no central nervous system and are unable to experience the sensation of pain. Any way of killing them is painless

[Sifright]

I dont mind the practice of cooking crab alive because crab have no central nervous system and are unable to experience the sensation of pain. Any way of killing them is painless

thats actually not a certainty.

http://science.time.com/2013/01/18/do-crabs-feel-pain-maybe-and-maybe-we-should-rethink-eating-them/

Seil posted this earlier and it certainly points to crabs being able to experience something analogues to pain and making plans to avoid said pain in the future.


In February 2005, a review of the literature by the Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food Safety tentatively concluded that "it is unlikely that [lobsters] can feel pain," though they note that "there is apparently a paucity of exact knowledge on sentience in crustaceans, and more research is needed." This conclusion is based on the lobster's simple nervous system. The report assumes that the violent reaction of lobsters to boiling water is a reflex to noxious stimuli.[2]

However, review by the Scottish animal welfare group Advocate for Animals released in the same year reported that "scientific evidence ... strongly suggests that there is a potential for [lobsters] to experience pain and suffering". This is primarily because lobsters (and other decapod crustaceans) "have opioid receptors and respond to opioids (analgesics such as morphine) in a similar way to vertebrates", indicating that lobsters' reaction to injury changes when painkillers are applied. The similarities in lobsters' and vertebrates' stress systems and behavioral responses to noxious stimuli were given as additional evidence for their capacity for pain.[1]

A 2007 study at Queen's University, Belfast, suggested that crustaceans do feel pain.[18] In the experiment, when the antennae of prawns were rubbed with sodium hydroxide or acetic acid, the animals showed increased grooming of the afflicted area and rubbed it more against the side of the tank. Moreover, this reaction was inhibited by a local anesthetic, even though control prawns treated with only anesthetic did not show reduced activity. Robert Elwood, who headed the study, argues that sensing pain is crucial to prawn survival, because it encourages them to avoid damaging behaviors. Some scientists responded, saying the rubbing may reflect an attempt to clean the affected area.[19]

In a subsequent 2009 study, Elwood and Mirjam Appel showed that hermit crabs make motivational tradeoffs between electric shocks and the quality of the shells they inhabit.[20] In particular, as hermit crabs are shocked more intensely, they become increasingly willing to leave their current shells for new shells, and they spend less time deciding whether to enter those new shells. Moreover, because the researchers did not offer the new shells until after the electrical stimulation had ended, the change in motivational behavior was the result of memory of the noxious event, not an immediate reflex. Similarly, it has been shown that crabs will discard a valuable resource (a preferred shelter) in order to avoid future encounters with painful stimuli, thereby indicating avoidance learning - a key criterion of the ability to experience pain.[21]

Morphine, an analgesic, and naloxone, an opioid receptor antagonist, may affect the estuarine crab Neohelice granulata in much the same way they affect vertebrates: injections of morphine into crabs produced a dose-dependent reduction of their defensive response to an electric shock.[22] (However, the attenuated defensive response could originate from either the analgesic or sedative properties of morphine, or both.)[23] These findings have been replicated for other invertebrate species,[23] but similar data are not yet available for lobsters.

[Magus]

The problem here is that the bears aren't being used for food, they're being used for "traditional medicine," which essentially amounts to quackery. Once they're tapped out of bile, they're killed and discarded outright, even if the meat could have been used for food. Captive breeding is apparently rare and most "farms" are restocked from wild populations, many of which are endangered.

There is a massive difference between this and the Western food industry.

This, basically. It's like killing tigers for their testicles or whatever in order to increase sexual prowess. It's ridiculous.

I've eaten bear before. It's not as if we don't hunt them for meat here in the U.S. This is just something barbaric for no reason.

[Aerozord]

thats actually not a certainty.

http://science.time.com/2013/01/18/do-crabs-feel-pain-maybe-and-maybe-we-should-rethink-eating-them/

Seil posted this earlier and it certainly points to crabs being able to experience something analogues to pain and making plans to avoid said pain in the future.

That isn't necessarily "pain" just a sensation of touch. Its hard to determine how such a primitive brain perceives it.

Still I do think its better to error on the humane, and just assume they do.

Though in this specific case I'm not sure how you would kill a crab efficiently. You cant poison food, and its vital organs are hard to get to.

[Sifright]

That isn't necessarily "pain" just a sensation of touch. Its hard to determine how such a primitive brain perceives it.

Still I do think its better to error on the humane, and just assume they do.

Though in this specific case I'm not sure how you would kill a crab efficiently. You cant poison food, and its vital organs are hard to get to.

errr... Electro shocks which modify their behavior kind of points to a creature attempting to avoid pain..... Also read the entire quoted section in one of my later posts.

Sorry but the research points to crustaceans being able to feel pain, maybe you would prefer that not to be the case but it's more likely than not that they do.

[Amake]

Something like ten bears per year are hunted in this country. Apparently they're not so close to extinction that the population doesn't have to be controlled. I don't mind; as long as we have hunters who know what they're doing there's more to be said for hunting than breeding animals for meat.

But I think there's a world of difference between eating animals and fucking torturing them for decades for questionable to nonexistent "contributions to mankind". Some sayings about judging people by how they treat their pets spring to mind.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Double edit: Not to say traditional medicine isn't usually quackery but in this case the 'active ingredient' in the bears bile actually does have legitimate medical usage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursodiol

True. However, that article and the related page on "bile bears" points out that ursodeoxycholic acid can 1) be found in the bile of almost all other mammal species, and 2) readily extractable from traditional slaughterhouse animals. At this point, the main support for the bear farms comes from practitioners who refuse modern substitutes despite their efficacy.

[Osterbaum]

The process of extracting bile from bears is pretty frickin' nasty and the fact that it's basically for no gain at all makes it completely unacceptable. However gross mistreatment of animals by humans is hardly any country's, culture's or geographical area's monopoly. There's whaling, killing baby seals, accidentally griding dolphins into tuna, boiling crustaceans alive, fur farming, animal testing (which in the case of scientific research is in my opinion justified in general, as long as the rules and regulations established are followed) etc. Not to mention the meat production industry, which subjects relatively intelligent animals to terrible conditions.

Singling out any one particularily horrendous exploitation of an animal species is understandable, but it is somewhat hypocritical to value some animals above others, especially animals of a similar intelligence level.

I dont mind the practice of cooking crab alive because crab have no central nervous system and are unable to experience the sensation of pain. Any way of killing them is painless
It's all definitions and stuff, but I think it's safe to say that arhtropods, including crustaceans, do have central nervous systems. A central nervous system in some form basically exists in every animal phylum except for like Cnidarians (which have a sort of a nerve net), Poriferans (which are just sponges and lack any nervous system all together) and maybe a couple of other more obscure phyla. Some studies seem to point to at least some of them being able to feel pain, and to be honest I don't see why they wouldn't. I mean they certainly have to experience it somehow, otherwise how would they even know to avoid dangerous stimuli. And we do know that vertebrates experiece pain for certain.

[Kim]

Fishing done by tuna companies is an awful gross nightmare. Making a thing about the awful shit China does is rooted in some really gross nationalism. LOADS of countries do horrible things to animals.

[Osterbaum]

Fur farming being a pretty gross example too. Animals kept in terrible conditions and even skinned alive. Just so someone can have some fucking "real" fur. And this is something still practiced in Finland, supposedly one of the more 'advanced' (as in like progressive) countries in the world.

e: Norwegia and Japan do whaling. And basically everyone mass produces meat and practices over fishing.

[Seil]

Before anyone brings up the Newfie Seal Hunt, there was already a thread on that a while back. (www.nuklearforums.com/showthread.php?t=26037&)

[Osterbaum]

Fact: Just because you have always done something doesn't make it ok
Fact: Just because there is a market for something doesn't make it ok.
End fact!
Just quoting from the seal thread. This pretty much applies in relation to all of the different ways that we mistreat animals.

[Aerozord]

While I do agree our methods for harvesting tuna is less than ideal, especially considering its unnecessary, dont you think its abit unfair to compare accidentally killing dolphins in the process of fishing and caging an animal for years as you harvest fluids from its mutilated body?

Only thing I can think of as being close to that is what we do to veal. Since there the only difference is we don't also vivisect it.

It's all definitions and stuff, but I think it's safe to say that arhtropods, including crustaceans, do have central nervous systems. A central nervous system in some form basically exists in every animal phylum except for like Cnidarians (which have a sort of a nerve net), Poriferans (which are just sponges and lack any nervous system all together) and maybe a couple of other more obscure phyla. Some studies seem to point to at least some of them being able to feel pain, and to be honest I don't see why they wouldn't. I mean they certainly have to experience it somehow, otherwise how would they even know to avoid dangerous stimuli. And we do know that vertebrates experiece pain for certain.

Possibly its a more primitive awareness. Most animals have an instinctual programming to avoid certain things without it being pain driven. The feeler example for instance could also be the animal merely recognizing something outside their norm and wishing to correct it. In another thread we had people saying how they feel anxiety from missing their glasses. They aren't in pain but they still express distress over it.

Keep in mind I did say I'd error on them feeling pain. Though pain is not the sole root of anxiety and fear, it is not the only way to know to avoid something.

[Kim]

While I do agree our methods for harvesting tuna is less than ideal, especially considering its unnecessary, dont you think its abit unfair to compare accidentally killing dolphins in the process of fishing and caging an animal for years as you harvest fluids from its mutilated body?


"Accidentally" doesn't count for shit when there are ways of avoiding this that tuna companies /actively choose not to do despite knowing their current methods are inhumane/ because capitalism.

[Aerozord]

"Accidentally" doesn't count for shit when there are ways of avoiding this that tuna companies /actively choose not to do despite knowing their current methods are inhumane/ because capitalism.

no its because consumers wont pay the extra 25 cents for the ones that dont. The option for tuna that doesn't use these methods exist but our culture cares more about low prices than ethics. If people would just stop buying this crap this problem wouldn't even exist in the first place.

[Kim]

no its because consumers wont pay the extra 25 cents for the ones that dont. The option for tuna that doesn't use these methods exist but our culture cares more about low prices than ethics. If people would just stop buying this crap this problem wouldn't even exist in the first place.

Aerozord bravely takes a bullet for faceless, unethical tuna companies.

EDIT: To point out in more depth why leaping to defend companies is silly, because it always is, customers would in fact pay an extra 25 cents, particularly if such changes were made across the board for all US tuna.

Consumers generally aren't aware just how inhumane the methods are. Anyone who tries to bring this stuff up is dismissed as exaggerating the problem because consumers have been trained to do so. Even if they believe, they don't believe alternate methods are viable because they're told they aren't and trust that if they were companies would use those methods.

Consumers /would/ pay the extra 25 cents. There are just a lot of hurdles between them and that decision. Meanwhile, companies actively choose to make the awful inhumane decision to harvest tuna in this method in the greedy search for more profit, and US government refuses to enact laws preventing inhumane fishing methods.

Ultimately though, this doesn't matter, cuz it still boils down to one culture doing awful inhumane things while calling another culture awful and inhumane.

[Aerozord]

Its called willful ignorance. Like how people tend to ignore the fact that most of their goods come from sweat shops. Lets say the US did enact laws banning this method. Big deal, plenty of other nations wont, they will offer a cheaper product, and people will continue purchasing it.

Now we could make it a global thing, and in this case that would work. So go team, we solve this specific problem. However there are others that are inherently unethical like this bear bile. Best case scenario is you force it into the underground but as long as there is a demand for it then it will continue. To stop the practice you need to educate the populace and change the culture so they dont want it anymore.

[Sifright]

Its called willful ignorance. Like how people tend to ignore the fact that most of their goods come from sweat shops. Lets say the US did enact laws banning this method. Big deal, plenty of other nations wont, they will offer a cheaper product, and people will continue purchasing it.

Now we could make it a global thing, and in this case that would work. So go team, we solve this specific problem. However there are others that are inherently unethical like this bear bile. Best case scenario is you force it into the underground but as long as there is a demand for it then it will continue. To stop the practice you need to educate the populace and change the culture so they dont want it anymore.

Thats not how market penetration works.

If you make a regional law stating all goods sold cannot use x method it doesn't matter what the other nations do their product can no longer be sold in your country.

given USA has a population size of nearly 400 millions thats a pretty monstrously large market no longer being supplied you can be sure as shit the companies would switch over rather than lose out on being able to sell product.

edit: Legislation works far faster for this kind of thing.

[Aerozord]

given USA has a population size of nearly 400 millions thats a pretty monstrously large market no longer being supplied you can be sure as shit the companies would switch over rather than lose out on being able to sell product.

edit: Legislation works far faster for this kind of thing.

this is true. For good or ill the US is the single most influential market on the planet. Any company wishing to compete on the global market would be wise to appeal to the American consumer. Which is why I was saying changing the consumers buying habits would have a significant impact. However

If you make a regional law stating all goods sold cannot use x method it doesn't matter what the other nations do their product can no longer be sold in your country.Thats less true. The law to ban US companies from using a method doesn't mean goods obtained this way cannot be sold here. Otherwise my example of sweatshop manufacturing wouldn't exist. While it is possible to also ban a good being sold that is a different piece of legislation and one that is hard to get passed.

Americans like their freedom to choose, especially when the option you are talking about banning is the cheaper one. Besides this would still allow niche foreign markets to exist. Keep in mind we do have a ban on whaling, but that hasn't stopped it.

[Sifright]

this is true. For good or ill the US is the single most influential market on the planet. Any company wishing to compete on the global market would be wise to appeal to the American consumer. Which is why I was saying changing the consumers buying habits would have a significant impact. However
Thats less true. The law to ban US companies from using a method doesn't mean goods obtained this way cannot be sold here. Otherwise my example of sweatshop manufacturing wouldn't exist. While it is possible to also ban a good being sold that is a different piece of legislation and one that is hard to get passed.

Americans like their freedom to choose, especially when the option you are talking about banning is the cheaper one. Besides this would still allow niche foreign markets to exist. Keep in mind we do have a ban on whaling, but that hasn't stopped it.

Some one else want to take a crack at just how wrong the above examples are?

I mean off the top of my head the sweatshop china stuff has no laws in the USA stating you can't sell products made by slave labour (which sweat shops basically are).

Reword the laws to be inclusive of how the product is made and you could solve a lot of these problems.

it won't happen because the rich fucks love making enormous amounts of profit off of labour and not having to pay anything to their workers though.

[Aerozord]

it won't happen because the rich fucks love making enormous amounts of profit off of labour and not having to pay anything to their workers though.
And the population likes the cheap prices that labor provides. Its why discount retail that abuses its work force to the limit the law allows flourish while small businesses that dont treat employees as glorified slaves die.

You have a choice and most people are going to choose whats cheap, not whats ethical. It takes all parties to consent in this economy. No one forces these people to buy this crap. We need people to stop giving these companies business. So either they are ignorant, or they just dont care. Regardless of which we have a systemic problem.

I'd rather people refuse to reinforce this behavior than simply make it illegal. I'm thinking about this as an overall problem not situational. To force this change legally would require massive sweeping legal changes. I mean in this one thread how many legally distinct inhumane acts have we named? Not to mention the backlash such a sudden increase in government legislation on the private sector, not only in and of itself but the resulting rising costs.

What you expect them to keep costs down and remove these methods? Yea maybe they will, by maintaining their profits from treating their employees even worse. Someone is gonna pay the cost, and it wont be the consumer or the corporation I assure you of that.

[Magus]

Tangentially, regarding what Aerozord says, I remember a time I was in Wal-Mart and there was this rack of t-shirts advertising they were made of organic cotton and how good this was for the environment. I looked at the label and the cotton was grown and harvested in Pakistan. Pakistan has been known for its use of child labor and child slaves in the cotton industry. So this company was basically trying to appeal to people's better natures to sell shirts made from "organic" cotton picked by wage slaves and child slaves.

[Osterbaum]

You have a choice and most people are going to choose whats cheap, not whats ethical. It takes all parties to consent in this economy. No one forces these people to buy this crap. We need people to stop giving these companies business. So either they are ignorant, or they just dont care. Regardless of which we have a systemic problem.
Indeed. The systemic problem we have is that our system encourages companies to cut corners where-ever they can, regardless of ethical or moral considerations. A system that forces a lot of people to buy the cheapest if they want to afford everything, thus in practice depriving them of the possibility to choose a more ethically produced product.

There's a lot to be said about how much effect it would actually have even if people could afford to and knew/wanted to buy the 'more ethical' products. One thing is that it's great for business to be able to sell a more expensive product which basically includes a 'get out of feeling guilty for being a mindless consumer and participating in a culture of explotation' -free card, since you know because like 2cents go to saving something or someone somewhere that makes it all ok. So essentially selling to you, the consumer, the idea of feeling less guilty for being a consumer, together with the product. It's pretty ingeneous really.

[shiney]

You can blame free trade agreements for a lot of this. Low cost of imports + money-hungry capitalist society that prefers profits to morals = oppressed labor in asia.

[stefan]

Japan has Ikizuki, dojo tofu, among other things like dancing octopus or dancing fish flakes..forget what either are called.

not gonna even pretend to defend stuff like dojo tofu or the like, but Dancing Squid is one of those things that gets wildly misrepresented by people, as the squid is quite dead by the time it reaches the table. The "dancing" effect is the result of the salt in soy sauce causing still-intact neurons in the muscles to fire, resulting in post-death spasming. There's a video somewhere of someone doing the same thing with frog legs. The trick is that the squid is very freshly killed, but it's hardly the "torture a squid to death by pouring hot soy sauce on it" that some people have claimed it is.