20 things you don’t wanna eat!!! Or do you??
Dear students and friends,
In Scotland, it’s normal to eat the coagulated blood of a sheep. In Vietnam, it’s a norm to eat cats. In Australia, it’s normal to eat a kangaroo’s tail. What’s weird, and what’s not?
For me, a delicious snack would be: baked sweet potato, green salad with Japanese sesame dressing, eggplant lasagna, mushroom soup, roasted pumpkin. Definitely not any of the dishes below! Take a look… which is the oddest dish for you? What’s the weirdest dish that you have tried?? I wouldn’t eat any of the stuff below. Would you?
Tsem Rinpoche
20 weirdest dishes from around the world
1. Cambodia: Itsy Bitsy Spider
In Cambodia the habit of eating fried tarantulas began during a period of starvation in history, but nowadays they are considered to be quite a delicacy.
2. Balut, Phillippines
Balut is a “snack” consisting in a half-fertilized duck or chicken egg, served with a little salt after being boiled. One can find it all over the streets and markets of Philippines, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and it is as popular as hotdogs are in the US.
3. Snake and Scorpion Wine
This unusual type of liquor can be found in Asia mostly and it is made out of a dipping Cobra or scorpion into a rice wine bottle. After a few months of fermentation, the venom is dissolved and the drink is good to serve!
4. Cobra Heart, Vietnam
In Vietnam one can serve a live cobra’s heart: some eat it raw, along with a cobra blood chaser while others prefer to have it with some rice wine.
5. Birds Nest Soup, China
The saliva of the birds give this soup its unicity. It is one of the most expensive products consumed by humans, because of the difficulty in getting it.
6. Baby Mice Wine
Traditional in China and Korea, baby mice wine is considered to be a “health tonic”. The confessed taste: raw gasoline. While still alive, newborn mice are thrown into bottles full of rice wine and left there to ferment.
7. Casu Marzu, Sardinia
This is a type of cheese that few people would try, as it is stuffed with insect larva. Often referred to as “maggot cheese”. It is consumed while the living beings inside it are still alive, otherwise it is said to be toxic.
8. Kopi Luwak, Indonesia
This is the rarest and most expensive coffee in the world, but still you might want to reconsider it, when someone politely invites you to sip from a mug full of it. Why? Because it is made out of the excrements of a creature that resembles a cat, called the Luwak.
9. Tuna Eyeball
Usually served in Japan and China, the tuna eyeball is another weird dish that might not be for everyone’s taste. They say it tastes much better than it looks.
10. Rocky Mountain Oysters
One might be tempted to think that these oysters can’t be much different from the ones you find at the bottom of the ocean, while they are, in fact, something totally different. A buffalo’s fried testicles got this name because it sounds more fancy. Best way to cook: peel, boil, roll into flour mixture and fry.
11. Fugu
The poisonous Puffer Fish is a great sensation in many restaurants of the world. The thing is that only very qualified and trained cooks are allowed to prepare it, because if something goes wrong…well, let’s say that it could be your last meal.
12. Bugs
Insects make an old dish in many parts of the world, except Europe and North America. Served all crispy, they make perfect nutritious snacks!
13. Escamoles – Mexico
This weird dish comes from Mexico, from giant black ants. They make their nests in the roots of some plants. Collecting these eggs is not the most pleasant job one can get, since their owners are venomous and creepy. The eggs taste like buttery, being slightly nutty.
14. Mongolian Boodog
This one is prepared by cooking the animal – usually a goat or a marmot from inside out. Yes, the WHOLE animal. Mongolians are the best cooks for this: the animal is cooked in its own skin, with the help of hot rocks.
15. Whole Sheep’s Head
This dish can be served with or without brains: the head, of course. It is considered to be a delicacy even in the Mediterranean and Northern Europe areas.
16. Bat Soup
Even though bats are considered to be notorious disease carriers, they are still served in soups cooked mainly in Thailand and Guam, some parts of China even.
17. Ox Penis
Cooked by steaming, deep frying or simply consumed raw, the ox penis is commonly eaten by humans in the Oriental countries. In the Western countries, ox penises are usually dried out and served as dog food.
18. Caterpillar Fungus
This is a fungus, a parasitic one, that invades the body of the insect larvae, eventually killing and mummifying the caterpillars. Mostly used as a medicine or as an aphrodisiac, the Caterpillar Fungus can be also served in soups.
19. Human Placenta
People who dare it this believe that it prevents postpartum depression and other pregnancy complications. There are various recipes to prepare it, even cocktails and it is found mostly in America and Europe, Mexico, Hawaii, China, and the Pacific Islands.
20. Kumis
This is a rather gross drink, consisting in fermented mare milk. Because a female horse’s milk contains more sugars than the femented cow’s or goat’s milk, kumis has a higher, though still mild, alcohol content. It also has a strong laxative effect.
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Some of the things listed here I have heard and seen before. Such as kopi luwak, ox penis, bugs, spider,balut,snake and scorpion wine. Really an interesting article. Thank you Rinpoche and blog team for this sharing! ???
These weird food brought to mind an adage ” one man’s food is another man’s poison.” While some of the food listed, like Escamoles, are less than common and hard to find, I can imagine how the locals prize this delicacy. Having been to parts of Asia, rodent/cat meat, fried bugs, snake wine and balut (the half fertilized egg) are all considered as delicious food. However, it does not make eating these animals any more right than eating other animals. By eating another living being, we are directly causing the death and suffering of another living being, as such, we will have bear the karma consequences of it. It is best to stay clear of meat and become a vegetarian.
Human are an interesting species indeed. We will eat almost anything include another human. Some of these dishes or delicacies to specific culture may have come from some historical reasons and some dire situations. Take bird nests for example, almost every Chinese friends I know probably had eaten bird nests before. It is considered rich people supplement.
This habit of human to source for food is not limited to race or culture. It spans across all races as you can tell from the diverse lists given in this article. Human has a very strong sense of self preservation and also greed. We look for all sorts of ways to claim and eat food that supposedly has incredible health benefits – to prolong life, beautiful skin, etc. If it is not for health, then it’s for the taste. To seek that specific flavor and taste in food. We are so obsessed with feeding ourselves we made an entire academic, profession and business around food.
With our greed for food and self preservation, we created an imbalance in our physical body due to all the animal produce we consumed and we created an imbalance in our eco-system. While I respect our history and our culture, it is time to move on and let go too. With so much choices of food available these days, it is so unnecessary to harm animals for some of these delicacies. There are less cruel ways to self preservation and a tasty, flavorful meal.
I really do not understand how are these considered edible? Its so scary and disgusting! The baby mice wine is the most scary one, can you imagine the second you’re, you are to be thrown into the wine and drown? The mice were born to be dead, poor mice…!
Humans are so disgusting, they just eat everything!
Dear Rinpoche, I don’t think that drinking bird meat soup and Kumis is a disgusting thing. Because bird best are just made out of bird’s saliva and something else but no bird poo poo was included. And drinking horse milk is much more better then drinking cobra’s blood. By the way, the bird nest soup that my Mom used to make is actually very good. And by just looking at the human placenta makes me fell like vomiting
These food is just so disgusting! I cannot believe that people all around the world would eat things like this as delicacies. It is just horrible.
The one that I find most horrifying would be that people are actually consuming the human placenta. This is for a simple reason, if we can consume something that comes from human, soon, we will be able to eat human flesh. And when that happens, how are we going to supply for that demand? Would it mean that we will be killing people just for the meat? Just it just difficult or even too scary to think what would happen if that would have happened one day.
in Thailand or Laos – can’t remember which – I tried cat poo snack – to this day, still not sure if it was actually that, or just called that because of its appearance. In Philippines, I have eaten balut – twice – but probably never again. And in one Asian country, I ate bamboo worms — dried, or deep-fried, they were kind of the consistency of a cheese puff without the cheesy flavor. Actually wasn’t bad. But in all three cases, the “idea” of what I was eating was worse than the actual taste. As I told someone – If the locals eat it, it must be edible, no matter how much I may be repulsed by it. Just mentally block it out, pop it in, chew and swallow. Don’t think about it, just do it. It’s the thinking that gets you into trouble! Rinpoche, thank you for sharing this article.
These ‘dishes’ are really disgusting, they make my stomach feels uneasy. The weirdest dish for me would be the human placenta. It’s really horrible, I would rather to starve and die than eating any of the above! I have not heard of any of them except bird nest and the luwak coffee, I have been to the luwak’s farm once when I was in Bali with my family, but I didn’t have the guts to try it. It was very disgusting to me as we were almost like eating poo poo, literally.
Thank You for sharing Rinpoche.
I am rather disturbed by the Balut from the Phillippines and Baby Mice wine. I find it rather disgusting people live newly borned mice into a drink to be left ferment as they drown. Mice may be viewed as a pest but they are very intelligent creatures, their genetic, biological and behaviour characteristics closely relates to those of humans. I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to consume something like that. Birds nest would probably be the only one on the list that I would be able to take.
To us these foods may sound, look and taste strange and weird but to those people who are so used to it, it is a delicacy.
These pictures are really disgusting, I wonder how people can put it in their mouth. but when think a bit further, what different are we compare to them who eat these kind of food? It is only the choices of food, but we are also killing animal for food. To stop these cruelty, to stop creating more suffering and killing to the animals, being vegetarian is the only choice.
i would never eat this, yuck ! this is so much torture for what ??? a good wine or maybe a small snack, come on people this is eating lives one life per bite and that is so much suffering and cruelty. they are so disgusting and pointless!!! come on and think!
Dear Rinpoche,
When i first saw this I really wanted to vomit because All the 20 foods displayed above are so DISGUSTING AND HORRIBLE! I just can’t believe that people would want to eat such things like somebody’s placenta, bat soup, bugs and to the extinct of even eating a Tuna’s eyeball.
In my point of view i would never ever eat all the twenty foods above because firstly it would be really expensive and secondly those food are of course disgusting, with the money spent on our pleasures we could have maybe helped one or two stray animals of the streets and fing thema good home.
I also remembered one of Rinpoche’s Quote: “If you say you don’t have money to help a animal shelter, why then do you have money to buy meat?” ~ Tsem Tulku Rinpoche
I totally agree with this quote because eating meat is truly expensive just like when saving an animal Medical Bills and all the bills for a rescued animal are just as expensive and if people have the money to go to a High class Chinese Restaurent or a steak house then how come we cannot save animals?
Even if we had so much money but don’t want to save animals we could at least not eat meat or if we still really really wanted to eat in a High Clas Restaurent we could at least eat at Kechara Oasis or any other Fine Dining Vegetarian Restaurent.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this totally disturbing article.
Love
Jutika
GAHHHH!!!! Even if I wasn’t a vegetarian, the stuff in this list is so repulsive! The only one that I may digest, if needed is the last item – Kumis. Only coz there’s no actual meat content inside.
Why would anyone want to eat the human placenta?? I mean, there’s a reason why things come out of the body.
Just reading this has put me off eating the lunch that I’m chewing on now…
so the thing that has always fascinated me is how people even think of eating things like this? What makes someone say, “Hey, let’s extract all the saliva out of a bird’s nest and boil it into a soup?” or “Hey, there’s maggots growing in this cheese, let’s have a taste!”
I mean really, is there NOTHING else to eat? I might better understand, perhaps, why someone might resort to eating insects during times of famine / poverty, but for any other reasons, or reasons of culinary exploration….? nope, I just don’t get it!
Another thought – we might think that it’s gross and cruel to eat an embryonic duck while he’s still curled up in an egg; or to chew on a fish’s eye; or to cook a bat into a soup… but hey, what’s the difference really between that and a chicken, a pig, or a cow? Why do people think it’s more ‘acceptable’ to eat a dead fried chicken than a few dead tarantulas? Why is it okay for us to yum down huge plates of chicken rice and peking dug, but it’s gross to eat it in its younger embroynic form? It’s the same duck!
Bottom line is that they’re all animals, all living beings with the capacity to feel pain and to suffer. It might be helpful to think about why we find one thing more gross than another? What is it that characterises it as being gross? and in contrast, why isn’t a hamburger gross? Or a box of chicken nuggets? or thanksgiving turkey?
Gawwwwwd… these are really disgusting… how can anyone eat these. It is already quite disgusting to eat meat let alone this. I cannot understand. No thanks I will stick to my veggies.
I know some people may think that eating meat is really no big deal, but actually it is the same as eating these weird insects and animals anyway… all are living breathing beings that can feel pain. I guess for me I decided to change after watching the many videos which are an eye opening that Rinpoche posted and shared with us, on how our meat was produced or rather slaughtered. You cannot ignore or pretend you have no feelings for these animals being slaughtered and not be conscious of it when you do eat the meat. If you can choose to ignore it, it goes to show how attached you are to your taste buds that it over rides your compassion nature…which basically shows how selfish you are period. So to ignore is really to be ignorant and if we call ourselves Budddhist or an animal lover, really we’re hypocrites. So what we do in light of being kind and compassionate will be of no effect or no results will come from it eventually. This is because you know it yet you still do it.
Yuck ,so disgusting,i’m just knew that this things can consider is “FOOD” and also can’t believe that people will eat such horrible things except bird nest. Better be a vegetarian , save more and more life of animals .
Thanks to Rinpoche for sharing this horrible meal .
Its so nauseating to see all those pictures. I did consume bird’s nest and pig’s brain when was young. But have stopped all these now. If only man can change their culture and stop eating all these myth food.
哇。。多么恶心的食物！世界上最恐怖的是人类创造出那么恐怖的食物。。为了食欲殊不知伤害了那么多的生命，那又如何呢？！
这些都是不必要的食物，我们根本不须要依靠它们提供我们温饱，大家一定要奉劝身边的朋友多注意这些事情的发生，一定要提高警觉性不要伤害无辜的生命，每个生名都有生存的权利！
Sad to say, I have tasted birds nest before, as well as tortoise soup. In hindsight, its gross but back then, I didnt think twice. Now I’m vegetarian so I wont be going close to such foods again. But as a matter of interest, I found more strange foods that people consider delicacies:
1. Jellied Moose Nose
2. Bat Paste
3. Guinea Pigs
4. Squirrel Brains
5. Codfish Sperm (yes! see pic: http://www.oddee.com/_media/imgs/articles/a307_f12.jpg )
6. Live Octopus (gross!)
When I was in Korea, I saw a man at a street food stall sitting down to a meal of live octopus. The small octopus were walking all over his plate, trying to escape, and he was catching the stray octopi with his chopsticks and setting them back down in the middle of the plate.
In between returning the runaway octopi to his plate, the man was putting live octopus one by one into his mouth whole! If you cant imagine what that would look like, see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5T4c4g3iXv0
oh i would never eat any of these things. so disgusting and cruel to the animals especially the baby mice wine. i will never in a million years eat this stuff.
Oh dear..how can humans consume them? It’s so sick and disgusting to eat things like that. I’ve never tasted any of them which I will never. I’ve been to the Luwak farm in Bali last 2 years ago. It’s so scary to c the Luwaks being locked up in the cage. The most disgusting ‘food’ for me would be the human placenta. Yuck!yuck!yuck! How can they put it into the mouth and swallow it? Sometimes i just couldn’t understand humans..
Thank You for sharing Rinpoche.
Love,
beatrix ooi
Just reading this gives me the creaps. I cant imagine myself eating any of these strange dishes.
The worst dish to eat im my opinion would be the “Casu Marzu, Sardinia”. I find this the worst dish to eat because, i really like cheese. I am from Switzerland, and whenever i visit, i eat LOADS of cheese. So seeing people do this to cheese with MAGGOTS is really disgusting to me.
Thank You for sharing Rinpoche.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing these ugly side of the human race keep and taking the weaker beings for their own pleasure. I have seen human foetus double broil and is a delicacy in Shenzhen China. It is really gross and some even have human placenta cooked in soup which is a health tonic. I pray they realised the cruelty and stop their ugly deeds and realised impermanence.
Everything is gross to me and I think the only think palatable to me is the bird nest made of bird saliva. For that one, I have actually tried and its a Chinese delicacy thats really good for one’s skin and complexion. It is also a big business because of its rarity. From my experience, I did notice that bird nest did make my skin feel nicer.
Besides bird nest, I think the grossest food is the bull face dish that could be served complete with the brains or without. The eyes are still intact and it just looks so gross because the diner looks like he she is eating the face of the bull. I can’t imagine myself eating it though.
That’s really not my kind of food!
Wow….those are so raw and gross….
Not to mention that is not vegetarian but it’s too much for me.
People really got to start thinking of what they a eating here. If it’s for health reason we should look for alternative that not just to benefit ourselves but the others (animals too). Don’t just because of fulfilling our needs and to scarifies others.
There are more option out there to explore!
If we are not sure we can always refer to the nutritionist.
Looking for some guide? check this review out!
http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/category/vegetarian-restaurant-review
OM MANI PEH MEI HUM. According all the look of foods r listed here was so scarely to me, i cant imagine that some people got that kind of courage to put inside their mouth n eat it. Actually we have a lot of choice Food to choose from, n they will benefit us too. Please be wise to be a vegetarian, then u will know how will they will benefits u.
Every culture has its own practices and we have to accept that different people consider different things as treasured items without being judgemental about it. BUT, I personally do find most of the 20 things quite disgusting.
I’ve tried a few of the 20 things in my life (I’m Chinese afterall and the Chinese eat EVERYTHING…) and I have to admit, I got a kick out of some people’s facial expressions when they see me eat them. I no longer have this desire to “shock” anymore, it’s so childish and pointless, not to mention cruel. Cruel to the eaten, cruel to the shocked, cruel to my own karma!
I’m not a vegetarian… yet. But seeing these photos put together does drive home a point.
Sean in Shanghai
Yuckssssss….. for this 20 things i have tried bugs in Bangkok.
other than that i think it is very inhuman >_<
i disagreed with all this so called "cultural" food… disgusting!
It is horrible and disgusting to me 🙁 When I saw all this picture, I already feel wanna vomit… Also it is so cruelly to kill all this animals as dishes. I definitely won’t eat all this stuff.
Thank you Rinpoche for share it.
After seeing this,I am glad I am a vegetarian.The sight of the balut freaks me out!These are definitely “yucky” and gross.Wouldn’t want to eat any of these,let me have my veggies please!!!
Thank you for sharing ,Rinpoche.
It is said, “Mindfulness is the very basis the cure for all samsaric affliction”. As practioners of Buddhist faith, all compassionate living beings have the wish for all other beings to be free from sufferings, and, if possible, to save or release them fromthe entire suffering of samsara and its causes. Such actions would make our practice worthwhile. So how could we knowingly now, have any desire to enjoy or partake in any of the above, being awared that it has caused immensed sufferings to the dead animal beings! Mindfulness is thus the very basis, the cure, for all samsaric affliction, as taught by Lord Buddha.
Disgusting to say the least. What would people do for food? I’ll never win a dare, not even for a million bucks.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this information.
Some pictures are pretty gross, some I know for the first time. Some I have known about them already. Humans can really think of many creative ways to turn live beings into foods.
Cultures can determine many things, in this case is foods.
I think as long as those foods do not invite problems after eating, it is ok to consume them. Of course, in many cases we wont know whether they are fit for consumption until many years later.
I wont try many dishes presented here though, for instance the spiders and the bat soups. Dont feel comfy putting them into my mouth.
Oh my Buddha!It is really disgusting.I don’t know how these people can labeled these type of “foods” as delicious.Especially the cobra and scorpion wine. the cobra inside the wine bottle stare at you and on its mouth there is a black scorpion.Fortunately I am vegetarian and I don’t need to meet these type of “foods”.If food crisis really happen one day,I also will not going to eat it until I die.
Seriously, ALL of them are weird. As I was scrolling down, I could feel my food coming up from my stomach. How can someone go for such weird and yucky looking food? Imagine the taste.. I have not tried any weird looking food in my life so far and no, I don’t want to try it anywhere, anytime. All the food myths my mum used to tell me are just unacceptable.
Thank you for the ‘yummy’ post Rinpoche…
Many “precious” herbs or traditional medicine made from animals actually can have its substitute, in term of giving the same benefits the precious or rare animals given.
For example, bird’s nest is rich with antioxidants and collagen and Amino acids. And white fungus has been prized for its medicinal benefits, namely anti-inflammatory and anti-tumor.
White fungus actually contain up to 70 percent dietary fibers called polysaccharides, and stimulate the immune system and increase white blood cell counts. Therefore, people said white fungus is the poor people’s bird’s nest, in term of similar benefits given.
And, Balut is said to be high in protein and calcium. A serving of balut contain 188 calories, including 14 grams each of protein and fat, 2 milligrams of iron and 116 milligrams of calcium. Today, protein is easily found in plants, such as lentils and guinoa. Here is the link on Top 7 Sources of Plant-Based Protein, by Rich Roll: http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-4491/My-Top-7-Sources-of-PlantBased-Protein.html
I found this link on Extreme Food Around the World here, you might interested to read: http://news.in.msn.com/specials/news_photos.aspx?cp-documentid=5457133&page=1.
It features from ant sauce, deep-fried spiders, cupcake made of insects, blood sausage, frog legs, fried crickets and more.
All these are actually as gross as all the meats we eat, just these are the extreme one! We eat all the germs, blood and flesh of another living beings! We eat all the pain and horror of another being, how sad we are!
I feel lucky to be a vegetarian now. Thank you Rinpoche for showing me Earthlings. I would say it is a life-changing film. I believe through education, people will change, just like how I was changed. I’ve shared this on my FB, my friends will see this. I hope they can be inspired to be a vegetarian also.
This definitely beats Andrew Zimmem’s Bizarre Food !!!
I just cant figure why would anyone want to eat such weird stuff when there are plenty of other choice around? of course we need to discount those dishes that were invented during famine.
Other than these, I also know there are people who eat monkey’s brain while it’s alive and fish that are fried alive… Just can’t understand the reason(s) behind all these unnecessary cruelty to fellow sentient beings..
Let’s stay simple and keep to the basic – just eat things that are plant related.
Yuckie! Gross and disgusting indeed and makes my stomach churn. Even the looks of them turned me off. Thank you for posting, Rinpoche. Educational indeed.
Dear Rinpoche
Thank you very much for sharing tis with us the gross food that some eat and others going through all these to prepare these food that is truly out of the mind and those those who consumed it. I think it is also the karma of the people who consumes them and the karma of these people to harvest them for food. They must have a load full of negative karmas to be born in the area whereby no other food types available and/or their karma is so thick that they are stuck in these jobs of harvesting them. I pray they quickly quickly realized they negative deeds and hope they find other foods for their survival and for their well-being.
thank you for the sharing me make me think deeper into these by just show us the food.
To me, the oddest dish is the Tuna’s eyes and the Mongolian Boodog. The food that showed on the this article will not consumed by me and i thanks that i am not eating these stuff. Included the popolar one e.g: bird nest , kopi luwak and snake cobra.
Some of the food , are incredible expensive. E.g Kopi Luwak is more expensive than a gold. Some of the food are consumed because the food are believe to cure some diseases, e.g: white baby mice is believe to cure Asthma. Snake or scorpion in wine is believe to make the body stronger.
By looking on these food. I feel- lucky i am a vegetarian
I think I will stay to greens for now, some of the things to eat just make my stomach churn.
Out of these twenty yucky “food” I have taken bird’s nest soup and kopi lawak before. All these food may look gross to me, but it is still an acquired taste of each individual. We keep dogs as pets but in Korea dog is considered a delicacy…… There are some who even loved coagulated pork /chicken blood. Oh gosh, I cant imagine myself eating any of these especially human placenta.
Except for bird nest which most Chinese do enjoy (and I have tried on occasions), I think I would find it too gross to eat any of the other stuff. Reminds me of some of the Fear Factors episodes – which I used to always wonder if the motivation is $$$, would I eat these gross stuff? Probably not. However if it’s a question of pride e.g. when I’m challenged and to save face/ego, likelihood is definitely higher.
Oh my buddha! yuckkk…this 20 foods that are listed here are so disgusting !! Cannotttttt understand why these peoples can swallow those things !! When I see this pictures,realy make me feel like vomit….No,I would not want to eat any of these things..!!!We have the better choice—please be vegetarian !!
In each culture, there are sure some “special” food.. sometimes the food is disgusting for others, but some treat them like treasures. However, seeing these feed remind me how I mistreat other animals on the planet… I hope many more people will become vegetarian…
A good contemplation for those who are into such food; visualise yourself to be that worm, or that bat or that sheep….
…and you see that sharp blade coming towards you and then…….
Trust me, you will turn vegetarian instantly!
OM MANI PADME HUNG!!!!!! I am so blessed that I am a vegetarian now. That means I will not have any more chance to eat these kind of weird things any more. I am truly truly grateful that I have not eaten those things before except bird nest (I stopped eating long time ago). I knew that some people in China eat human fetus for health reason. Sad uh!!??
OMG, my stomach is turning from the looks of some of these exotic foods. As shared by Mayy, I do not mind taking birds’ nest but this has a bad effect on me, I get a sore throat taking it, so I do not do it so often.
Basically not only does the food look weird and awful, in order to have such food there is much killing and suffering to other species of life.
Depending on how adventurous one can be with what they put into themselves, I am ok that no suffering is endured to have such food.
i would not want to eat any of these food because its so gross and disgusting. also the human placenta is from human and i would not like to eat it.
Yuck all this 20 foods that are listed here are so disgusting. I just can’t believe that they are people that will eat such horrible things. It is also sad to know that the Japan Government did not prevent people from fishing for dolphins and then eat them. Never never would i eat such things. In China they even have a market where they fry, steam, boil insects for people to buy them and eat. Makes me want to vomit when i saw that video and article. May the Karma they have accumulated punish them.
The most i have tasted is bird nest and kopi luwak when in Bali (it’s really famous in bali and the tour guide will purposely bring u to their coffee plantation to try on this Kopi Luwak. It’s expensive though, as it is charged with USD.)
The most of the item up there are really gross! Oh well, are they really that tasty? Not to me…
Thank you rinpoche for sharing these “scary” food. I don’t think there would be necessary for me to taste them. For what reason human think human has rights to put them into our stomach…?!
Eeewwww! I’m just speechless but this is definitely an eye opener! I’m too ignorant to know any of this, apart from the bird’s nest, since I had them before.
I cannot imagine the circumstances under which someone might suggest eating a Human Placenta. As for the Balut, as if it’s not bad enough to eat an animal, people must eat it before it is properly born. And stuffing baby mice into bottles filled with wine? Seriously, who invented these recipes anyway?
What is it about human beings that make them want to even consider eating these things. I have even considered that, perhaps if I were hungry enough I might eat some of these so-called food…but I don’t think so.
But when we say I will eat this but not that, and when we consider one kind of food disgusting, and another as tasty, are we just being selective?
The bottom line is it is just as horrific to eat a nicely presented pork chop when you consider all the torture an animal has to go through to end up as “food” on our plate. My strong aversion to the idea of a human placenta being eaten might have something to do with my projection of anything coming from a human as being more “alive” than say an insect. That too is not the correct way to look at things. Nothing that has life should be considered food by us.
Yuck!May be exotic food for the weird, but not for me. Imagine eating ox’s penis and buffaloes’ testacles, human placenta, bugs, caterpillars’ fungus!. Except for birds’ nest,which I have taken in the past but not anymore (imagine birds’ saliva!),I think every other ‘dish’ mentioned here is most revolting to think of as food or a delicacy. Yet, it reminds us that everything that we eat and have attachment for is a matter of acquired taste. So why not begin with wholesome vegetables and plant food and acquire a taste for them?
The closest I got to consume is sharks fin and birds nest. My children and I have stopped taking sharks fin ever since we knew how it was derived at. Birds nest is not necessary anyway. The thought of consuming the above already makes my stomach churn, so no thanks. It will take a long time to change people’s eating habits. We have so much of choices when it comes to food these days, that it is really not necessary to consume these ‘rare delicacies’. While we cannot change some people’s eating habits that has been pass down from generations and differs from country to country, we can create awareness by highlighting some negative effects by consuming such food or maybe just from animal’s rights perspective.
Not all are revolting to me as I do take Bird’s Nest once in a blue moon when I can afford. Those that revolts me most are the ox’s penis, human placenta, whole sheep head, balut and the Mongolian boodog. I just couldn’t imagine myself to even put them even near my mouth….I would puked.
This brings me to this travel and food series of Andrew Zimmern on Astro where he would go to almost any countries to try out the most deadliest, exotic, weirdest, disgusting and bizzare food we could imagine! There were times I would not want to watch them! Just can’t bring myself to imagine trying those food he would want to try/eat. Gosh!
Haven’t tried any of the above and don’t plan to try. it make me lost my appetiate for the day..
My goodness, didn’t realize that bat also people cook for soup.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing
It is so nauseating even to look at it and what more to eat it! Just can’t imagine human beings can eat anything under the sun except stones as claimed by some people.
Oh, my goodness, how can these people sell & eat all this thing. When i see people eating, i already wanted to vomit. I’ve seen documantary in China, restaurant are selling this item.
It is awfully gross and revolting. How could anyone consume these things?! Uuuuuuuuuu…..
Yucky! This is definitely one man’s meat is another man’s poison.I wouldn’t touch all but one with a barge pole.
We are all different. Each & every one of us is a unique individual and that is why we have such a bewildering number of various diets to cater for all.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing.
Oh My Lord… Mankind has really really really weird tastes in considering what a delicacy is. I wouldn’t be able to even put some of the things above close to my mouth. I’d probably dry wrench at the thought of it going down my oseophagus. Actually, I’m already grossed out at the thought now.
Well to be fair, I’ve had bird’s nest and kopi luwak. Birds nest because my family used to love it as it “makes your skin nice”… I didn’t. I got a full blown allergic reaction to it with hives on my face. Yes, It made my skin “nice and red”. hahaha. I didn’t like the taste too. Anyways, I think most people like it because it’s a luxury. But the saliva of a bird? Is it that luxurious?
Kopi Luwak I had whilst working as a product development technologist at a coffee manufacturing company. The coffee has got a very well balanced body.. but nothing that would blow you away. Acidity was mediocre, aftertaste was light. Maybe I didn’t brew it nicely. :p. We used a plunger, which was the method that was recommended to us to best savour the coffee. Anyways, I don’t think the price you pay for it justifies the pleasure you get from it.
Thanks for this post, Rinpoche. I enjoy my mushroom soup, avocado salads and grilled vegetable sandwiches over these anytime!
Love,
Carmen
Thanks Rinpoche for sharing this.
Honestly i did tasted 5 out of 20, but i will stop it now, because it is not a necessary.
oh my goodness… some of these items really make my stomach turn. The oddest for me would be human placenta.. probably because it is human!!!! Although it would probably be most natural as most mammals consume their placenta to prevent other predators from smelling the blood after the mother has given birth. I couldn’t do the caterpillar fungus, the spiders, the penis, the cheese with insect larvae, the ant eggs.. oh ok.. i give up.. i couldn’t do any of the above but the most acceptable would be the birds nest, though i would actually prefer not to. Hmmm this post shows how attached i am to what i perceive is edible or tasty! Thank you for sharing, Rinpoche…