"I've stopped eating octopus..." Why?

I’d have to become vegan.

And maybe vegetables are just intelligent on a different level? They do get us to water them, right?

Care to elaborate?

EDIT: Har har. Now I get it. Good one!

While I haven’t abandoned it entirely as it’s one of Arnold’s favorite foods I have stopped ordering it if it’s just for myself. For reasons mentioned above.

I still eat octopus. I’ve eaten dog and whale in the past. I still eat horse (in Europe) and enjoy it.

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Love octopus.

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I grab it by the arms. You can do that, if famous and rich, like me.

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Just watched this last night…interesting story. I honestly can’t imagine doing something like that every day for 300+ days.

Were they out of panda and tiger?

George

Of course, everyone is free to do as they wish with their diet for whatever reasons they choose. I have come to the conclusion that if if I am not going to go vegetarian/vegan, I don’t see much point in discriminating about what I eat other than the two groups ‘things I like’ and ‘things I don’t like.’

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Well said.

The Octopus Teacher was a nice movie. And notice how the shark ripped off one of her legs? He wanted something to eat. Just like me.

Besides, there are also tales of a deer that comes to your door in the morning, pigs that apparently “love” their owners, cows that come over to see you, etc. And and people still love bacon and Flannery steaks. For some reason, there have been some fairy stories about how octopuses are utterly brilliant thinkers. They aren’t. They, like all other creatures, have adapted to fill their niche, just like a trout, and a trout in a stream is probably more intelligent in that environment than an octopus would be in that stream. Or a human, except if the human was smart, he’d catch that trout and fry him and not try to compete with him.

I would not order octopus on a menu, but I have had octopus plenty of times on tasting menus in the past. Never really cared for it and so I started requesting substitution. Wally Joe, in Memphis, convinced me to try it at his new restaurant a few years ago. Turned out to be one of the best things that my wife and I have ever eaten. We did a tasting menu that night and all of our dishes were perfect. Wally Joe kept peeking around the corner to watch us eat and judge our satisfaction. So, quality and skill come into the equation. My wife has always been a huge fan of him and his buddy Bob Waggoner.

I’ve stopped eating animals that are uglier and dumber than me.

You should all be very relieved. neener

Michael Douglas cited that as causing his throat cancer.

My wife and I generally eat a “Jain Diet,” but cheat and have meat or fish twice per week. I still love me some steak and seafood!

It’s not philosophy based, I just can’t eat allium family items, so this style of eating is ‘safe.’

I don’t care if wine was fined with eggs or stuff like then…we are pretty loose about specifics.

This reminds me of the controversial “Consider the Lobster” article (Gourmet magazine?).

Just had an excellent Octopus dish from The Gundis here in Chicago. Most tender ever

Yes, everyone is free to do as they wish and we all rationalize. However, I don’t understand the rationalization that I can eat anything I want just because it tastes good, including rare and endangered organisms or pets like dogs and cats, in the same way I can’t comprehend people who brag about the killing/eating of rare animals. There are choices humans can make that demonstrate we have more awareness, understanding, and empathy than a shark. And the research on octopuses aren’t “fairy stories”, but rationalize away.

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Easy, Stephen. While I don’t disagree with what you’ve said, the purpose of this thread wasn’t to give anyone a green light to talk trash about another person’s eating habits.

No worries. I wasn’t intentionally “talking trash” and didn’t feel like others were about me, even though they expressed a different view. There have been a lot different comments so I wanted to clarify mine to counter some of those points.