Shark fin soup [Food/Vendor]

2011 Mar 21
This Thursday on Q the featured topic is "Is banning shark fin soup racist?" www.cbc.ca

If anyone is interested in tuning in Q is broadcast on CBC Radio One from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm. Yes I will be listening-;)

2011 Mar 21
"Is banning shark fin soup racist?"

Maybe, because of the cultural implication of the dish.

More importantly, if one endangered fish (or ocean speices) gets banned (moratorium) then shouldn't they ALL be banned ?

If not, who is to pick and choose ? ... and on what grounds ?


2011 Mar 21
Banning shark fin soup has nothing to do with racism. I would support the ban because of the horrendous harvesting practices - it just so happens to be a Chinese delicacy.


2011 Mar 21
"More importantly, if one endangered fish (or ocean speices) gets banned (moratorium) then shouldn't they ALL be banned ? "

They all should be. It's hard enough to get a species listed as endangered / banned that they should all be protected when they reach that lofty status. The harvesting methods are akin to cutting off a tiger's paw and releasing them into the jungle.

If they can find a _marginally_ humane harvesting practice and through some means such as aquaculture, can ensure wild population levels are maintained/improved then I would have no problem with that particular cultural practice. I don't forsee this in the near future though.

2011 Mar 21
Not sure how banning shark fin soup is racist. A practice where only one part one part of the shark is used is just wrong. Just like killing a black bear for the gallbladder and leaving the rest to rot. It's just wrong no matter what culture it is.

2011 Mar 22
The "humane" harvesting practice would be pretty much the same as with any meat animal : kill the animal as fast and painlessly as possible, and waste as little of the animal as possible.

Without being an expert on the history of shark fin soup, I'm pretty sure that "traditionally" the whole shark was caught and brought back . The fins would then be bought by the richest people (for their famed special properties)but the rest of the fish would also be used. Shark meat is good, and shark skin can be used in crafts.

Usually, chinese cooking seems to be using every part of the animals that are killed. It seems like this horrible "shark finning" method must be a newish thing thought up by a few especially greedy fishermen.

Now it remains to see if any shark species can sustain a limited fishing pressure after all that abuse. I fish and I hunt myself, but not endangered species! Keeping traditional recipes alive is nice, but if they are not careful the main ingredient will go extinct (I would like to have a real tourtière made with tourte (passenger pigeon)... not gonna happen). Maybe they have to choose between having shark fin only once every few years or losing it forever.

2011 Mar 25
We should eat more little fish, like anchovies and sardines. First of all the predator / prey balance is being skewed by harvesting of large fish. Secondly the smaller fish are safer to eat, because the top-of-the-chain predators like sharks and swordfish concentrate toxins.

2011 Mar 25
In India cows are sacred, but we eat them here. Cows also produce a lot of greenhouse gas (methane - the agricultural sector dwarfs the transportation sector in GHG production - a vegetarian driving a hummer emits less GHG than a meat eater driving a prius). It also takes a huge amount of grain to feed a cow. The grain could feed a lot more people than the meat can. Also the industry slaughters cows efficiently, but not necessarily humanely. A bolt of compressed air is driven into their brain, supposedly stunning them unconscious before they are skinned and dismembered, but it doesn't always work and many times they are skinned and dismembered while still alive and conscious.

Eating cows is terrible for the planet, and well as being a religious sacrilege (for some people), and terribly inhumane. Before we get to sharks, we need to urgently tackle this destructive and immoral practice first.

Eating beef should be banned !

Yes I think it's both hypocritical and racist to find faults with other people behaviors when we possess and ignore even greater faults in our own behaviors.

2011 Mar 25
Francis, while your points are valid, the comparison between Beef and Shark inhumanity is not. The beef equivalent to shark-finning would involve always tying down a steer and carving out its tenderloin while it screams and struggles, then releasing it to run away and slowly die from loss of blood or infection.

While those with racist views might use this sort of thing as ammunition against an entire group, there is no direct correlation. Someone who finds the practise of shark-finning abhorrent is not being racist!

2011 Mar 25
Hi Fresh Foodie, On further reflection I think you are right and I take back my position.

Also sometimes it takes an outside viewpoint to see something that cannot be seen from the inside. As a developer I know the value of independent QA.

So yes, we do have a right to criticize and point out the faults of other peoples and cultures. And they ours (which either they seldom do or our media never reports it).

Personally I do not support the killing of sharks for soup, even if done humanely. Neither the killing of whales for food.

2011 Mar 25
Francis- I take it you are a vegetarian and do not wear leather??
just curious.

For eating small fish, you can also have fried smelts, those are pretty good usually.
I don't make those, but used to buy them at Merivale Fish market every week or two when I lived nearby.

I'm surprized that no one has invented a mock shark fin soup.
Also, don't some restaurants sell shark steak? pretty sure I seen that before.

2011 Mar 26
I'm mostly vegetarian, and don't wear leather. I do eat fish, but no eggs or diary. I started this about 4 years ago when my teenage daughter became vegetarian (she's more strict). The good part was I lost 50 lbs, and have kept it off. My cholesterol is normal now too, with a very high HDL component. I also have a lot of energy and my hair stopped thinning - in fact it grew back thick. So I guess rolled back the clock 10 years I think, by giving up beef, chicken and pork. The pork was the hardest one for me to give up, sigh. :-)

I actually tried shark fin soup once, as a kid. My family rented a beach house house in Trinindad, and we used to walk down and watch the fishermen pull in their nets. They ran them out into the sea in big loops with motorboats and then two gangs of men pulled each end of the loop back into shore.

Sometimes sharks would be pulled in. By then they were dead and drowned from being entangled in the net. In those days sharks were reviled as mindless killing machines. Trinidadians don't eat sharks either, so they were mostly just buried.

My dad asked for them. After boiling the fins for at least a couple of days on simmer, what's left are translucent noodle like threads. I remember them tasting pretty good. But as I said before, I don't approve of killing sharks for soup, and I now believe they are actually pretty intelligent, as most top predators are. The way they hunt seals is unique to each individual shark and pretty creative.

Yes there is a mock shark fin - it from a melon, which in asia is called "shark fin melon". It's sort of like a spaghetti squash. Here is a picture of it:


2011 Mar 26
The noodles don't have much taste though . . . so you have to flavor via the broth. Apparently they also make a good vegetable spaghetti for those who avoid gluten. I've seen them sold in Chinatown, cut in half. A whole one is pretty big.

Shark Intelligence:

It's actually quite obvious that sharks are highly intelligent. Great White Sharks, for example, travel all over the world and arrive at specific places to take advantage of abundances of food. For example they arrive off the west coast of South Africa just when the new seal pups are ready to go forth into the ocean. It's perfectly timed. Thus they have an extended sense of time (a lot more than a dog's sense of time - more than a year). They also have the ability to navigate to specific areas of the planet across tens of thousands of kilometers of open ocean. When they arrive, each shark has a unique hunting technique. Some of them cruise near the bottom looking for the silhouettes of inexperienced seals above them, then shoot up like rockets, slamming into their prey directly from below at great speed, jaws open. It's often said that sharks bite humans by mistake. I don't think so. I think they are continually testing their environment for interesting opportunities. Behaviorally they are highly adaptable. They probably even recognize individual divers if they see them frequently. All of which begs the question . . . do they see us as mindless killing machines?

There are many pages on shark fin melon soup - no sharks involved.

Here are a couple:

www.noobcook.com

soupqueen.blogspot.com

2011 Mar 26
Female genital mutilation is a common practice in some cultures. If I find this abhorrent, does that make me a racist?

2011 Mar 26
Anorexia nervosa (not just genital, but whole body mutilation) is very common in some cultures. If I find that repugnant, does that make me a racist?

I'm no psychologist, but let me tell you where I think the the racist instinct come from - it comes from tribalism. It comes form an "us vs. them" mentality. These are pretty common things and anyone can be a racist or have a racist mentality. The antidote, is education.

2011 Mar 26
Anorexia is a disease. If you read the literature, it's not like choosing to eat meat, choosing to have one's genitals mutilated for cultural purposes or choosing to eat shark fin soup.

2011 Mar 26
I think this discussion has lost its way! :-(

Did anyone end up listening to the "Q" episode that asked "Is banning shark fin soup racist?" I'd be interested to hear what was decided, although it's probably likely that they interviewed people with opposing viewpoints rather than answering the question outright. ;-)

2011 Mar 27
Another pointer to shark intelligence: a lot of public aquariums now have sharks, because they are a crowd pleaser . . . the funny thing is, sharks in captivity need to be hand fed. They won't attack the other fish in the tank. Nor the divers who go in periodically to clean the glass from the inside. Can there be a clearer refutation of the mindless killing machine label ?

Then there is the curious behavior, observed by biologists but never filmed, of Greenland sharks: to wit, they've been seen to hunt caribou. They swim up rivers where caribou cross and drink and lie on the bottom facing into the current, so they can breathe. When a caribou comes to drink they leap up and grab it's head and nose, and pull it under - similar to the way crocodiles hunt zebras at watering holes in Africa. That's a very cunning strategy, and not rote behavior at all. It displays a high degree of planning.

2011 Mar 27
Here is the CBC Podcast of Q from last Thursday:

podcast.cbc.ca

Anyone that has the time , please summerize here. Like FF, I'm curious as well.


2011 Mar 28
Thanks Captain Caper for posting the podcast. If anyone cares to listen to it the link is to a one hour segment of Q but the shark fin piece only lasts for the first 20 minutes. So you don't have to listen to the full hour-;)

I did in fact listen to the segment (although belatedly) and hadn't had a chance to post a followup until now. So, in summary this is what transpired:

Gian discussed the topic "Is banning shark fin soup racist?" with Francis Lamb (editor of an online ezine - didn't catch the name sorry). He mentioned that some US states (notably California) have banned shark fins and they would like make the sale of shark fins illegal. A bill is being past in the California legislature and the first reading passed unanimously last week.

Sharks are harvested for their fins only and the fish are thrown back into the water to bleed to death. Shark fins are harvested because they are considered a Chinese delicacy and most notably used for the Chinese delicacy shark fin soup. However some consider this to be an attack on Asian culture. (Hence the title of the show "Is banning shark fin soup racist?")

Paul Fong (chief of staff to California State Senator Leeland Yee) is the one spearheading the bill to make the sale of shark fins illegal and was interviewed by Gian. He mentioned that the banning of other Asian foods have been attempted in the past. (He mentioned turtles, frogs, moon cakes, and rice noodles among others.) He compared it to the practice of Asian women binding their feet. This practice was considered unhealthy so the practice was stopped. He said his intentions are to stop doing things that are unhealthy. He is against finning and would like this practice to stop.

So that's pretty well the gist of the interview. Let the discussion continue...

2011 Mar 28
Hey Francis, sharks being hand fed are not because they are intelligent. They are hand fed - or at least well provided for so that the DO NOT eat the other fish in the tank or attack the feeders. If those sharks were hungry and not acclimatized to the divers - the fish - or at least the ones they deemed worthwhile would get eaten. Same goes for most predators in captivity. This by the way is way off topic ... I put my vote in that finning sharks for soup is bad - I won't eat shark fin soup.

2011 Mar 29
As Yoda would put it, "so certain are we?"

From wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark

Intelligence

Contrary to the common wisdom that sharks are instinct-driven "eating machines", recent studies have indicated that many species possess powerful problem-solving skills, social skills and curiosity. The brain- to body-mass ratios of sharks are similar to mammals and birds.[49] In 1987, near Smitswinkle Bay, South Africa, a group of up to seven great white sharks worked together to move a partially beached dead whale to deeper waters to feed.[50] Sharks can engage in playful activities. Porbeagle sharks have been seen repeatedly rolling in kelp and chasing an individual who trailed a piece of kelp behind it.[51]

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Paul Fong (chief of staff to California State Senator Leeland Yee) has faulty logic. As I've already pointed out, eating beef is far more unhealthy (for the eater and for the environment) and just as cruel as eating shark fins. If the argument is health, then we need to stop eating beef first. However, if sharks are intelligent, the argument against eating them would be that it's a violation of a Kantian Imperative and therefore immoral. As sentient creatures they should be regarded as "ends in themselves" rather than as "means to ends" (eaten for nourishment or hedonistic enjoyment or as status symbols).

2011 Mar 29
Francis, removing high-trophic predators from a system causes extreme environmental damage as well. In terms of energy per lb, cows are far more efficient then sharks. Every lb of shark meet likely required the same energy as 5 lb of beef. Not to mention the mercury naurally bioaccumulates in shark and not in beef.

Beef is generally bad for us, but we should moderate the hyperbole in our discussions.

2011 Mar 29
Cows are not efficient feeders at all, because grass is mostly cellulose, which is why cows need 4 stomachs and produce a lot of methane. The agricultural sector produces a lot more greenhouse gas than the transportation sector. A lot more. I'll get the numbers for you. As for the health effects: iron overload, cholesterol, fatty liver . . . just the facts. :-)

2011 Mar 29
Despite popular belief, cows do NOT have four stomachs. However, they do have one large one with four compartments known as the rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abomasum. Going to a buffet would have a whole new appeal! Cows have the benefit of this feature, and put it to good use.

2011 Mar 29
Let's gather some facts. First for beef:

en.wikipedia.org

The production of protein from grain-fed animals requires eight times as much fossil-fuel energy as the production of plant protein.[4] According to an article in Environmental Health Perspectives, typical feedlot husbandry of cattle requires an input of 35 kcal of fossil fuel to produce one kcal of food energy in beef, far more than that required for comparable plants.[15]

A 2006 study at the University of Chicago concluded that a person switching from a typical American diet to a vegan diet with the same number of calories would prevent the emission of 1485 kg of carbon dioxide. The difference exceeds that of an individual switching from a Toyota Camry to the hybrid Toyota Prius, and collectively amounts to over 6% of the total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.[16]

www.thebeefsite.com

World beef production is around 56 million tons annually. So if we didn't "do" beef we could have 450 million tons of grain instead.


2011 Mar 29
Sharks . . . maybe 70 million taken annually, about half for their fins and the other half for other things like fish and chips. So why ban just shark fin soup, why not ban all shark consumption? Seems like we are saying it's ok to make fish and chips from sharks because that's what we eat, but not shark fin soup, because that's what the other guy eats . . .

2011 Mar 29
I want to try shark fish and chips... where to kop?

BTW, plant protein is not a complete protein, and you require a lot more plants to obtain the same amount of protein as from meat, so you may want to take this into consideration.

2011 Mar 30
Quinoa is a complete plant protein: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinoa

Unlike wheat or rice (which are low in lysine), and like oats, quinoa contains a balanced set of essential amino acids for humans, making it an unusually complete protein source among plant foods.[10] Quinoa is being considered a possible crop in NASA's Controlled Ecological Life Support System for long-duration manned spaceflights.[10]

The analysis of cows above looked at the energy to produce beef, but did not take account of the GHGs from the methane cows produce.

ezinearticles.com

Because methane is 20 times more potent as a GHG than CO2, a cow produces as much GHG per year as the average car. But there are only 600m cars in the world and 1.5b cows. So twice as much GHGs from the cows.

2011 Mar 30
"Seems like we are saying it's ok to make fish and chips from sharks because that's what we eat, but not shark fin soup, because that's what the other guy eats".

Can you point to someone in this thread who "seems" to be saying that because I can't find it. I gather most people are against shark fin soup because of the absolutely abhorrent wastefulness of the practice. i.e. the whole shark is not being used.


2011 Mar 30
The fish in England's "fish and chips" is sometimes dogfish or school shark (although this would be considered low quality "fish & chips". True "fish and chips" consists of cod, haddock (the 2 most popular) and also plaice). The prejudice against shark meat arises from a distaste for the scavenging habits people attribute to sharks, and to the fact that the meat spoils quickly.

Other names shark meat goes by:

www.visiondive.com

English Names:
- Flake
- Huss
- Catfish
- Dogfish
- Grayfish
- Steakfish
- Whitefish
- Lemon Fish
- Cape Steak
- Rock Salmon
- Smoked Rock Salmon
- Smoked Dogfish
- Rigg
- Gummy
- Sea Ham
- Sokomoro
- Tofu Shark
- Ocean Fillet
- Imitation Crab Meat (Surimi)
- Component of Fish & Chips

2011 Mar 30
There are lots of wasteful practices: for example discarding the fish heads (which asians eat), cow tongues, driving hummers, etc.. Any commercial fishing with nets produces "waste" because the bycatch (catch of unwanted species, then discarded) is very high. Nothing escapes those steel nets.

Health effects of eating beef: www.cqs.com/beef.htm

1. Beef contains significant quantities of the most toxic organic chemical known - dioxin. This chemical is toxic in the trillionths of grams. (A trillionth of a gram, called a picogram, is one million millionth of a gram. A gram is about 1/30th of an ounce.) Dioxin has been linked to cancer, endometriosis, Attention Deficit Disorder (hyperactivity in children), reproductive systems defects in children, chronic fatigue syndrome, immune system deficiency, and rare nerve and blood disorders. A single hamburger (a little less than 1/4 lb, or 100 grams) contains up to 100 picograms of dioxin. That is 300 times as much as the EPA says is "acceptable" for a daily dose for an adult! There are some scientists who say that there is no acceptable dose; they say that any dose can cause toxic effects, because dioxin is a hormone disrupting chemical which changes the functioning of our cells, against which we have no defense. The dioxin comes from microscopic particles of ash from incinerators that have settled on grass and crops eaten by the beef cattle, pigs, and chickens. All farm animals are affected - even herds grown on "all-natural" feed. See dioxin.

2. The huge amount of beef that we consume, in combination with the usual side-orders of other fatty foods (such as french fries) and caffeine and refined sugars (cola beverages) appears to be one of the major causes of obesity in the U.S. and Europe. Beef is "dumped" into our schools by the beef industry and the USDA - beef producers are paid by the government for "surplus" beef (the vast amount they cannot sell) which is subsequently "donated" to school lunch programs, helping our children to get hooked on this unhealthy food.

3. Beef production is the major cause of the destruction of the world's rainforests. The high price of beef encourages ranchers to burn the forest to create new rangelands. The fragile, thin rainforest soil cover is quickly destroyed by grazing in 1-2 years, and the ranchers move on to burn another area, in a never-ending cycle of destruction. Thousands of species of plants and animals have already been destroyed forever, as well as straining the earth's ability to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. At current rates, the rainforests will be totally destroyed in 30-50 years.

4. Beef production is the major cause of "desertification" around the world - the rapid degradation of marginal, low-rainfall soil areas into desert. The constant pounding of the hoofs of cattle disturbs and eventually destroys the delicate root systems which keep the topsoil layer intact. Erosion by winds or storms removes the topsoil, leaving the sand or clay subsoil layer behind.

5. Beef production is a serious social justice issue. Beef cattle and their grazing land take up nearly a quarter of the land mass of the earth, to supply beef to the U.S., Europe, and Japan. About one third of the world's grain harvest is used for feed for cattle instead of food for people. In the U.S., that figure is over 70 percent. It takes 16 pounds of grain to produce a single pound of beef. This, in a world where nearly a billion people lack enough food, is unjust. Beef production for the developed parts of the world is severely limiting the amount of food available for people in the poor and developing world.

6. Beef can harbor a deadly new germ, called e. coli O157:H7. This new germ is now a major cause of serious food poisoning. Beef and dairy cattle can carry the germ with no apparent adverse health effects. The germ, found in cattle feces, has contaminated beef and produce grown with cow manure. So far it has killed dozens of people and sickened thousands. In August, 1997, 25 million pounds of beef were recalled, the largest food recall in the world's history, because of O157:H7 contamination of beef destined to Burger King restaurants. The precautions against the germ - including cooking to 160º F (71º C) - reveals a disgusting side of beef production - there is no way to prevent fecal contamination during slaughter. See O157:H7.

2011 Mar 30
Way to avoid my question Francis.


2011 Mar 30
I'm saying that the real unsaid reason "that it's what the other guy eats", no one else may come out and say it, but when you look at the other reasons, they turn out to be straw men: health (cows worse), environmental damage (cows worse), waste (everywhere, cows and chickens worse). These "reasons" are not unique to shark fin soup.

I point out too that any commercial fishing with nets is wasteful. Why not ban that? Beef production is also wasteful because 8 times as much calories can be produced from the grain itself.

Do you eat chicken feet? Asians do. Here they are discarded. Isn't that wasteful? Perhaps chicken consumption should be banned?

Did you know that most male chicks are put into a grinder? They simply aren't wanted. 50% waste.

See it here:

2011 Mar 30
There is certainly a lot of waste going on at the consumer level but at least a consumer has the option to use chicken feet or not. Even "here" we can buy chicken feet at the super market.

I admit there is a lot of waste in our food chain. But we have to start somewhere in fixing it and can't be paralyzed by a "but these other industries are doing it too" attitude. Let's stop the wasteful practice of shark fin harvesting AND look at these other things as well.


2011 Mar 30
Francis, chicken feet aren't normally discarded. The US and Canada account for over half of China's imports of chicken feet (they call them 'paws') because the Chinese poultry folks can't produce enough to satisfy the huge domestic demand.

Does grinding up male chicks (gross video btw) count as waste though? If someone is buying and making use of the ground bits (a feed processor, pet food maker etc...), I posit that that counts as making good use of something that would otherwise go to waste.

2011 Mar 30
Gee, how did this turn into another "eating meat is evil/bad for the environment/bad for health" thread. You do realise you are not going to convert the omnivores here into vegetarians, right?

I'm not going to bother countering arguments one by one, but I'd like to say at least that I don't see how eating grass fed beef wastes grain... and grass can grow in places where most grain wouldn't.

Many butchery animals are fed on things that humans can't or won't eat : grass, waste products from food processing (pulp of pressed fruits, brewery mash), fruit or meat that didn't meet standards. Raising animals is one of the oldest ways to avoid wasting ressources.

But I shouldn't expect logic from an "evengelical vegetarian" (hey, I don't mind vegetarians, just those who try to convert others). It's probably much more environmentally friendly to shoot and eat some of the free range meat (aka hares, wild turkeys, deers) roaming in the region than to eat quinoa imported from who knows were, so don't pretend your reason for not eating meat is saving the planet.

But what does this all have to do with shark fin soup anyway?

2011 Mar 30
Maybe I should have been more explicit. The vast majority of grains do not contain complete proteins. Furthermore, you say that you can produce 16x the amount of calories from grain than beef, but you're ignoring that we don't only eat calories...

Also, if you're talking about environmental disasters... rice is absolutely terrible for the environment. Rice paddies are responsible for between 50 and 150 million metric tonnes of methane gas per year.

So please, I appreciate that you're a vegetarian, but please don't come here and lecture me about the evils of meat production and promote your own agenda.

2011 Mar 30
The topic of this thread is Shark Fin Soup.

In a thread intended to discuss "Your Beef with Beef", it would be perfectly appropriate. It is reasonable to state on this topic that in your opinon, shark fin soup is no different then a steak dinner for various reasons. The response from those with other perspectives will tend to mention that shark fin soup is more wasteful and less ethical due to the current method of harvesting.

I applaud your science which, even if it is a little focussed in the direction of advocacy. Valid science, but to be fair you should examine both Beef and Shark if you are attempting to compare them. Sharks have both Mercury and Dioxin bioaccumulation. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

French fries and Cola do not have any relevance in a discussion of Shark Fin soup.

Yes, there are _serous_ problems with the current "green-revolution" style big agribusiness produced products. Those problems apply both to animal production (Beef) and plant crops (Soy/Rice/Corn). These are problem which need to be fixed and we are actively working on through awareness campaigns. Shark harvesting instead poses a different set of problems (hunting harvesting related including the poaching concerns, waste of meat and bycatch).

The key difference is that no one is consuming Shark Fin Soup out of necessity. There is no significant neutrional value to Shark Fin soup, while the protein, lipids and even cholesterol in beef and other farmed meet actually do serve a legitimate purpose when consumed in moderation.

Now, can we move back onto the topic of Shark Fin Soup? I would be happy to discuss the evils of meat in other threads.


2011 Mar 30
Well, I'm not really trying to evangelize or lecture anyone, but simply to point out that if we are going to ban things we should be fair about it. Shark finning is not uniquely wasteful, or uniquely unhealthy, or uniquely bad for the environment. Though putting the shoe on the other foot as it were, don't we go out into the world and regularly lecture other men about the foods they should eat, the political system they should adopt, and even the God they should worship? Where does the word "evangelize" come from anyway? Probably not from Buddhism . . . (Heck we do more than lecture, we launch the Tomahawks at the drop of a hat)

I do believe we should ban the harvesting of sharks, for all purposes, because they are intelligent creatures with a simple right to life, like whales. That doesn't single out any group's food choice does it? And I did point out when I first raised the issue of cows, that the Indians don't try to ban the consumption beef, though they would have more justification for that position than we would with sharks, wouldn't they (it's God, or a God, after all).

My 12 year old son eats beef and pork and chicken, so I'm hardly someone who doesn't respect the choices others make, be they different from my own. We do all share the same planet though. And when the temperature rises, it rises for everyone, both those who bike and those who drive, those who eat beef and those who don't. I guess we just have to take that as part of life.

2011 Mar 30
I think what's been lost here is that the original discussion had nothing to do with the ethics of killing sharks for food. That sharks are intelligent and may be endangered is entirely irrelevant to the topic.

This topic was initially ONLY about the ethics of shark fin soup. Specifically, the act of "finning" live sharks and then leaving them to starve to death sans fin.

Any discussion of vegetarianism or beef is off topic -- not that I consider that to be a crime. Just don't use it as an argument against the banning of shark fin soup!

2011 Mar 30
....but what about vegetarian sharks? Maybe they eat popcorn.

2011 Mar 31
My issue with shark fin soup is the way the fins are harvested. If the sharks were being caught for food (steaks, fillets, etc.) and used from nose-to-tail so to speak I would be more likely to try it. I respect the fact that it is a Chinese delicacy but I think the practice of finning is inhumane. There will be no shark fin soup in my foreseeable future.

2011 Jun 15
I found out via a friend on Facebook that Sharkwater Productions has a petition to make Toronto a shark fin free city: www.finfreetoronto.com