evo. psych and the 6 most terrifying foods in the world

Ahaha: Belief in Evolutionary Psychology May Be Hardwired, Study Says. (It's fake, of course. And I'm not saying there's nothing whatsoever to evolutionary psychology, but there IS the unfortunate tendency, as there always is every time we try to study our own selves scientifically, for us to project our own little beliefs and desires about humanity onto things. Hence a lot of really iffy retarded crap, especially gender-related. I expect the people coming up with it are not great scientists, or at least they aren't playing great scientists at the time.)

Also: The 6 Most Terrifying Foods in the World.

The escamoles doesn't sound that bad to me, maybe because i've long been tempted by insectophagy. If anything, it just seems like an awful lot of effort to collect the eggs. Not optimal.

The worst to me is casu marzu. D: And I also feel bad for the boiled-alive duck fetuses. Gross is one thing but gross + cruel is another entirely. I wonder how humane it is to freeze or refrigerate bird eggs. Freezing is a very humane method of euthanasia for arthropods, but I seem to recall that this is not the case for, say, reptiles. And birds aren't even cold-blooded. So it's probably a no-go.

I totally buy Harris's arguments in Good to Eat, but I swear that some things must just be eccentricity. Due to their lack of optimality under optimal foraging theory. But perhaps there are bizarre nutritional benefits to some of these more obscure things, and/or socioeconomic status things. Like, so-and-so is so posh, they can afford the baby mouse wine. Which is clearly not a very economical use of either protein or alcohol. The food equivalent of really really long sleeves, or shoes with the curly bits at the toes. Why? Because we can, and the poor plebes can't.

Anyway, I have heard of *way* more horrifying foods than these. Like ones involving cruelty to animals. I hope a lot of those are apocryphal, or at least not routine culinary practices.

Links fixed and post edited 10/25.