There are not many things I won’t eat, but…
I like food. I cannot lie:) And for the overwhelming majority of my life, I have not eaten good food. You know, food high in fat. You know, good food:) In the last 3 years, due to a health issue, I’ve had to significantly reduce my fat intake, so I don’t eat a lot of meat and pretty much no fried food:( No burgers, no fried fish, no chicken fingers, no steak:(
This week’s ARTICLE focuses on food, but don’t get too excited cause these are foods will not likely be available anytime soon here in the USA. The article addresses 22 foods that are not allowed in the US and let me know which food you would eat and which you definitely wouldn’t eat.
I too am a food enthusiast and like many Americans, I occasionally prefer taste rather than nutritional value when it comes to choosing my diet. I found the list of food items that are banned in the U.S. very interesting and intriguing. I appreciate how the article also mentioned the reasoning behind banning these foods. After perusing the different foods, I decided foie gras and ortolan are two foods that I definitely won’t be eating. I think it is inhumane to force feed a tiny songbird and drown it in brandy; I mean, how sad! I also think that force feeding geese to achieve foie gras is also a practice that I don’t want to participate in. On the other hand, unpasteurized milk is something I would like to try at some point. I know of a few locals in Wyoming who actually market this product back home so I did some research and it turn out that four states (Wyoming, South Dakota, Missouri, and Vermont) actually allow the sale of raw milk. Overall, I think that most foods on the “forbidden” list are properly justified because banning them in the U.S. protects the animal they are derived from. Great read!
Growing up in a Latin/Hispanic household, we ate some food that some of my friends today would turn their noses to. I like a good bowl of menudo (tripe) and some delicious trips (small intestines) tacos. That being said, I am very particular about the preparation of these dishes if I am eating them outside of my own home. Reading the article, there are quite a few dishes I would not consume, starting with haggis; it is just a hard pass looking at the photos in the articles. The second dish would be Casu martzu aka maggot cheese. Looking up that dish on Google left some undesired feelings. The item mentioned in the article I would eat would be the red drum fish since there are regulations on how many can be caught.
To start, I will say I am a pretty picky eater. I do not like trying new foods, so it is pretty safe to say that almost everything on this list did not appeal to me. The Kinder Surprise Eggs would be something I would try, just because I have seen commercials on them, and they don’t look too bad. On the other hand, anything that has blood in the name is out for me. Also, another thing that I would never try is horse meat. I know people who say it tastes like chicken, but I don’t think someone could pay me to try it. I am not surprised that unpasteurized milk is forbidden in the U.S. but I have tried fresh goat milk before and it’s not that bad. I understand that its not so much about the taste, but more so the bacteria that could be in it. I think it’s pretty safe to say that I would not try most of the items on this list, but it was very interesting to see all the different items on the list.
I am opened to trying any food but the ones listed that are banned from the U.S. do not look very appetizing. I will for sure not be eating sea turtles, swans and monkey meat. And maybe pigs blood cake, its probably just the name thats throwing me off. I’d try raw milk and probably horse meat. But other than that most of these foods don’t look very appetizing to me.
Growing up, my parents attempted to make sure I wasn’t a picky eater, especially by making sure I frequently tried new foods and retried eating foods I disliked in the past. However, despite their best efforts, I still grew up a picky eater, with my go-to-meal usually being chicken tenders or a sandwich. Thus, upon looking over this article, there are definitely some foods I would try, or have already tried, and some that were not even appealing to the eye! I found it very interesting that they are getting rid of the Kinder eggs, given how good they are, but it is also not a shocker to me because they are banned in Germany, which my mom learned after she tried to bring some home to the United States after her deployment there! Likewise, I wouldn’t mind trying Tonka beans or the silver dragees, especially as they looked the most appetizing in the pictures. However, some of the foods I would be very reluctant to try, if at all, include the haggis, shark fins, and unpasteurized milk, especially as they are not even visually appealing. Not to mention, it is mind-blowing to think about the possible food-borne illnesses these options could contain.
For me, I love food just as much as the next one but most of these I don’t think I would consume. I would consume the unpasteurized milk and that is only because I have many times due to the fact I milked cows for a local dairy farm growing up so it doesn’t bother me as much as maybe it should! Fugu scares me due to the easy slip up that could happen and cause death, but I think if it were prepared in a Michelin Star restaurant then I would trust for an average of $200 an experience that they would know what they were doing it. I would try absinth because I think that the lore of it is pretty cool, but I also would never be able to stomach a whole barrel to even experience what everyone talks about, so maybe I wouldn’t. I’m not a big drinker in general so I can’t see a world where I would ever get myself in a situation where it’s present. The pig’s blood cake gives me chills even thinking about consuming it so that one is a big no for me. I am very weird with food so if I eat a bite with a weird texture or taste… I will not be finishing the meal, and I can see this happening instantly with the blood cake. The bird one where they fatten it up and drown it, I could never do that or eat something that I know was prepared like that. I am way too much of an animal lover for that. The rest, it’s pretty safe to say I wouldn’t try. Cool and all, but not quite for me!
Honestly, seeing through all the pictures of the food banned in the United Stated makes me be glad that they banned these in the country. I’m not going to lie, I probably won’t be able to eat any of these except for the kinder surprise eggs because those look like the only thing I could eat without throwing up and they are super delicious in my opinion, although they can be very dangerous for kids so I understand why these are banned, when I used to live in Mexico I used to eat these all the time. However, the food I would never try in this list is ”haggis”. The idea of sheep’s heart, liver, and lungs mixed with oats and spices, all encased in a sheep’s stomach, just doesn’t appeal to my palate. The texture is also something I struggle with, it’s quite dense and grainy, which I find very unappetizing.
I appreciate the environmental reasons why some of these foods are banned. I think protecting wildlife is so important, and we should not prioritize our delicacies over the survival of their species. Many of the animals necessary for these foods seem to be treated unethically. For example, the Ortolan bird. I think it is terrible that this animal is force-fed and then drowned in alcohol for human consumption. Foie Gras is similar. It involves unethically treating ducks and geese by overfeeding them, but over and underfeeding is often done for various reasons in commercial ranching. It is difficult to know where we draw the line in how we treat animals intended for food. Overall, I do not think that we should be doing unethical things to animals in order to eat them.
I have heard of Tonka beans before, and I know many people outside the US cook with them often. Considering that it requires such a large amount to be harmful, I think these beans should be taken off the list of banned foods. The foods we chose to ban and not ban in the US are funny. We are willing to keep selling and consuming foods with known carcinogens, such as processed foods and cigarettes, but we outlaw other foods because they are culturally taboo, even if they are not all that harmful. I think there are some changes that need to be made for the health of the American people.
P.S. “The FDA bars food if it contains more than 50 maggots per 100 grams” is terryfying. So does that mean a lot of our food has maggots in it or?
I have never really read much about certain foods that are banned in the United States, so I thought this article was very interesting. I am a picky eater, and I don’t like any seafood. So, most of the food on that list I would not eat. I am also very conscious of how my food is prepare and I get anxiety about illnesses that comes from contaminated food and undercooked meat. I still enjoy a lot of the unhealthy food that is already offer here in the United States. I thought it was really interesting to read about the various reasons why these foods are not allowed in the U.S.!
I also like food. Lately my diet has been super restricted. Let me just say if I never have curry again I would be ok with that. This being said I really would prefer never to even see maggot cheese in real life. Not much can turn my stomach but that dish did the job. Cheers!
We drink raw milk at our house and have for years because I grew up on a dairy farm. I have had beluga caviar and its delicious but, that was ages ago. I would hard pass on any of the meat because I agree that force feeding animals to enlarge their livers is awful. I know that Americans view a lot of animals as companions and not meat, and I think that’s ok. As I got older, my thoughts on food have changed and I am now a vegetarian and find eating animals of any kind is a difficult concept for me. I love chocolate and know better than to eat the toy inside, so I would eat that!