Balut or Khai Luk

[chichi56788]

I think the very idea of eating an egg is gross. I was watching bazaar foods and I saw balut.

I feel so bad for the duck embryo.

 

[SarahIrl]

Ok, I eat eggs, I eat meat. I eat organic though, and free range. I do not eat veal, lamb or boiled baby chicken. I have eaten foie gras, and loved it, and I know that's cruel but found out afterwards how it's made. I am a fairly animal-friendly consumer, and would have no problem eating my own birds - I know how well they are kept and fed. Next year I am keeping growers, just hiding it from my m-i-l. Who lives next door. Also getting a bonabh (baby pig) next year, and a calf for growing. Hate weeding, so will not be growing my own veg apart from peas and cabage/kale for the chickens.

 

[kathyinmo]

 

[FenDruadin]

You know--I don't have a problem with it altogether, and it does seem like a good proposition for making money if I could sell enough and at a high enough price. But I still can't decide if it's a humane way to kill the bird... when slaughtering adult birds for meat, the process can be (and I know it isn't always, which is an issue for me) very quick and relatively trauma-free. But neither hypothermia, nor boiling, nor steaming seem like quick, painless, or untraumatic ways to go....

I'd love to hear more input and discussion, though, because I do agree that culture influences this stuff strongly. I know in some cultures the idea of eating fluid that came from the teats of another animal (milk) is disgusting, and in some cultures the idea of biting the head off a giant beetle and sucking its juices is considered delicious. So it's all relative to how you were brought up but... there is definitely a humane treatment issue too, and that is what I'm concerned about.

Anyone?

 

[aprophet]

Quote:
If it tastes the same, then I think I'd stick to the much easier plain boiled egg.

But it is interesting about how cultural some of these things are. We, as a culture, are pretty squeamish when it comes to our meat.

It is probably like eating raw oysters for breakfast iffn you did,nt grow up doing it I can see how it might be hard for someone the first time LOL I might be investigating the balut market we are covered in aisain reteraunts here. One lady told me she bought some once and waited to long to cook them and her mom came out front of the store and asked her why there were ducklings running around in the kitchen

 

[EweSheep]

I would not have any problems selling it to them for a reasonable price. It must be prepaid so they will come and pick it up and you wont have to be stuck with ducklings.
That would be another source of money for you!

As for the embryo, it is no different than boiling a live lobster for dinner or clams or seafood. It is quick and they body would just go into shock and they don't know it. Even some of us have boiled the eggs in our tempermental incubators! Try not to humanize it too much!

 

[SarahIrl]

Humanise it? Like all opinions on meat eating/vegetrianism (I was a vegetarian for years) and veganism, everyone to their own in my opinion. I wouldn't think badly of anyone for growing (? right word) balut, but personally, I couldn't. If I'm not happy eating it, I won't provide it for anyone else. It's just a bit beyond my "normal" parameters! I didn't grow up with it, and have hard enough time culling sick, unsaveable chicks. But, I have ethics enough to ensure no animal of mine will suffer. And that means humane killing if necessary. There is no way of humanely killing a chick in the egg by boiling. I don't eat lobster, but I will eat prawn - I have cooked them from live, and when they hit boiling water, they are dead. Lobsters take a minute or two. Oysters, never had them, and if I did try them, they would have to be cooked. Mussels also, dead once they it boiling temps. Egg shells are designed to take more abuse, rain heat cold and bashing. Nobody can convince me they are dead an unfeeling after two seconds in boiling water. So, for me - no thanks. No, I will not provide balut. For anyone else - knock yourself out!!

 

[lemurchaser]

It seems like cooling them to around 60 degrees would slow them to the point of being practically comatose. Then maybe refrigerate. Hypothermia isn't cruel, but freezing to death is. So killing a chick by putting it in the freezer is painful and cruel, but cooling it wouldn't be as bad. Humans report that you just get sleepy. I forget when it is that chick embryos even get pain receptors, I think its around day 10 for chickens, so maybe you could say you only go until day 12 or so for ducks.

It's interesting how many people are opposed to eating baby animals but not adult animals, its a life either way.

 

[aprophet]

Quote:
part of hypothermia is violent shivering it don,t really hurt but it sure is nerve racking yea then you start getting sleepy once you stop shivering kina like being asphyxiated

 

[SeaHen]

Where does the human mind come up with this stuff? Let's take a chick about to hatch and cook it in the shell. YUM! I'm not squeamish, but some "cultural" practices border on barbarism. I make the assumption that a fully developed chick is capable of feeling pain, and my logic tells me that being boiled alive probably hurts. I don't want to be a participant in that.