Why Don’t We Eat Penguins? (Explorers Did) — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00In 1898, a ship called the Belga became
2. 0:02trapped in Antarctic ice. It could not
3. 0:04move, and the sun was about to disappear
4. 0:06for months. The crew began to fall
5. 0:08apart. They were weak, depressed, and
6. 0:11some were close to losing their minds.
7. 0:12The ship's doctor, Frederick Cook, had a
8. 0:15strange idea. He told the men to eat
9. 0:17penguins. Many of them were disgusted by
10. 0:19the idea, but Cook kept insisting, and
11. 0:21the men who ate fresh penguin and seal
12. 0:23meat began to recover. So, we know one
13. 0:25thing for sure. Penguins can be eaten.
14. 0:28Explorers ate them to survive. Sailors
15. 0:30ate them for centuries. So why is there
16. 0:31no penguin in any grocery store? We eat
17. 0:33chicken, duck, turkey, goose, and even
18. 0:36ostrich. Everyone gives the same answer.
19. 0:38They're cute or they taste bad. Both
20. 0:41answers are incomplete. Some people also
21. 0:43say they're birds, so why not? That one
22. 0:46is incomplete, too. The real answer has
23. 0:48five parts, and the last one explains
24. 0:50why chicken is on your plate. Stay until
25. 0:52the end because it changes how you look
26. 0:54at your own dinner. Let's start with the
27. 0:56question itself. if they're also birds.
28. 0:58It sounds like logic, but it isn't.
29. 1:00There are around 10,000 species of birds
30. 1:02on Earth. We regularly eat a tiny
31. 1:05handful of them. You don't see
32. 1:06hummingbird on a menu. You don't see
33. 1:08eagle or flamingo or sparrow. Nobody
34. 1:11asks, "Why don't we eat robins? They're
35. 1:13birds, too." So, the word bird tells us
36. 1:15almost nothing. It is like asking, "Why
37. 1:17don't we eat tigers? They're mammals,
38. 1:19too. We eat cows and pigs, and both of
39. 1:22them are mammals." But being in the same
40. 1:23group doesn't make two animals the same
41. 1:25kind of food. What matters is which
42. 1:27birds became food and why. And here is a
43. 1:30detail that surprises people. We do eat
44. 1:33wild seabirds. In Iceland, people eat
45. 1:35puffin. On the Scottish island of Ness,
46. 1:37a small group of men travels each year
47. 1:39to a rock called sulas gare. They
48. 1:41harvest young ganuts in a tradition
49. 1:43called the googa hunt. In New Zealand,
50. 1:45Maui families harvest sudi sheer water
51. 1:47chicks called titi. They do it on and
52. 1:50around Rockyura, also known as Steuart
53. 1:52Island. That tradition goes back
54. 1:53centuries, so seabirds are on the menu
55. 1:55in some places. And penguins are
56. 1:57seabirds, so being a bird doesn't rule
57. 1:59them out. Being a seabird doesn't rule
58. 2:01them out either. The first reason is
59. 2:02gone. But the next part is something the
60. 2:04thumbnail won't show you. People often
61. 2:06say nobody has ever eaten penguin. That
62. 2:08is false. Penguin meat helped keep
63. 2:10explorers alive. The Belga was one
64. 2:12example. In 1916, Shackleton's ship
65. 2:15Endurance was crushed by ice. His crew
66. 2:17ended up stranded on Elephant Island. 22
67. 2:20men waited there for months while
68. 2:21Shackleton sailed for help. They
69. 2:23survived on seals and penguins. They
70. 2:25even burned blubber for fuel. Think
71. 2:27about that for a moment. The animals
72. 2:29that fed them also kept them warm.
73. 2:31Another group did something similar.
74. 2:32During Scott's Terteranova expedition,
75. 2:35six men of the northern party were
76. 2:36stranded for a winter. They dug an ice
77. 2:38cave on the coast to survive. They lived
78. 2:40mostly on seal and penguin meat. They
79. 2:42spent months in that cave, cold, dark,
80. 2:45and smoky. They survived. So penguin
81. 2:47meat did what it needed to do. It kept
82. 2:49people alive. Sealers and whalers ate
83. 2:51penguins and their eggs, too. In the
84. 2:53Faulland Islands, people collected
85. 2:55penguin eggs for food. In South Africa,
86. 2:57people harvested African penguin eggs
87. 2:59for decades. Those eggs were a normal
88. 3:01part of local diets. Then it got darker.
89. 3:03In the late 1800s, an industry appeared
90. 3:05on Mquarry Island, south of Australia.
91. 3:08Workers boiled penguins in huge iron
92. 3:10pots. They did it to get oil. Hundreds
93. 3:13of thousands of penguins were killed
94. 3:14over a few decades. That's what the
95. 3:16cauldron on some other thumbnails refers
96. 3:18to. So, we have a clear fact. Humans did
97. 3:20not ignore penguins. We tried them. We
98. 3:22built an industry on them. In some
99. 3:24places, we nearly wiped them out. But
100. 3:26notice something strange. Even then,
101. 3:29penguin was never a food. It was a food
102. 3:31of last resort. The oil was the product,
103. 3:34not the meat. Why did that happen?
104. 3:36First, the question everyone asks. Does
105. 3:38it taste bad? They taste awful. That is
106. 3:41the most common answer. So, let's test
107. 3:43it. Penguins eat fish, squid, and krill.
108. 3:46That diet shows up in their bodies.
109. 3:48Explorers described the meat as dark and
110. 3:50oily. Many compared the flavor to fish
111. 3:52more than to chicken. Many of them ate
112. 3:54it only because they had to. Some men
113. 3:56said they got used to it. Others never
114. 3:58did. A fresh penguin doesn't spoil
115. 4:00faster than any other bird. The strong
116. 4:02taste comes from what the animal eats.
117. 4:04We see the same thing with other
118. 4:05animals. Ducks that eat fish can taste
119. 4:07fishy. Farmers know that what an animal
120. 4:09eats changes how its meat tastes. But
121. 4:12taste alone never decides anything.
122. 4:14People eat anchovies. People eat blue
123. 4:16cheese. People eat fermented fish that
124. 4:18smells like a locker room. If something
125. 4:19is fatty, filling, and cheap, humans
126. 4:22find a way to cook it. Cooks have spent
127. 4:24centuries learning to hide strong
128. 4:25flavors. Marinods, smoke, spices, and
129. 4:29slow cooking can change almost anything.
130. 4:31So taste is only a small part of the
131. 4:33story. The real problem is much more
132. 4:35practical. It is the cost of making one.
133. 4:37And that is where the numbers get
134. 4:38ridiculous. Let's imagine you wanted to
135. 4:40start a penguin farm. To put a food in
136. 4:42every supermarket, you need to farm it.
137. 4:44So look at what a chicken does. A farmed
138. 4:46chicken is ready in about 6 weeks. A hen
139. 4:48lays around 250 to 300 eggs a year. She
140. 4:51eats cheap grain. She tolerates
141. 4:53crowding. She can live almost anywhere
142. 4:55from a barn in Iowa to a farm in
143. 4:56Vietnam. It took humans thousands of
144. 4:59years to shape the chicken into that.
145. 5:00Now picture a penguin farm. An emperor
146. 5:03penguin lays one egg per year. Not 250.
147. 5:06One, the chick takes months to grow up.
148. 5:09Most penguin species lay one or two eggs
149. 5:10per season. Many parents work together
150. 5:12for months to raise a single chick. In
151. 5:14Emperor Penguins, the male keeps the egg
152. 5:16on his feet through the Antarctic
153. 5:18winter. He does it without eating. That
154. 5:20is a beautiful way to survive. It is a
155. 5:22terrible way to run a meat business. A
156. 5:24penguin does not eat grain. It eats fish
157. 5:26and krill, so you would have to feed it
158. 5:28seafood. Raising a meat animal on fish
159. 5:30is expensive. Every pound of penguin
160. 5:32meat would cost far more than chicken.
161. 5:34And penguins need cold water or very
162. 5:36controlled conditions. Zoos that keep
163. 5:38penguins fight diseases like aven
164. 5:40malaria and fungal infections. Now
165. 5:42imagine doing that for thousands of
166. 5:44animals. Now compare the scale. The
167. 5:46world raises and slaughters tens of
168. 5:48billions of chickens every year.
169. 5:50Penguins could never reach that scale.
170. 5:52No business could make that math work. A
171. 5:54farm needs three things: fast growth,
172. 5:56cheap feed, easy breeding. Penguins fail
173. 5:58all three. And this isn't just about
174. 6:00penguins. It follows a famous rule about
175. 6:02every animal we eat. The author Jared
176. 6:04Diamond studied why humans domesticated
177. 6:06so few animals. He found that an animal
178. 6:08has to pass several tests. It must eat
179. 6:10food we can supply cheaply. It must grow
180. 6:12fast. It must breed in captivity. It
181. 6:15must have a calm temperament. And it
182. 6:17must not panic easily. He looked at
183. 6:18around 148 large land mammals. Only 14
184. 6:22were ever domesticated. Zebras failed
185. 6:24the temperament test. They are strong,
186. 6:26fast, and famously aggressive. Penguins
187. 6:29would fail several tests at once. diet,
188. 6:31slow breeding, and housing. That is the
189. 6:34real filter. It isn't does it taste
190. 6:36good? It isn't is it cute. It's can you
191. 6:38raise it cheaply, quickly, and in huge
192. 6:41numbers. Chicken passes. Penguin fails.
193. 6:44So, the food on your plate is not the
194. 6:45best tasting list of animals. It is the
195. 6:47list of animals that were easy to farm.
196. 6:49Here is a twist that most people never
197. 6:51hear. The word penguin did not
198. 6:53originally mean the birds we call
199. 6:55penguins today. Sailors used it for
200. 6:57another bird in the North Atlantic. It
201. 6:59was called the great o. It was large,
202. 7:01black and white and it could not fly. It
203. 7:04stood upright and it lived on rocky
204. 7:06islands. Sailors saw it and gave it a
205. 7:08name. Later, when explorers reached the
206. 7:10southern oceans, they saw similar
207. 7:12looking birds. They called those
208. 7:13penguins, too. Now, here is the dark
209. 7:16part. The great o was hunted by sailors
210. 7:18for food, for feathers, and for oil. It
211. 7:21was slow on land and easy to catch. By
212. 7:24the middle of the 1800s, it was gone. It
213. 7:26went extinct. So, the original penguin
214. 7:28was a bird we did eat, and we ate it
215. 7:30until none were left. That is an
216. 7:32important lesson. When a wild animal is
217. 7:35easy to catch, tasty enough, and slow to
218. 7:37breed, it does not become dinner for
219. 7:39centuries. It becomes extinct. And that
220. 7:42matters for the southern penguins
221. 7:43because the same thing nearly happened
222. 7:45to them. Remember the African penguin
223. 7:47eggs? There was another problem there.
224. 7:49For a long time, people collected guano,
225. 7:51the dried droppings of seabirds to sell
226. 7:53as fertilizer. On the islands off South
227. 7:56Africa, penguins dug their nests into
228. 7:58that guano. When workers scraped it
229. 8:00away, the penguins lost their nesting
230. 8:02sites. Eggs were taken and nests were
231. 8:04destroyed. The population dropped fast.
232. 8:06Over the last century, African penguin
233. 8:08numbers have fallen dramatically. On
234. 8:10Mcquary Island, the oil industry cut
235. 8:12down penguin numbers, too. And on other
236. 8:14islands, people brought cats, rats, and
237. 8:16dogs. Those animals ate eggs and chicks.
238. 8:19So, penguins were not just eaten. They
239. 8:21were pushed out of their homes. All of
240. 8:22this happened before anyone was farming
241. 8:24them. That is the real answer to why
242. 8:26don't we eat them? Because when we tried
243. 8:28to use them as a wild resource, they
244. 8:30could not keep up. A chicken can replace
245. 8:32itself in months. A penguin cannot.
246. 8:34Let's run a thought experiment. Say you
247. 8:36ignore all of the problems. You ignore
248. 8:38the laws, the cost, and the cold. You
249. 8:41build a huge penguin farm dot. What
250. 8:43happens? First, the feed. Penguins eat
251. 8:45several pounds of fish a day when they
252. 8:47are growing. For a single bird, that
253. 8:49might not sound like much. For thousands
254. 8:51of them, you would need a fishing fleet.
255. 8:53That would take fish from oceans that
256. 8:54are already overfished. Second, the
257. 8:56health risks. Wild birds carry diseases.
258. 8:59Some, like aven influenza, can spread
259. 9:02through bird colonies very fast. In
260. 9:04recent years, a dangerous strain of bird
261. 9:06flu has reached parts of the Antarctic
262. 9:08region. Packing thousands of birds
263. 9:09together would be a perfect place for a
264. 9:11disease to spread. Third, the animal
265. 9:13itself. Penguins are social and highly
266. 9:16sensitive to stress. In captivity, they
267. 9:18need clean water, cool temperatures, and
268. 9:20space. That is not cheap. Fourth, the
269. 9:23product. Even if you succeeded, you
270. 9:25would get a small bird with a strong
271. 9:27fishy taste. You would sell it at a
272. 9:28price far above chicken. Few customers
273. 9:30would pay that, so the farm would lose
274. 9:32money. That is why nobody has built one.
275. 9:34It isn't a conspiracy and it isn't a
276. 9:36taboo. It is a bad business. And there
277. 9:39is one more reason, and it's a modern
278. 9:41one. Today, most penguins are protected.
279. 9:43In Antarctica, an international
280. 9:45agreement called the Protocol on
281. 9:46Environmental Protection bans taking
282. 9:48native animals without a permit. Many
283. 9:50penguin species are also protected by
284. 9:52national laws where they breed, and many
285. 9:54are in danger. The African penguin is
286. 9:56now listed as critically endangered. Its
287. 9:58numbers have fallen dramatically over
288. 10:00the last century. The emperor penguin
289. 10:02has been listed as threatened by the
290. 10:03United States because of melting sea
291. 10:05ice. So, even if someone wanted to start
292. 10:06a penguin business, the law would stop
293. 10:08them. That makes penguins a strange
294. 10:10case. They are a food we stopped using
295. 10:12once we understood the damage. Not
296. 10:14because we lost the appetite, but
297. 10:16because we saw what it cost. Which
298. 10:18brings us back to the Belg. Because
299. 10:20those men didn't really choose a food.
300. 10:21They chose to survive. Dot closing. The
301. 10:24real story isn't about penguins at all.
302. 10:26It's about how humans decide what
303. 10:27becomes food. We don't choose the
304. 10:29tastiest animals. We choose the animals
305. 10:31that are easy to raise. So the next time
306. 10:33you see chicken on your plate, remember
307. 10:34this. It isn't there because it's the
308. 10:36tastiest bird. It's there because
309. 10:38thousands of years ago it was the
310. 10:39easiest to raise. And if you want
311. 10:41another question where the obvious
312. 10:42answer is wrong, watch this next.