Good #RandomQuestion, from the birdsite.

https://twitter.com/GadSaad/status/1036744139805782016?s=19

I'll attempt to answer where I stand. Consider the following:

1. It is generally considered bad (kinksters, kindly excuse me) to capture, enslave, kill, or eat humans.

2. Animals are much like us. In particular, their flesh and blood is like ours. They even die by same mechanisms as we do. To see an animal in pain invokes empathy in many of us.

3. Insects are not as much like us as animals. Many of their organ systems are totally different from those of animals. Their blood isn't even red!

4. Insects, alive or dead, provoke disgust (or fear, in many of us), rather than empathy. To see an insect in pain doesn't change that.

To summarize: Most vegetarians avoid eating animals because of empathy; but they avoid eating insects for different reasons - disgust and fear.

I come from a largely lacto-vegetarian community. Personally, while I occasionally consume animal meat, I find the idea of eating insects as disgusting even to consider.