Taboos: Cultures

In the world we live in there are multiple taboos. Depending on your culture, religion and beliefs many strange and bizarre things are completely normal to some people and even animals throughout the world. Taboos are what people find to be strange and unusual practices or what unique things people may do or eat in different parts of the world. Different cultures would consider strange things to eat as a delicacy in some areas or cultures and wouldn’t even dream of being eaten in other cultures. Sometimes they could even be forbidden or illegal by certain beliefs. Some religious taboos even reach to the extreme of whether or not to wear clothing. Cultures in different parts of the world believe in living in a non urban life style and not wearing any clothing, which is considered a nudist colony. Different taboos are accepted in parts of the world for traditional reasons, cultural beliefs and a variety of religion beliefs. In some parts of the world, people or cultures enjoy very different foods and consider these delicacies. In some cultures they hunt for their food. These cultures never waste any part of the animal’s body. All of the animal’s body parts are edible to them. They will even eat all the organs of the animal. These cultures actually believe that certain organs are aphrodisiacs. These delicacies are very rare and hard to locate. This is the reason why they are considered a delicacy and are so expensive. Some different examples, I found interesting in cultures throughout the world: They would include people eating insects anyway you can imagine. However, you would never find these in an American restaurant. Another is in some areas rats are like field animals and people eat them like they are a squirrel or rabbit. American on the other hand thinks that rats are dirty and disgusting animals. This is because they live in filth in city sewage and garbage dumps. Also, rats carry multiple diseases. In other countries the rats live in fields, eat grass and seeds. The rats are raised in a very different environment in other countries. The rats are sold at local village markets. Manifest functions and dysfunctions are conscious and deliberate, the latent ones the unconscious and unintended and unrecognizable. I realize that these cultures taboos are to survive and this is why they don’t waste anything. In some cultures and countries this is always the case because look at America. In our country people take advantage of just having money and being able to go buy whatever they want. Many people in our country waste things including foods. They wouldn’t even dream of eating organs or insects. They buy their food and when finished most people throw the leftovers in the garbage. Without even thinking twice about it and in other countries people and children don’t even get one meal a day let alone 3 or 4 snacks whenever they want them. Manifest functions are the consequences that people observe or expect and the latent functions are those that are neither recognized nor intended. A latent function of a behavior is not explicitly stated, recognized, or intended by the people involved. So many of these cultures are actually latent because these taboos are very important to them for the fact of survival not as a delicacy as some rich people looking for these types of foods. They hunt because they have to in order to survive. Along with eating every part of the animal because wasting any part on the animal will be less food for them to eat, especially since they may not find more food for a day or maybe a few. In my opinion, I feel that to these cultures or religions taboos are very positive to them. Because they use their surroundings and the earth to survive and they don’t waste anything because they appreciate that they actually do have whatever food they caught for that day or week. Some cultures even use the rest of the animal such as fur and bones to make things.