Kirt, I de-lurk to offer  some support for the ET tale as analogy to
human attitudes toward other animals. ETs would not regard themselves
as 'cannibals' if some had the poor taste (so to say) to eat human
turkeys, always assuming the amino acids weren't toxic.  They would
be eating a lower order of being, no doubt with compassionate design
of the slaughterhouses.
   The strong emotional response to the tale reveals much to an
observer.  Any such treatment of other animals requires a distancing
to allow violence without shame or guilt.  Nazis had their ideology
to protect them, as they did their deeds.  Jews were portrayed in
films as breeding rats.  Soldiers have theirs, and slang dictionaries
are full of subhuman epithets for enemies. So with those
indoctrinated to eat this or that food, like dead animals. Distance
is all: superiority, permission from an exalted master in the clouds,
or a solemn bow to Darwin and hypothesized instincts.
   We don't yet know what is the best diet nutritionally or
ecologically, but the data come in from those benighted specialists
who insist on not taking food doctrines on faith, including
paleodoctrines.  Notions like those presented here may help
ethnographers trying to puzzle out why folks do the strange things
they do, and why they stay blind to what is clear to others.    Pet