While I don't like it either, there is something I believe we should take into account when reading it. Our characters are Londoners through and through, and a great deal very likely view British culture as the pinnacle of human culture. Starved Men becoming more like Londoners, despite how we in the modern day see it for what it is, the destruction of a culture to fit the narrow tastes of the elite and "normal", would look to our characters like the Starved are being uplifted to the best humanity has to offer. More open-minded Londoners might even see it as a natural extension of the Shapeling Arts as applied to an entire people, culture being changed to differing conditions and made better, rather than flesh.