Why is it that people who eat meat, are often appalled at the idea of someone eating an animal they would think of as a pet, like a cat or dog? I mean, it’s widely accepted that a pig is as intelligent and emotional a creature as a dog, so what’s that about?
Having dinner in a restaurant with the boyf on Saturday night, I overheard the following snippet from the table opposite...
“Oh David’s going for the swordfish. You’ll eat anything won’t you David?”
“I suppose so [puffs chest out], I don’t have any food prejudices.”
Food prejudices. Great. So, eating a threatened species of fish is a virtue to this guy is it? I suppose I’d be like some kind of Nazi for thinking that’s best avoided am I? What with all my Food Prejudices and stuff.
And then he goes...
“When I went on a survival expedition we ate all kinds of things.”
And his friend says...
“What, so would you even eat cats and dogs?”
Am I missing something? Surely cats and dogs are not in trouble as species are they?
I dunno, it’s a Monday mystery to Buckley. What say you?
7 comments:
I dunno... I guess it is to do with our relationship with the animals rather than their rate of survival. Cats and dogs are like people to some folk and pigs not so much, so its easier to distance themselves from a pig than it is from a cat or dog.
Personally I say an animal is an animal is an animal. And that includes us feeble humans. :S
while you are right to point out the paradoxes in these people's sayings, Julia, we have to recognize that the average citizen would not recognize logic if it bit him on the arse.
Critical thinking and logic are not taught in school and only on philosophy courses at university. In fact, when it was recently suggested that school children should be talk to think, the tabloid press and parent groups shouted the idea down as stupid - presumably because they had never learned to think either and didn't see the point of it.
There is quite a market for exotic meats these days. Why anyone should boast because he has eaten a small part of an animal that has been hunted, killed, eviscerated, cut up and cooked by someone else is beyond my comprehension.
Fascist. ;)
anyway
I agree with Claire, an animal is an animal is an animal. I spent 5 years in the infantry. I did a 68 day survival course that spanned the jungles, mountains, and desert environments. Believe me, by the end of it, you'll eat anything that won't kill you or make you sick (well almost anything, even when I was starving, I refused to the dehydrated pork patties that came with our rations).
Clay
It's because they taste revolting!
Well, cat is revolting - I ate civet cat in China and it really was quite unpleasant. Imagine a meat that tastes like aniseed, and has the texture of really tough steak.
And dog. Well, it's not unpleasant. It's very rich in a brown, hot and fills you up kind of way. A great winter food, but you wouldn't want to eat too much of it because it sits rather heavily.
In some parts of the world the pigs are pets and the dogs are food. In parts of Africa (and here in the US there are small shops that illegally import) bush meat is preferred. And that includes things like whole bats on a stick and arm of monkey. It all goes to local tabboos of what to eat and what not to eat. Not all animals are good to eat, some will make you very ill, and not from the taste. But, yeah, those teeth in our head label us an omnivores.
Now eating things that are in population stress, so very uncool.
Most people eating meat or fish don't know they are carnivores. If they had to feed it, catch it, kill it and gut it, instead of buying it sanitised from the supermarket, they would probably all be vegetarian.
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