Decrescent Daytripper wrote:

Those you get. Those you don't get. The stuff that makes you turn, panicked, and go "Aaaaaah!" and the things you lurv but make everyone else panic.

I put off one of my neighbors because I think putting tallow, cubed meat, the shredded end of a loaf of bread, water and a little salt, little more cayenne past a boil turns it into grub.

I may be the only foreign teacher here (who isn't from Korea) who doesn't mind the eating of dog. (Puppy is the best meat ever. Sorry.)

But, I'm irrationally against rhubarb and even before I knew I was allergic to tofu, I had a bigoted, surly disregard for it anyway. 'Cause it's tofu.

Please don´t eat puppys
They are so cute(?

Last edited by Juli_Revolutionary_Bat (10-19-2012 10:36:52 PM)

Where I come from, people thought of rabbits as cute, pet-worthy creatures meant to be cherished, so the frozen rabbits I see so often in North America's mid-to-high end supermarkets freak me out every damn time.

Syora wrote:
In Asia, dogs are often raised as pets for years, and when the time comes, they are roasted and eaten. They say the older the dog, the better they taste. They also sell whole dogs in some stores, where the dog is dressed and hung not unlike a duck. So no, they don't eat puppies, but dogs are fair game.

Syora, I'm from Asia, and I can tell you that this will not happen (at least not openly) in most major cities with rampant international businesses, as most of such places have laws prohibiting cruelty against pets (like, if you say you eat dogs in places like Tokyo or Hong Kong, most ppl WILL go WTF?!).  The only places where you'd find stores openly selling whole dogs will be in some really "out-there" small towns far and away from the main cities.

As for the silkworm, I gather you must've been in some nifty spots within Mainland China to have that experience. 

I've heard that the rabbits sold in Canada and US for consumptions are not pets, but still . . . in the same way I can't stomach the thought of eating wild horses (which I heard the French eat), I can't imagine ever trying that.

I can't stomach eating a number of animals: Horses, dogs, lambs and veal. 

A big part of it was my rural upbringing, and my family raised animals for slaughter.  It provided us income and affordable meat.  We raised goats, rabbits, steers, and hunted deer and squirrel and ate fucking snapping turtles we found on the road.  I've killed animals, skinned and plucked animals, fed them knowing they were to be slaughtered or sold for slaughter.  We were by no means poor, but raising our own meat helped us financially and fed us. 

For me, eating a horse is a disgusting and violent betrayal of the trust inherent and necessary to riding them.  They are naturally a prey animal, and to let us ride their backs is a pretty big deal in that regard, and with our squishy, tiny bodies, it's a big deal we ride them in the first place.  So there is this trust element that I can't personally violate.  Lambs strike me as wrong because the farmer in me doesn't see the practically in that, taking something's life while it's young and small simply because it tastes better that way.  I was raised to value the lives of the things that died to help us continue living, and that included giving the animal in question as good a life as possible.  Eating dogs is something I could never do because dogs are very emotional, intelligent, trusting, loving creatures.  We bred them to be, we are the ones responsible for that.  I'm not sure, but in cultures where the dogs and horses are eaten, are they bred as livestock?  To think and live as livestock?  My issue is killing and eating something we have bred and domesticated to be friendly, emotional, intelligent... to grieve when we die or leave.  Rabbits I dislike the taste of but didn't take much issue with eating because they were mean ass little fuckers who liked to eat each other.  Not kidding.  Bunny cannabalism.    It's different when you raise animals, and learn about them.  What they act like, their behaviors, temperament, likes and dislikes.  In discussions surrounding meat/eating/what-is-humane, it makes hearing things like, "They are just animals" sound incredibly ignorant. 

I don't know if it's a moral issue, but it is a personal one. 

Though I cannot fault people who eat what they must because they don't have options.  I also think the assumption that everyone is able to be a vegetarian/vegan/person who only eats locally from known humane sources is just as ignorant. 

My actual food fear is tape worms.  D:

Last edited by OnlyInThisLight (10-20-2012 07:02:11 PM)

Well, they mostly ate their own babies.  And it happened a lot, with many different bunnies.  Granted, our rabbits were livestock, and while I'm not sure on the breed they were bred and selected to be stock.   Or it may have just been Missouri.  The mother bunny wanted to spare her child a life in MO, so she chewed off its leg and then waited for it to bleed out.


This may explain why I'm actually kind of afraid of rabbits, actually.  I won't even pick them up.

Last edited by OnlyInThisLight (10-20-2012 08:22:01 PM)

If it makes you feel any better, my bunny was the male stud and he was very nice and was named Thumper.

I can't eat watermelon. That's it. I have never disliked any food but watermelon.

Last edited by Dazmi (10-21-2012 04:59:35 AM)

If I were completely honest and had much better willpower, I would probably be vegetarian. I always feel vaguely bad if I stop and think about what I'm eating -I think you nailed it OitL, in talking about your experiences with animals, and raising them. I would never voluntarily eat dog for the reasons you specified, although in a life or death situation, I don't doubt that I would choose to save myself. :/ I do eat lamb though, and veal, because they're delicious and some of my best memories are when my dad would make them as special treats (usually during the rare times we were well-ish off), although I think your argument against them is a thoughtful one. In that context, it becomes very easy to understand why they were considered luxury foods. It's impractical, and impracticality defined a lot of the measures aristos used to set themselves apart.

That said, I'm actually largely irritated by a lot of the vegetarians I run into. They don't seem to grasp the inherent privilege they have in being able to choose to deny an entire food option, simply out of a moral (or sometimes egotistical) principle. Bourdain actually makes mention of it in Medium Raw, about how disrespectful he finds it, and I have to agree. Whenever I express that opinion though, I then get "Well, what about India? They're a whole country that's vegetarian. So America can do it too." And then I laugh and laugh and laugh and then want to cry that someone could try to make a point not knowing anything at all.

Anyway, I didn't mean this to be a slag on vegetarians- I actually do respect my friends/acquaintances that have made the choice in an educated manner, and treat it like it's a responsibility and understand the inherent privilege of it. It might not be a hard choice for them, but it can definitely be a difficult lifestyle in our culture.

That being said, my biggest food fear is actually the preparation of it. I'm always terrified that I'm going to under cook something and poison everyone, or contaminate my quinoa with chicken juice, or something. I've never done it yet, but for some reason, I"m immensely terrified of doing it every time I cook.

I want to know what these compromising situations involving seafood are all about.