Pigs are also a handy source of meat. They grow to a large mature size quickly, reproduce in large litters with an early sequel maturity, and (like dogs) can eat all type of food, like the las vegas pig farm on restaraunt leftovers https://www.agupdate.com/agriview/news/business/pigs-part-of...
Anecdote: my inlaws in Colorado 50 years ago used to grow potatoes for market and raise pigs for themselves. They showed me an enormous cast iron pot dug into an earthen stove where they'd cook potato "slop" for the pigs. To this day the family cooks with lard instead of oil.
Uuuh...dogs can't eat any type of food. Everyday things like garlic, onions, avocado and chocolate, in no big a serving, can kill them in a relatively short time.
Please be aware of our little friends can and should eat.
Such a weird comment. Are you proud of large-scale animal abuse or what exactly is the point you are trying to make here? As someone born in the former Soviet Union, “Russia does things this way” is not a good thing.
Nope, not proud. Russia is definitely fucked up. Just bringing up an interesting fact, I do seriously wonder though, why these dietary restriction aren’t generally known in Russia, and it is interesting that the dogs do handle it. I even know one family that specifically makes an very onion based dish for their dog as a treat because she likes it so much, with no ill effect.
For the record, I avoid giving my dog anything that is considered in-appropriate by American standards.
I'd put my money on less utility. Dogs can be used for hunting, managing herds of pasture animals, guarding things, tracking animals and people by scent, and more. Pigs can learn tricks and be trained to sniff for things (e.g. truffles). But I've never seen a pig herding sheep. Pigs are probably less useful to hunt with, since they're slower than dogs and aren't natural predators.
First it is hard to eat something you raised as a pet.
However, people have eaten coyote here in the states, and one thing is the glands can make the meat taste pretty horrid at times. If you’re choosing an animal as livestock you probably want the meat to be edible every time. Canines meat can vary too much because the various glands they have can effect the meat depending on how the animal was feeling.
Let alone the cultural issues about eating a companion. Like horse meat can be taboo just because that in a lot of areas.
Pigs are substantially more intelligent than dogs. Pigs are almost as intelligent as primates. This subject ultimately comes down to utility. Until recently horses were far more valuable than dogs and horses are incredibly stupid.
I thought horses were supposed to be smart, but TV may have influenced my thinking...
> As actor Alan Young recounted: "It was initially done by putting a piece of nylon thread in his mouth. But Ed actually learned to move his lips on cue when the trainer touched his hoof. In fact, he soon learned to do it when I stopped talking during a scene! Ed was very smart."
Would you say intelligence is the most important factor when determining whether it is ethical to cause suffering? Is it more ethical to cause suffering to an unintelligent person, like a toddler, than an intelligent one?
Why do people let Vox lecture them in their arrogant way? I haven't listened to the additional lecture part, so not sure what they go into.
Pigs are way smarter than dogs.
Dogs are a very gamey meat and are expensive.
In Asia they only eat it rarely for special occasions or health. It costs to much.
I'm not a big fan, but maybe if I had it more it'd become an every day meat like pig. But I think not. They are not bred to be eaten. They are carnivores. And bred to look emotional to humans.
What interesting with this restaurant dog thief article to me is they are poor, but they do it for beer. People need something in life to live for.
I think it's good that people become aware of their dietary hypocrisy in their lives.
Not many animals are treated more cruelly than pigs raised for food consumption with the exception of chickens perhaps.
The problem is that culturally around the world, all kinds of animals end up on dinner plates that are unacceptable to other cultures.
There is no right or wrong. The only solution is compassion for other animals suffering, and then making a conscious choice.
If a person is really compassionate, they will not eat any animals. Until then, articles like this highlight the hypocrisy but that alone is not enough to enable change within human society on a whole.
BTW, it is established that we do not need to eat meat to survive. People choose to eat meat because they like the taste, not for any other reason.
>If a person is really compassionate, they will not eat any animals.
I had the opportunity to live in an impoverished area of the Phillipines for several years- I met many kinds of people, some of whom were the most compassionate and selfless individuals I've ever known. After seeing the meals of dogs and cats they need to eat to survive because they can't afford any other lifestyle, I can say with no reservations at all that it's absolutely ludicrous to assert that compassion and carnivorism are mutually exclusive. Your sweeping generalization is wrong, my friend; perhaps you should try to empathize with the people you deride.
How can you hurt/eat any animal if you care about the suffering of all living entities?
What you are describing is a type of isolated compassion but it is relegated to homo-sapiens, it is not a universal compassion of which i am referring to, to which the Buddha refers to.
Compassion is sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it. This is the dictionary definition.
This is essentially just referring to people's distress, of which you witnessed. Empathy.
However, compassion is more complicated and detailed. "In Buddhism, the ideal of practice is to selflessly act to alleviate suffering wherever it appears." Note, wherever it appears, not just humans, everything.
Suffering and compassion go hand in hand. If you see any suffering of any creature, you want to alleviate it.
In The Essence of the Heart Sutra, His Holiness the Dalai Lama wrote,
"According to Buddhism, compassion is an aspiration, a state of mind, wanting others to be free from suffering. It's not passive — it's not empathy alone — but rather an empathetic altruism that actively strives to free others from suffering. Genuine compassion must have both wisdom and lovingkindness. That is to say, one must understand the nature of the suffering from which we wish to free others (this is wisdom), and one must experience deep intimacy and empathy with other sentient beings (this is lovingkindness)."
Therefore, I will stand by my point; that real compassion, real empathy to alleviate the suffering of any sentient creature will manifest itself in the form of vegetarianism/veganism. How can someone hurt another creature when they know it will suffer, when they understand the nature of the pain it will experience?
Still not convinced? I can tell. Don't take my word. Listen to Master Thich Nhat Hanh explain:
No. You see the abundant food choices in developed countries and yet only a small percentage of the population is vegetarian or vegan.
The reason why people choose a vegetarian/vegan diet is also varied and sometimes has nothing to do with wanting to stop the suffering of animals. Losing weight, a healthier body, peer group pressure are alternate motivations.
The decisive factor is not poverty.
I was also in the Philippines, and I was able to eat quite well for my 3 months there. I ate rice, beans, fruits and vegetables. My costs were the same as a local.
> Your inability to accept the reality of this kind of desperation and suffering tells me how much of this true compassion you actually feel.
Get a grip and don't try to judge my level of compassion or understanding regarding these people. I have been to worse places in India, where there is a large % of the population who are vegetarian and who live in abject poverty.
If people are inclined to, they will eat vegetarian. The cost of meat is more than than rice/beans/lentils/dhal etc.
THIS is where you're misunderstanding- the stray dogs and cats these families eat are free; hard to find rice and beans that are cheaper than that. You're telling me to stop judging another person's compassion? The hypocrisy here absolutely reeks. Flagging my comment because a fact disagrees with your paradigm is certainly mature. I'm disengaging- I won't free you of your delusions. Good grief.
My point before you went on this tangent of people living in slums, is that a vegetarian diet is cheaper and more compassionate. So here are some facts for your wazoo....
As you can clearly see, vegetables and grains cost less than meat.
Your point, that killing and eating stray dogs, rats, cats, etc, because they are freely available, is an absolute extreme fringe case and you negate the fact that these slum inhabitants also earn money and they can buy vegetables and live a more compassionate life if they chose to.
Also I did some research on your claims about slums, in the Payatas slum outside of Manilla city near Quezon, the couple in the below linked article with their 4 children eat food from dumpster diving known as "pagpag" even though they earn up to 1000 pesos per day. It is a choice they make to eat discarded meat. They don't have to, but they choose to.
You can try to make a point that eating free stray dogs is necessary for impoverished slum dwellers, but the facts seem to contradict your position. Killing is never compassionate.
BTW, I didn't flag your comment, someone else who doesn't like the smell of your BS emotionally charged rant did.
Another cultural bias. As usual it is the perspective of a Euro-Caucasian centric view.Like the maximum number of characters permitted for your Last Name field when filling up electronic or even physical forms.
You think other cultures do not eat dog meat?
The thing is that dogs love to eat human shit. No other animal does that. That is how they started cohabitating with humans, cleaning the cave from dead people and shit.
As a proctection they also evolved to be less tasty. "Tastes like piss" said older Noko, because in the Lappland War 1944, there was food shortage, and they ate everything. Except humans only occasionally. There are several reports of human fingernails in the spam-cans, that German distributed freely to their allies in Finland.
I live in a place where people eat dogs (Vietnam). Especially in the north of the country there are quite a few dog restaurants. But I think it's fair to say that a majority of Vietnamese people don't like this and there is a movement towards banning the dogmeat trade. I think there were new laws passed about it in the last year actually, although it remains to be seen if they will be enforced.
As for a place where you can eat dogs but not pigs, where is that? Most muslims certainly don't eat dogs, since they are considered dirty under Islam.
>But I think it's fair to say that a majority of Vietnamese people don't like this and there is a movement towards banning the dogmeat trade.
Is it because most Vietnamese traditionally did not like the taste/concept, or because many today were affected by western culture (movies, series, etc.) focusing on dogs as pets?
>As for a place where you can eat dogs but not pigs, where is that? Most muslims certainly don't eat dogs, since they are considered dirty under Islam.
Well, Indonesia is mostly muslim, and they do eat dogs:
Are friendliness and loyalty important ethical factors? Is it more ethical to cause suffering to an unfriendly and disloyal person than a friendly and loyal one?
Why is reducing suffering ethical? When you squash a bug does it suffer? Most lie and say it doesn't, because the exact chemical signals aren't there, but if you could ask the bug it would not want to be crushed.
What about plants? Do they enjoy being uprooted and eaten? Well, there is no chemical process that we call "suffering" so it must be okay. But, these mammals you see, they're so close to us! And we don't like it when humans suffer. Even worse, most people hate when something cute suffers, even more so then a human.
There is no real greater ethical meaning here, just arbitrary lines drawn in the sand by people with strong feelings one way or the other. And yes, the same goes for the suffering of us humans.
Deep question. Seems like it's usually more of a postulate of ethics than a logical conclusion. Treat others as you'd like to be treated, for example.
If you're looking for a scientific answer, it's probably that empathy makes you suffer when you see it in others. And empathy is instinctive behavior that presumably evolved for the good of the species. Though evolution might be "selfish" in its own way, preferring to protect some species which are useful to us in other ways while eating others.
Is there evidence that plants feel pain or that bugs do not? I don't know of any, but I would definitively be interested as that could change my view. I want to go wherever the evidence leads, even if it's uncomfortable.
In either case, if plants did feel pain, would a person cause more suffering by eating plants or by eating animals that eat plants?
Empirically, we know that animals/insects feel pain. The same cannot be said for plants at this time. Therefore we can act on the information we have and not what we might speculate on, until such time as evidence provides a definitive answer.
If at some time in the future it can be proven that plants feel pain, then it will depend upon their level of pain as they do not have a central nervous system nor brain as animals/insects.
Everyone will have to decide for themselves what course of action to follow, as we do need to consume food in order to survive.
Star Trek replicators would solve all these philosophical quandaries.
+1...I was going to say that the author apparently has never tasted bacon....everything becomes much simpler after that :). If we judged our behavior based on how intelligent the species is that we are doing something to...I believe war would be a non-starter, no?
Well, we don't eat people with mental issues either, or think it's OK to eat them just because they aren't "smart".
It was never about the smartness, it's about the utility (including being a guardian, keeping company, etc), breeding capabilities/size, and/or taste.
Plus customs. Some cultures do eat dogs. Some don't eat pigs.