In Responce to Eating Dog

In response to Eating Dog and Animal Cruelty, I did not really mantion the fact that it is culturally accepted and has been around longer than the USA has existed making any argument a difficult one. Yes they are domestic animals but says who, what culture, and what is the difference between a cow, duck, chicken, lamb, goldfish, parrot, or dog when it comes down to the actual act of eating meat?
If you didn't have money, your family was starving and there was food all around you, but your religion told you not to eat it, would you? Hindu's allow cows to pass them in the streets every day, slums in Mumbai are an ugly place to live and i'm sure people die of hunger or malnutrition, yet their are cows every where, do you find that strange? If you were hungry, and your family was starving and there was a socially acceptable animal to eat lets say cow or chicken in the west, lets say dog in the east, would you eat it? unless your a vegitarian i would assume the answer is yes. I hope you understand where i'm going with this, don't judge another culture just because it's different!

my response to this ignorant person is below and is based mostly on the animal cruelty aspect of it, it negates the points made above about culture differences, as well as the fact that some PEOPLE live in far worse conditions than Animals in Asia, and unless Orwell's book "animal farm" is going to become a reality, we better start educating and helping People before worrying about the dying fad of dog eating.

I'm really sorry that i may have offended you or "made you sick," but I really can't sympathize for you. with that said by no means do i stand for animal cruelty I despise the fact that such things exist. If indeed the animal that i ATE was abused in anyway prior to being killed and i was aware of this, i would not have eaten it, but to generalize and say that all dogs are poorly treated and slaughtered, is an ignorant statement.

Life in aisa is cruel, the possibilities of that animal being miss treated are high, but then again so is the likelihood of any chicken, cow, pig, lamb, or fish being poorly treated and slaughtered. Going to a wet market would be a nightmare for any vegetarian or vegan, fish placed in buckets with no water suffocating, flopping around, animal heads and parts laying on open air tables at room temperature. it's not a pretty place, but you have to realize where you are and why this exists.

We live in a 1st world country, we have the luxuries of refrigerators, farmed livestock, super markets which really aren't so "super" if you ask me, Temperature controlled slaughter houses, but we have come a long way and still there are atrocities with in the industry that go on everyday and will continue to happen due to public demand of the products they produce. I have not eaten fast food in 10 years and honestly think anyone who does (weather you eat meat or not), is contributing to an institution that causes the most harm and maltreatment to animals than any other in the world. Factory Farming... this is a bit of a elementary style clip but the web sight is a great, and i think you should watch it if you have not already. http://www.meatrix.com/

Even prior to factory farming, our slaughtering of animals was and still is not the best. Asia may still do it the old way, quick and dirty, but we the USA are guilty of our own practices,(a mandatory summer reading book back in high school) Upton Sinclaire's, "The Jungle" may have been written 100 years ago, but is a perfect example why it is difficult to pass judgment on non-developed countries. the book was written in 1906 and describes what we (the US) were doing in our Slaughterhouses. A "developed nation" and still we mistreated, killed, and inhumanly butchered our livestock (amungs other things).

I'm going to go under the assumption that you are a vegetarian, which is outstanding. this earth needs vegetarians, because with out them we would be approaching even higher levels of methane in our atmosphere, deforestation would be 10 fold due to slashing and burning in developing countries for grazing and farm land, and all this leading to more desertification like we have seen in parts of Asia, South American, and Africa. SO kudos to you, i love vegetarians, i'm not one obviously but this earth needs them, in fact, we need more. As you may have the luxury to be vegetarian because your diet can be healthily maintained, and as you shop in a supermarkets where both produce and proteins are neatly packaged, or MAYBE eat free range animal products WHICH really is a bunch of shit and only legally means that "animals have access to the outdoors."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_range#cite_note-0

Many people in this world do not have these luxuries, lots of people don't have the money to buy food and depend on what they grow, harvest, or hunt. in Asia and developing parts of the world where money is tight and food can be scarce, people will eat what ever it is that allows them to survive. I'm a DOG lover but to mentally get over the hurdle of eating dog was difficult (it took me 7 months), but what it comes down to is that these people have been doing it for years. It was a means of survival in the old days when money and livestock was scarce. During the war In Vietnam the US dropped MILLIONS of bombs on the country, not to mentions tons of Agent Orange (chemical warfare) which made raising livestock and even growing rice near impossible, bomb craters scattered the fields and the animals that were raised for food died off with the poison we blanketed the country with. SO..... what was available in hard times.... dog. I'm not saying the Vietnam war was the cause of dog eating but it is an example of hard times and people doing what is necessary to survive.

The presence of dog as food really has only been apparent (to me) in southern China and Vietnam, but as i talk to locals I am finding out that it is more of a "old school" type of food. As i have explained above, it was eaten out of necessity, and is not common fare. It is beginning to fade in popularity, not because of it's taste, because i'll be honest it was good, but because more and more "Asians" are becoming westernized and eating dog is not accepted as a norm in our society.

This is NOT to say that it is WRONG, cows, pig, fish, sheep, camel, alligator, dog, cat, snake, rat, gofer, bugs, I've seen it all and it is all fair game to be eaten when people are hungry and their are mouths to be fed. Just because it is not our social norm does not mean we have the right to pass judgment on others. Animal cruelty is apparent all over the world and i think what we have with factory farming in the USA far surpasses the cruelty levels of a fading necessity of eating dog. I love dogs, i had one as a kid, i look forward to the time when i am settled down and can have one or two as my own. Will i eat dog again? i don't think so, it's possible, but probably not. I'll tell you where you wont find me though, AT ANY fast food or chain restaurants no matter how hungry i am, that is much more of a stance against animal cruelty than not eating a dog, raised, killed, and cooked in a persons home. if this is all old news i apologize but just to clear the water, i don't stand for animal cruelty either.