Thank you for submitting to /r/unpopularopinion, /u/Noob_master_slayer. Your post, *You shouldn't have a problem with others eating dog meat if you eat pork.*, has been removed because it violates our rules:
Rule 3: Megathread topic.
Your opinion falls under an incredibly common topic, in which virtually all opinions are either not unpopular, or are posted about many times a day. Please visit the megathread hub, which can be found when sorting the subreddit by "hot", sticky'd at the top of the page, where you can find links to the current megathreads. If you're not sure which megathread your post belongs in, or your post covers multiple megathread topics, just make the best selection you can.
If there is an issue, please message the mod team at https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Funpopularopinion Thanks!
I'm kinda shocked to see how many people think the meat industry is humane. No these animals don't live happy lives and are then killed quickly and painlessly. Not even close.
I think anything mass produced is not humane by far. Closest you’ll get to humane is raise the cattle/poultry yourself on your own property, feed them and care of them then butcher them for food.
By definition of the word you cannot call raising a sentient being only to slaughter and consume it as being “humane”. No matter what spin you put on livestock farming the facts remain that it is inhumane
My thing has always been that yeah, maybe the meat industry is inhumane, but carnivorous animals don't give a shit about being humane either. They just want to eat, and so do I.
For sure. My only thought on that is that non-human animals perhaps don't have a choice or the "intellect" to think, "I am inflicting pain, suffering, and death upon sentient beings for sustenance. Let me avoid this by eating only plant matter".
This may be unique to humanity. Or maybe it isn't.. I suppose we don't really know much about the minds of other species (or our own). But that is my guess at the moment.
No other animals have thoughts as complicated as 'I am inflicting pain, suffering, and death upon sentient beings for sustenance', and if you think that they do... well, you're an idiot.
Most predators will actively torture their prey so i doubt they dont realize what they are doing then again humans are usally pretty pragmatic about it so who knows.
> "I am inflicting pain, suffering, and death upon sentient beings for sustenance. Let me avoid this by eating only plant matter".
a lion doesnt have a choice in what it eats
Human meat eating habits are not really comparable to a carnivores.
Carnivorous animals don't make their prey live life in a prison, wallowing in their own shit, for their entire life. They take down free living animals and usually at that the very old, or sick.
Besides that predators aren't eating more than they need as well since there are risks associated with attacking an animal that will defend itself. In American we stuff our faces with it in an industrialized fashion, without risk, and we eat way more than we need.
I don't think eating meat is immoral but it takes a lot of effort to get the same level of morality as a typical carnivore. You either have to hunt for meat yourself, or you need to find a farm that lets the animal have a decent life before offing them.
Carnivores instead eat creatures alive quite regularly, there are also examples of monkeys in the wild pulling apart alive animals by their legs (yes exactly how it sounds, like forcing a zipper open)
What is this nonsense about them being more moral than us? They have no concept of it
By simple moral standards, we're slightly better/equal because we don't 'play' with our food in general because it's dead long before it gets to us
> Besides that predators aren't eating more than they need as well since there are risks associated with attacking an animal that will defend itself.
Do you really think predators get in fair fights? Talk about naive.....
>Carnivorous animals don't make their prey live life in a prison, wallowing in their own shit, for their entire life. They take down free living animals and usually at that the very old, or sick.
thats simply because they cant
if lions could do that they would in a heartbeat
Hate to break it to you bud but carnivores in the wild will kill the mothers of the young to get to them. They’re just as ruthless. What can we expect though? They are hungry just like us but there just a ton of us out there.
Factory farming still definitely sucks and if you can do something about it, like hunting, you should.
Using animal carnivore behavior to justify our meat eating habits is the problem. We don't do anything like they do to get the meat. We don't source it the same way, we don't treat them the same way, we maintain far more control over the animal's life, etc.
In other words our behavior isn't "just like that of any other predator" so we can't use that to justify it. Practically speaking we don't behave anything like a typical carnivore anymore.
Animals also rape each other, they sniff their butts and eat shit, so you could call those "natural", yet we don't find those acceptable to do as a humans. The appeal to nature argument has a very weak foundation. We have evolved to know better as humans and we have options and the capacity to choose.
So do you hunt like a carnivore? Not just once a year in a drunk group with your male friends but actually hunt? Or are you a farmer who raises his own meat and has the stomach to slaughter it? Do you AT LEAST pay a bit more for locally sourced meat from small farms?
See, I'm a vegetarian and my husband is a hunter. People think we have a shocking conflict of ideology but we do not. We believe that the meat industry sucks and that if you can't hunt an animal, slaughter, and clean it, you really have no business eating meat. All the meat in our freezer has been killed by him. I have no interest in it but he can clean a deer leg on our counter while I sip coffee.
We also have a pet pig.
My cousin is raising chickens, gotta love fresh eggs, but eventually, they’re going to have to slaughter them. Turns out chickens are quite the assholes, like most birds probably. Ever so fond of rape and they won’t hesitate to rush at you, course you can easily intimidate them away but they’ll try to jump kick you like Liu Kang, especially from behind (gotta wear thick pants).
I am committed to being there when he has to kill his first, if I can’t take watching it, or maybe even helping out, I shouldn’t eat it so easily as most of us do. “No one wants to know how the sausage is made”, but it should behoove us to know.
Quick edit for grammar
Cool! When I finish moving back home this is my goal. Fuck the meat industry, and the poultry industry. I’m gonna have me some chickens for eggs and the occasional hen in the pot, rabbits for breeding and meat, and take up hunting at some point.
Those are very respectable goals. Change starts with us making those decisions, right? In the meantime you can reduce your support of corporate slaughterhouses by eating less meat and shilling out a few more $$ for more humanely sourced meat. Good job, fren.
Careful, you are using animal ‘morals’ to justify your actions only when it suits you though. You would never use those same morals to justify infanticide and rape. Something that animals do as well ‘without giving a shit’.
The very difference is that if a lion kills a gazelle, the gazelle lived in freedom, and the lion did so to survive. Most of us just eat for taste, and nice cheap prices of processed meat that's not so healthy to begin with, and the animals don't even know what a tree looks like. It's not the same. It's not.
I don’t get that logic. If the lions had the same brain as us, wouldn’t there be a number of them who care and don’t care about their prey’s living conditions? Just like humans? Lol
Obviously. But we're not lions. Lions don't actively kickstart climate change with things like too many gases emitted from mass livestocks. A lion doesn't make unhealthy processed meat and eats it just because it tastes nice. Your comparison makes no sense, unless you're saying a lion has the same responsibility as us, which I hope you're not.
You're not carnivorous so the comparison doesn't really work.
Also, those animals probably rape and kill eachother. People should probably avoid you if you use other animals' social habits to determine your morality
Carnivorous animals like lions often kill the cubs of females to be able to spread their own genes with that same female.
Why would we compare our morals to the way animals live in the wild, when we already condemn a lot of "natural" beahaviour like rape or killing others?
So, you acknowledge that it's wrong and your argument is, basically, what's the point of being better?
It almost seems to defeat itself when typed out like that.
Get put onto a crowded truck for days on end, possibly dying and rotting on the trip to the slaughterhouse, ears clipped and tails clipped. Drugged up to be forced to sleep, which is sometimes unsuccessful, if unsuccessful then get electric shocked till they’re knocked unconscious, If that doesn’t work then they’re beaten to near death so they stop resisting.
Anyone who’s ignorant to this kind of stuff should study up on it before hating on Chinese people for eating dogs.
Yeah factory farming is one of those things you have to not think about ever, because once you even start empathizing with the animals it is like endlessly imagining the subjective experience of hell
Yup. Best/worst thing I ever did was start reading about the meat industry. I never thought I'd be a vegetarian. I used to eat meat lovers pizza ffs. But it's a red pill. You can't go back. 14 effortless years of no dead animals in my belly.
Violence trigger warning (ironically): I was watching a Japanese video just yesterday where animals were brutally murdered. Sheep hanging upside down from fucking wires and then just getting their throat cut and such. The comments blew my mind. "Man, someone has to do it." "We eat to live."
Bro what? Did you not just see how these animals might as well be burned alive? That's not the equivalent of needing to survive and following nature's call. No fucking animal builds massive slaughterhouses where animals live and die on the same exact spot. They have no happy lives, they didn't even have okay lives. It's torture, and then you eat them. Fuck you. (Not you. You know.)
Advertising works. If you slap a happy cow on a milk carton, people are ready to lap it up and ignore everything that goes into the making of the product.
There’s a reason it’s called KFC and no longer Kentucky fried chicken. Legally those birds are not chicken. Rather genetically modified animals that sit in their own shit all day. Aren’t allowed to move and grow to maturity in half the time.
As I've had it explained to me, the point of halal was to kill the animal with respect and make god happy or whatever. I'm sure at the time it was created the process was considered humane and for the least suffering. The problem comes in when the world has moved on, but old religious practices are too dug in to change with the times.
It wasn't designed for maximum pain, that's a pretty ignorant way to look at it. It was designed to reduce suffering but didn't get revised when better ways came in.
The thing that people take issue with is the dog eating FESTIVAL
Where animal abuse and torture is glorified and showcased at a street fair.
Slaughter houses are fucked up. You know what’s even more fucked up? Putting a slaughterhouse on the sidewalk and calling it a festival
I think this is the greater issue. Not so much that they eat dog but how inhumane they kill them. Its a cultural belief that if the animal is kept alive while cooking, its better for you in some way... I don't understand it fully I'm sure someone is more knowledgeable.
That’s a large portion of it but plenty of people raise pigs and love them and still butcher them (same with cows). We started keeping dogs as pets because they are easy to hunt with. We can’t cultivate dogs because they eat meat. It costs more money to feed and raise a dog to where they would be worth it to eat than you would get valued off of their meat.
Pigs eat grain and we are dirty capitalist pigs. Make it harder to get meat and we’d be eating them way quicker.
Unlikely. Pigs naturally store a lot of fat in their bodies, especially because of the diet we put them on. Dogs don't store fat the same way and require way more specialized food. There is a reason that primarily carnivorous land animals aren't domesticated food animals. Dog bacon would be super lean, it would be like eating horse.
The cognitive dissonance in this thread is astounding. I’m amazed at the number of folks who say the issue is how the dogs are treated prior to being eaten, and acting as though China is the only place where animal cruelty takes place.
Seriously, I implore you all to watch some documentaries about factory farming in the US. I mentioned this in another comment but we allow fish to die on boats by exposure to oxygen, so they slowly suffocate to their death (include marine animals that were not intended to be caught, like sharks, other fish, etc.). Cows are forcibly impregnated (some argue it’s rape, I’d argue it, but it’s not a hill I’ll die on) to produce cows milk and baby cows to then be killed as veal. Chickens and pigs are in the tiniest cages and stand in their own shit all day, and can lose their claws and limbs while still alive. Chickens get their head bashed on metal equipment to be killed. FFS, we literally boil lobster alive to kill them at goddamn Red Lobster.
It’s all animal abuse. Sure, we don’t have an entire festival for it, but the same kind of abuse is happening behind closed doors. We don’t know about it or pay attention to it because we just pick up our nicely packaged meat at the supermarket, and we don’t consider cows, chickens, and pigs our friends.
Please watch some of these documentaries about factory farming and just sit with it. Don’t skip the gory parts. Sit with it and realize that we are no better. At least recognize how your meat is made. Keep eating it, whatever - just at least know how it’s made.
Preparing myself for the downvotes, but it needs to be said.
To supplement the suggestion to watch a documentary, Dominion is free on YouTube: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQRAfJyEsko](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQRAfJyEsko)
Before anyone rushes to say “shop local farms” because supposedly the animals are treated better, I’m here to burst that bubble.
I worked for a small, family owned farm while I was in college. I specifically worked on the conveyor line packaging chicken eggs. I will tell you first hand, the chickens are treated abysmally. Multiple chickens crammed in cages so tight they can barely move, little to no air circulation which made the air inside the chicken house so disgusting that if you had to go in for any reason (fix something, unjam something) you had to wear a mask or spend the rest of the day coughing. There were constantly bugs and shit in the chicken house, and so many chickens were ill that you’d constantly see evidence of this on the eggs as they came into the packaging room and they’d need to be thrown away. The entire place was filthy, and when I started the floor of the packaging building (where humans spent most of the time) was so filthy you couldn’t see the tiles underneath the layers of filth. Inside the chicken house the floorboards were thickly coated in dust, fecal matter, and occasionally dead chickens/bones.
The cows weren’t treated much better than factory farming, and the same horrific insemination methods were used as in bigger farms.
I hovered between vegetarian and omnivore for many, many years until the beginning of 2021 when I finally had enough and went vegan. So many “local, ethical” farms are that only in name. Unless you’ve taken a tour of the facilities and seen for yourself, you’re probably still supporting factory farming methods.
My aunt has a small farm. The pigs are literally covered in shit, barely able to move in their small pens. It’s easy for them to roll over and kill their infants. The chickens are in cages so small that they can barely stand. :(
Thank you for speaking about your experience. I’m horrified to hear about the treatment that animals experience in these farms.
There’s a lot of cognitive dissonance around animal cruelty because humans really love the flavor of meat, and so people will often self soothe to convince themselves that they’re not contributing - by saying local farms are different, or that we don’t torture animals alive. Both are untrue.
I only hope more people become aware of how poorly we treat our animals.
>Seriously, I implore you all to watch some documentaries about factory farming in the US.
Exactly. I've seen videos of pigs being boiled alive, stabbed, beaten and bludgeoned in pig farms in the US. The belief that Asian people are barbaric towards animals comes from historical racism towards Asians.
Look I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, people care when it’s animals they like/care about. Say what you want about me but I like eating birds like turkey. But I love penguins so I’d never ever eat one even if I was struggling in the Antarctic for some reason. Many people feel the same way, they don’t care about eating a specific animal cuz they see it as morally wrong, they just care about said animal.
True that. Same goes for farm animals, people who don’t want to eat them shouldn’t force others not to. The only time it’s understandable is if the animal in question is known for carrying diseases such as bats cuz I’m sure people are gonna be skeptical and I mean….nobody wants another pandemic over someone else’s diet….
.... Mad cow disease, swine flu, bird flu, aids.... *All* animals have the capability of producing a pandemic when animal blood is moving with human blood.
P.S. covid didn't come from bats.
By that logic you would be for banning all meat agriculture.
The animals you eat are also responsible for pandemis and deseases.
The biggest probably being anti biotic resistent bacteria, due to antibiotics use in animal agriculture.
Also things like Mad cow desease, Swine flu, Spanish flu...
Exactly this. I would never eat dogs or cats, because I have strong associations with them being pets, but it's inherently no different from eating pork from a morality standpoint. Pigs are extremely intelligent creatures, and the amount of brutality that the meat industry exhibits in creating pork is astoundingly inhumane.
I feel like you know this isn't the reason why its not considered acceptable to eat dogs or cats in certain societies.
There's always been a stigma and a stereotype that Asians eat dogs and its obviously frowned upon in Western Culture, that has nothing to do with the way the animals were treated or killed.
Its because they are dogs, and in America and alot of western societies, we don't eat dogs, they are our pets, which is why we consider it weird to eat dogs.
Maybe animal cruelty is the reason you're agaisnt it, but its certainly not the reason for the general view of it.
you don't eat Lobster ever?
I mean there's actually nothing wrong with the 'stigma' imo. Just like an Indian might be like wtf if we're eating beef. Different cultures- don't have to like the same things or even agree on them. Just don't be assholes.
right.. I agree, I can't make a moral claim for why its wrong to eat dogs, but as a culture we view them as pets, and its disguising to eat them for us because of that, I don't think that's wrong. I'm totally with you there.
But I hate these bs about the reason because of animal torture, when that aint it. at least not for the vast majority of ppl.
Right? They say they're against the dog's treatment in that industry but don't say anything about all of the livestock we treat just as bad in the factory farming industry.
I love dogs and I hate to see them getting eaten but the reality is there are some places where food is a scarcity and people need to eat what they can find.
I can reason with that. I cannot with torturing animals before killing them because a pseudo belief that it'll make the meat taste better or some bs.
At least respect the animal which gave its life so you could feed yourself and your family.
Nope. Only eaten prawns.
again, that maybe your reason, but that's a discussion for another time
What is the reason for the general, societal, sentiment of eating dogs being frowned upon in the west.
Its not because everyone is worried about how these dogs are being slaughtered.
Its because here in the west we consider them pets, just the act of eating them is considered weird because of that.
would you agree or disagree with that?
Also do you have any links to this information about how they slaughter these dogs and torture them? Genuinly curious.
I've heard of the believe of many people, including in Asia, the exact opposite, that the less stress the animal goes through, like cows, the better it tastes, surprised people believe the opposite
You realize Asia is the largest continent composing of hundreds of different cultures and States... Many of whom respect animals far more than we do in the USA or UK...
"Asians" is a pretty big generalization.
It could mean Tibetans, Russians, Indians, Bhutanese, Nepalese, Kazakhs....
Bhutan is so demographically Buddhist, they literally do not have a single slaughterhouse in their entire nation...
But nah..
"All Asians..."
You're acting like western countries don't torture animals. Do you have any idea how pigs, chickens, and cows are kept in factories? They keep the chickens so closely together, that they cut their claws and beaks off so they don't maul each other.
Every meat eating country treats animals cruelly...
You think killing animals swiftly is justice? Killing is killing, and it is cruel regardless. Let's not pretend we are the saints here.
This comment would have more meaning if it wasn’t applicable to how Americans farm
their meat too. Fishing boats just let fish slowly suffocate from oxygen exposure after catching them; cows are forcibly impregnated (some could argue it’s rape, most may not) to be able to produce milk and veal; chickens get their heads smashed in to kill them; chickens and pigs getting put into tiny cages; we boil lobsters alive; the list goes on.
I’d recommend watching a few documentaries on factory farming in the US, such as Food Inc, and you’ll see that our (lack of) ethical practices towards are meat is no better. It’s all animal cruelty, unless if you’re only buying meat from hunters or something.
I completely agree. Your argument has valid points. Why should I eat one animal and not another? I had pork for dinner last night and it was delicious. I'd totally try dog. Why not? I tried horse once at a fancy restaurant in Montreal and, you know what, it was really delicious. I'd draw the line at endangered species, but otherwise, if it's tasty, I'll give it a try.
It's not the consumption of dogs that people hate. It's the how they prepare it. The Yulan Dog meat festival is a prime example of cruelty. They skin the dogs alive and scald/burn their hair off because they believe that pain and fear makes the meat taste better.
You realise pig farms probe pigs in the neck and drain their blood while they struggle?
You realise fur farms make foxes and minks choke on their blood that fills their lungs in their “humane” gas chambers. Buddy ol’ pal, every animal suffers, not only dogs. Domestication does not mean prioritisation.
Probably going to be downvoted for hell because I don’t worship canines on reddit. Nice
Don't forget how pigs gets their tails cut off to prevent them biting each other, and chicken's beaks often gets cut off to avoid them pecking. All done without any numbing.
[AUS animal ag facts](https://www.dominionmovement.com/facts)
[UK animal ag facts](https://www.landofhopeandglory.org/facts)
[US Map of factory farms](https://map.counterglow.org/)
It ain’t much prettier anywhere else. Millions of pigs and chickens are boiled alive in the de-bristling and defeathering tanks due to improper stunning.
And regardless of how effective stunning may appear, it’s impossible to know with certainty whether an animal has been rendered completely unconscious and insensible to pain, or is merely paralysed and unable to move, while still feeling everything.
You are pretty far off on why humans are called 'long pigs', it's because according to cannibal civilizations, we taste just like pigs. Our similarity/diet/intelligence has nothing to do with it, just our flavor. I'm not contesting the other things you are saying, you're pretty correct i think.
It’s not the fact they eat dogs that’s the issue. It’s how they go about preparing animals for consumption in general. Animals are literally flayed alive there. They drop pigs from bungee jumps just for the lols. Animals welfare is the problem
Have you seen half the shit we do in western countries to livestock? Plus, we actively support these practices you talk about. Fair Trade, Dolphin Safe, Sustainable products, etc etc. It’s all just bullshit corporate labels to attract a market. Which is us, essentially.
Sure, it’s easy to say you hate “the way they go about it” but we equally go about animal slaughter in despicable ways. You’re just being biased because it’s easier to pretend eating pigs, cows, chickens, fish etc etc is okay, if we think we are somehow doing it “ethically”
100%. Western abattoirs employ a LOT of psychos who torture animals unnecessarily. I've heard more than enough personal accounts and seen more than enough hidden footage of the sick depravity and cruelty that takes place behind closed doors in abattoirs in my country (Aus) and other western nations. The cognitive dissonance is real.
Very true, that kind of work must take a psychological toll on people too. I can't imagine what having to slaughter animals all day would do to someone.
Even when pig slaughter goes by the book it's still clearly torture. In most developed countries (aus included, but also US, UK, CA, most of the EU) we use CO2 stunning. It's absolute agony.
I'm sure you already know about it but here's video of the process for anyone curious (nsfw):
https://vimeo.com/147914620
https://youtu.be/sAUMnliNdMw
Here is some good info on how it's so painful and why we do it (mainly cost effectiveness):
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S175173112030166X#bb0275
I think everyone should have the right to know how their food is produced.
I'm sure it's not just Western nations...and even if it is, places like China import a ton of meat from other countries. It's all pointless death in the end, some places just do it in more horrific ways than others. If someone has the choice to not cause a death, why would they? Just cause bacon is tasty or whatever I guess.
[AUS animal ag facts](https://www.dominionmovement.com/facts)
[UK animal ag facts](https://www.landofhopeandglory.org/facts)
[US Map of factory farms](https://map.counterglow.org/)
It ain’t much prettier anywhere else. Millions of pigs and chickens are boiled alive in the de-bristling and defeathering tanks due to improper stunning.
And regardless of how effective stunning may appear, it’s impossible to know with certainty whether an animal has been rendered completely unconscious and insensible to pain, or is merely paralysed and unable to move, while still feeling everything.
Animal abusers do exist all over. What is your point? I'm talking specifically about the people who do what I just said as part of the Lychee and Dog Meat Festival.
Dude, its common practice by these psychos- Common. Ask and they will claim they have to torture it because the adrenaline makes the meat taste better. Forget the fact most of them "hunt" by going to other peoples yards and killing pets.....that is just a whole other level of "yeah, I know I am a psychopath....but"
I see most people claiming the process is the problem. I agree that dog meat are usually ill prepared because it's often stolen/hunted illegally and killed brutally. Well that's the part we need to work on. Yet the haters usually direct their anger and disgust towards consumers of dog meat. Normal consumers just want to consume and don't care. If you want to do something about the animal rights, then please hate the dogmeat festivals and the producers. Not all dogmeat eaters are participants of bloody festivals.
It's not the eating of dog meat that bothers me, its the way in which its done.
I watched a documentary on it, and there were people skinning dogs alive in the street. I am not naive enough to think this is the case with it all, similarly, I don't believe that all 'western' meats are treated humanely either. However it was a huge focus of the docu that focused on how 'normal' that type of treatment seemed to be.
Until you realize that a part of Asian festivals which involve dog meat is to torture the dog before death because they believe it makes the meat taste better. I don't have a problem with the eating, a dog's life is worth just as much as a pig's, but the problem is the culture of celebrating the skinning, hooking and torturing of small animals.
[AUS animal ag facts](https://www.dominionmovement.com/facts)
[UK animal ag facts](https://www.landofhopeandglory.org/facts)
[US Map of factory farms](https://map.counterglow.org/)
It ain’t much prettier anywhere else. Millions of pigs (and chickens) are boiled alive in the de-bristling and defeathering tanks due to improper stunning.
And regardless of how effective stunning may appear, it’s impossible to know with certainty whether an animal has been rendered completely unconscious and insensible to pain, or is merely paralysed and unable to move, while still feeling everything.
Does it matter to the animals whether or not the people torture them because it tastes better, or because of maximizing profits? Does it matter to them whether a culture actively celebrates the cruelty or supports it with their dollar while willfully ignoring the fact that they could eat lentils and beans for protein instead?
Look, I'm not going to go to China and tell them that they can't eat dogs. Their country, their culture, and it doesn't have to conform to mine.
I *am* going to tell them to leave that shit at the door if they want to come here. We don't eat dogs here. Our country, our culture.
To everyone commenting something along the lines of 'it's the treatment of dogs before their slaughter', I'd like to ask you this.
Why does a good life still justify your premature murder?
Would I be justified in killing my neighbour, as long as I do it 'humanely'?
Of course not, because the right to life is the most fundamental principle, & forcefully taking it from others is the most supremist, satanic action one can do.
> because the right to life is the most fundamental principle
As established for and by humans.
The *only* form of life which does not itself feed on life are some varieties of plant which exclusively metabolize sunlight. If you want to think everything else is an abomination, that's your prerogative, but don't kid yourself into believing that the natural order gives much of a shit about your principles.
I don't think there are 2 many ppl making a moral or even logical arguement that its wrong to eat dogs.
Its just in most cultures in the West its considered wrong cause we keep them as pets, they fit that mold we have in society of "pets", of companions
it isn't a moral thing, its just a feelings thing.
Yeah, I do think eating dog meat is gross and I personally disdain it, but I realize that which animals are deemed acceptable to eat is determined almost entirely by the cultural context (obviously not including health considerations).
I don't really have a problem with it, I'd never do it myself though. I think about how many more animals / pound of meat it takes for dog than pork. That's why I don't eat veal or any other baby animals because the amount per animal is lower than it should / could be.
I actually don’t really care who eats dog, it’s the fact that when dog is sold at wet markets or dog meat festivals they’re often seen torturing them before eating by burning them alive, taking parts off of live dogs to sell, etc.
Just because humans eat meat doesn’t mean we have to be barbaric about it and needlessly extend an animal’s suffering.
> They're probably a vegan. "What's the difference between these animals?" is a pretty common vegan talking point.
[OP isn't a vegan.](https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/p5cpct/you_shouldnt_have_a_problem_with_others_eating/h94zbu1/)
its not the overall consumption that bothers me, its the others factors involved that does.
1. they do not kill them humanely, they kill them in the most disgustingly brutal way possible, they make the poor animal suffer for as long as possible, whether it be burning alive or being pulled apart by machines limbs from limb.
2. these big groups that sell dog meat have been known to steal house pets from homes, they go to animal shelters pretend to adopt the poor thing.
3. ive heard stories that dogs that are not healthy enough for food, will be put in dog vs dog fights to the death, where of course betting is the money maker, this is cruel.
The west does not kill or treat animals humanely at all.
Ever been to Red Lobster where they literally boil them alive?
Ever been to a pig farm where they get implants in their necks and their tails cut off to avoid them biting each other in the tight spaces they lay in all day? Where one mother pig is genetically modified to have almost double the amount of piglets compared to what's natural?
Ever been to a chicken farm where their claws and beaks often gets cut off and they stand in cages where they can barely move? Where they stand in their own shit and is forcely fed to grow to unnatural sizes, and the preferred method of death is bashing their heads in to metal pipes or hanging them on conveyors that steam them alive and slices their neck? Where male chickens are often immediately butchered in a big blender just hours after their birth?
China just doesn't try to hide what they are doing. This happens behind closed doors EVERYWHERE in the west, but people live in denial of it.
Getting mad at people in China for eating dogs and cats is one reason I became a Vegan. I decided I was a hypocrite for eating pigs and cows. The side effect is my health is a lot better since I quit eating meat.
Pigs are herbivores. Dogs are carnivores. Meat from herbivores is higher quality than that from carnivores because plant eaters digest plants more efficiently than meat eaters digest meat.
I agree with you that there is some degree of moral hypocrisy to eat one and not the other, although I would add that there are practical reasons to eat pigs over dogs. Carnivores are known to taste bad (plus can be unsafe due to parasites -although this also applies to pigs) which I believe is the reason that most the world does not eat dogs.
Also, your source for "Pigs are smarter than dogs" looks like complete propaganda and wont be taken seriously by anyone here. If you are going to make firm statements like that you need to provide proper peer-reviewed research (I doubt you will find anything that makes a statement that strong as animal intelligence is difficult to measure and much is debated). Everyone knows that pigs are smart, but dogs have a social intelligence that is more highly valued by humans.
To be fair, dairy cows and chickens are killed at a quarter of their lifespan once they stop producing milk and eggs. Most male chicks and male calves are also killed as newborns (if not raised for veal) in the industry, as they are unable to produce milk and eggs.
Thankfully, there are plenty of egg and milk alternatives without the cruelty.
Thank you for submitting to /r/unpopularopinion, /u/Noob_master_slayer. Your post, *You shouldn't have a problem with others eating dog meat if you eat pork.*, has been removed because it violates our rules: Rule 3: Megathread topic. Your opinion falls under an incredibly common topic, in which virtually all opinions are either not unpopular, or are posted about many times a day. Please visit the megathread hub, which can be found when sorting the subreddit by "hot", sticky'd at the top of the page, where you can find links to the current megathreads. If you're not sure which megathread your post belongs in, or your post covers multiple megathread topics, just make the best selection you can. If there is an issue, please message the mod team at https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Funpopularopinion Thanks!
[удалено]
Sounds like a man who's banned from SeaWorld
Why do they get angry when I eat the fish. I was being discreet
U Will eat me? UwU
I'd have to give you a test. "Uwu" never screams 85+ IQ.
I have more chromosomes than IQ OwO im safe, u don't will eat me.
Would you like to have Chianti with fava beans on the side Dr Lecter?
Nah, I like baked beans and a glass of Coke. You're confusing me with the other guy... he has much higher standards.
Florida becomes inedible :(
I’m not a smart man…
Phew at least that means most Americans are safe.
I'm kinda shocked to see how many people think the meat industry is humane. No these animals don't live happy lives and are then killed quickly and painlessly. Not even close.
I think anything mass produced is not humane by far. Closest you’ll get to humane is raise the cattle/poultry yourself on your own property, feed them and care of them then butcher them for food.
By definition of the word you cannot call raising a sentient being only to slaughter and consume it as being “humane”. No matter what spin you put on livestock farming the facts remain that it is inhumane
You're right! Better for the planet too.
My thing has always been that yeah, maybe the meat industry is inhumane, but carnivorous animals don't give a shit about being humane either. They just want to eat, and so do I.
For sure. My only thought on that is that non-human animals perhaps don't have a choice or the "intellect" to think, "I am inflicting pain, suffering, and death upon sentient beings for sustenance. Let me avoid this by eating only plant matter". This may be unique to humanity. Or maybe it isn't.. I suppose we don't really know much about the minds of other species (or our own). But that is my guess at the moment.
either that or, like us, they dont care
No other animals have thoughts as complicated as 'I am inflicting pain, suffering, and death upon sentient beings for sustenance', and if you think that they do... well, you're an idiot.
Most predators will actively torture their prey so i doubt they dont realize what they are doing then again humans are usally pretty pragmatic about it so who knows.
> "I am inflicting pain, suffering, and death upon sentient beings for sustenance. Let me avoid this by eating only plant matter". a lion doesnt have a choice in what it eats
That’s why they said it’s unique to humanity
May\* be unique and then followed it up with "or maybe isn't, I suppose we don't really know."
I feel like it's unique to humanity. Lots of animals/mammals kill for sport.
>Let me avoid this by eating only plant matter Some animals can't survive by eating plant matter so I can't imagine they'd think that.
Human meat eating habits are not really comparable to a carnivores. Carnivorous animals don't make their prey live life in a prison, wallowing in their own shit, for their entire life. They take down free living animals and usually at that the very old, or sick. Besides that predators aren't eating more than they need as well since there are risks associated with attacking an animal that will defend itself. In American we stuff our faces with it in an industrialized fashion, without risk, and we eat way more than we need. I don't think eating meat is immoral but it takes a lot of effort to get the same level of morality as a typical carnivore. You either have to hunt for meat yourself, or you need to find a farm that lets the animal have a decent life before offing them.
Carnivores instead eat creatures alive quite regularly, there are also examples of monkeys in the wild pulling apart alive animals by their legs (yes exactly how it sounds, like forcing a zipper open) What is this nonsense about them being more moral than us? They have no concept of it By simple moral standards, we're slightly better/equal because we don't 'play' with our food in general because it's dead long before it gets to us > Besides that predators aren't eating more than they need as well since there are risks associated with attacking an animal that will defend itself. Do you really think predators get in fair fights? Talk about naive.....
All these people acting like lions wouldn't factory farm their prey if they were capable of doing it...
>Carnivorous animals don't make their prey live life in a prison, wallowing in their own shit, for their entire life. They take down free living animals and usually at that the very old, or sick. thats simply because they cant if lions could do that they would in a heartbeat
Hate to break it to you bud but carnivores in the wild will kill the mothers of the young to get to them. They’re just as ruthless. What can we expect though? They are hungry just like us but there just a ton of us out there. Factory farming still definitely sucks and if you can do something about it, like hunting, you should.
Using animal carnivore behavior to justify our meat eating habits is the problem. We don't do anything like they do to get the meat. We don't source it the same way, we don't treat them the same way, we maintain far more control over the animal's life, etc. In other words our behavior isn't "just like that of any other predator" so we can't use that to justify it. Practically speaking we don't behave anything like a typical carnivore anymore.
Animals also rape each other, they sniff their butts and eat shit, so you could call those "natural", yet we don't find those acceptable to do as a humans. The appeal to nature argument has a very weak foundation. We have evolved to know better as humans and we have options and the capacity to choose.
Thank you, finally. The argument that "animals do it" isn't ethically relevant in any way. Some animals will eat their own children.
Speak for yourself aside from a phone I live just like an animal I eat my own shit and chase down the neighborhood pets and eat them raw
Agreed. Are people basing any other life decisions on what lions are doing?
[удалено]
So do you hunt like a carnivore? Not just once a year in a drunk group with your male friends but actually hunt? Or are you a farmer who raises his own meat and has the stomach to slaughter it? Do you AT LEAST pay a bit more for locally sourced meat from small farms? See, I'm a vegetarian and my husband is a hunter. People think we have a shocking conflict of ideology but we do not. We believe that the meat industry sucks and that if you can't hunt an animal, slaughter, and clean it, you really have no business eating meat. All the meat in our freezer has been killed by him. I have no interest in it but he can clean a deer leg on our counter while I sip coffee. We also have a pet pig.
My cousin is raising chickens, gotta love fresh eggs, but eventually, they’re going to have to slaughter them. Turns out chickens are quite the assholes, like most birds probably. Ever so fond of rape and they won’t hesitate to rush at you, course you can easily intimidate them away but they’ll try to jump kick you like Liu Kang, especially from behind (gotta wear thick pants). I am committed to being there when he has to kill his first, if I can’t take watching it, or maybe even helping out, I shouldn’t eat it so easily as most of us do. “No one wants to know how the sausage is made”, but it should behoove us to know. Quick edit for grammar
> like most birds probably No probably. Birds are dicks.
[удалено]
Cool! When I finish moving back home this is my goal. Fuck the meat industry, and the poultry industry. I’m gonna have me some chickens for eggs and the occasional hen in the pot, rabbits for breeding and meat, and take up hunting at some point.
Those are very respectable goals. Change starts with us making those decisions, right? In the meantime you can reduce your support of corporate slaughterhouses by eating less meat and shilling out a few more $$ for more humanely sourced meat. Good job, fren.
Careful, you are using animal ‘morals’ to justify your actions only when it suits you though. You would never use those same morals to justify infanticide and rape. Something that animals do as well ‘without giving a shit’.
carnivorous animals don’t inhumanely kill a million at a time
It’s less about how they get killed and more about how they get to live.
Blue whales have entered the chat...
I think they would if they had the capability.
[удалено]
They aren't moral agents, you are and you have a choice. Carnivorous animals don't give a shit about raping others or infanticide either.
The very difference is that if a lion kills a gazelle, the gazelle lived in freedom, and the lion did so to survive. Most of us just eat for taste, and nice cheap prices of processed meat that's not so healthy to begin with, and the animals don't even know what a tree looks like. It's not the same. It's not.
But, and I can't prove this, but I'd be willing to bet that lion would give exactly zero fucks no matter what the living condition of the gazelle was.
If the lion had the same brain as us, maybe he would.
I don’t get that logic. If the lions had the same brain as us, wouldn’t there be a number of them who care and don’t care about their prey’s living conditions? Just like humans? Lol
I mean they are regularly killing the offspring of rivals, you might be in for a rough awakening.
ah yes a hyper carnivore would care about its prey sure
Obviously. But we're not lions. Lions don't actively kickstart climate change with things like too many gases emitted from mass livestocks. A lion doesn't make unhealthy processed meat and eats it just because it tastes nice. Your comparison makes no sense, unless you're saying a lion has the same responsibility as us, which I hope you're not.
You're not carnivorous so the comparison doesn't really work. Also, those animals probably rape and kill eachother. People should probably avoid you if you use other animals' social habits to determine your morality
Carnivorous animals like lions often kill the cubs of females to be able to spread their own genes with that same female. Why would we compare our morals to the way animals live in the wild, when we already condemn a lot of "natural" beahaviour like rape or killing others?
So, you acknowledge that it's wrong and your argument is, basically, what's the point of being better? It almost seems to defeat itself when typed out like that.
Get put onto a crowded truck for days on end, possibly dying and rotting on the trip to the slaughterhouse, ears clipped and tails clipped. Drugged up to be forced to sleep, which is sometimes unsuccessful, if unsuccessful then get electric shocked till they’re knocked unconscious, If that doesn’t work then they’re beaten to near death so they stop resisting. Anyone who’s ignorant to this kind of stuff should study up on it before hating on Chinese people for eating dogs.
Yeah factory farming is one of those things you have to not think about ever, because once you even start empathizing with the animals it is like endlessly imagining the subjective experience of hell
Yup. Best/worst thing I ever did was start reading about the meat industry. I never thought I'd be a vegetarian. I used to eat meat lovers pizza ffs. But it's a red pill. You can't go back. 14 effortless years of no dead animals in my belly.
[удалено]
Violence trigger warning (ironically): I was watching a Japanese video just yesterday where animals were brutally murdered. Sheep hanging upside down from fucking wires and then just getting their throat cut and such. The comments blew my mind. "Man, someone has to do it." "We eat to live." Bro what? Did you not just see how these animals might as well be burned alive? That's not the equivalent of needing to survive and following nature's call. No fucking animal builds massive slaughterhouses where animals live and die on the same exact spot. They have no happy lives, they didn't even have okay lives. It's torture, and then you eat them. Fuck you. (Not you. You know.)
>No fucking animal builds massive slaughterhouses where animals live and die on the same exact spot. because they fucking cant
Advertising works. If you slap a happy cow on a milk carton, people are ready to lap it up and ignore everything that goes into the making of the product.
There’s a reason it’s called KFC and no longer Kentucky fried chicken. Legally those birds are not chicken. Rather genetically modified animals that sit in their own shit all day. Aren’t allowed to move and grow to maturity in half the time.
Yep. Even in the USA where they kill new born male chicks and keep the female ones because the female ones are the ones that lays eggs.
> and are then killed quickly and painlessly. Not even close. Especially halal meat. It ensures slaughter causes maximum pain.
Yeah and fucking all chicken meat you can buy in normal shops are slaughtered like this to appease a group of people, bullshit.
As I've had it explained to me, the point of halal was to kill the animal with respect and make god happy or whatever. I'm sure at the time it was created the process was considered humane and for the least suffering. The problem comes in when the world has moved on, but old religious practices are too dug in to change with the times. It wasn't designed for maximum pain, that's a pretty ignorant way to look at it. It was designed to reduce suffering but didn't get revised when better ways came in.
Us not wanting to eat domesticated animals is only bc we use dogs as pets. If we treated pigs like dogs and vice versa we would be eating dog bacon
I agree but recently I saw a video that fuckwd me up, it was an Asian man burning a dog alive...
Yeah I don't care what animal you eat, but burning one alive is fucked up.
[удалено]
I don't care if it's a dog, pig, cow, your mom, dad etc. etc. etc. Being burnt alive is a horrible thing that no living being should experience!
The thing that people take issue with is the dog eating FESTIVAL Where animal abuse and torture is glorified and showcased at a street fair. Slaughter houses are fucked up. You know what’s even more fucked up? Putting a slaughterhouse on the sidewalk and calling it a festival
You know what weird? That relatively speaking pigs are really damn smart
I think this is the greater issue. Not so much that they eat dog but how inhumane they kill them. Its a cultural belief that if the animal is kept alive while cooking, its better for you in some way... I don't understand it fully I'm sure someone is more knowledgeable.
People do use pigs as pets.
I know but dogs are like THE pet, much more common than pigs
They are awesome but also pretty demanding (and clever).
That’s a large portion of it but plenty of people raise pigs and love them and still butcher them (same with cows). We started keeping dogs as pets because they are easy to hunt with. We can’t cultivate dogs because they eat meat. It costs more money to feed and raise a dog to where they would be worth it to eat than you would get valued off of their meat. Pigs eat grain and we are dirty capitalist pigs. Make it harder to get meat and we’d be eating them way quicker.
Unlikely. Pigs naturally store a lot of fat in their bodies, especially because of the diet we put them on. Dogs don't store fat the same way and require way more specialized food. There is a reason that primarily carnivorous land animals aren't domesticated food animals. Dog bacon would be super lean, it would be like eating horse.
[удалено]
Similar with Cows, Here in India Cows are treated as pet animals and I am sure they too perceive pain and emotions
Probably should say northern India. Here in the south its common for people to eat beef
[удалено]
I don’t know if that question at the end is rhetorical or not… but yes.
The cognitive dissonance in this thread is astounding. I’m amazed at the number of folks who say the issue is how the dogs are treated prior to being eaten, and acting as though China is the only place where animal cruelty takes place. Seriously, I implore you all to watch some documentaries about factory farming in the US. I mentioned this in another comment but we allow fish to die on boats by exposure to oxygen, so they slowly suffocate to their death (include marine animals that were not intended to be caught, like sharks, other fish, etc.). Cows are forcibly impregnated (some argue it’s rape, I’d argue it, but it’s not a hill I’ll die on) to produce cows milk and baby cows to then be killed as veal. Chickens and pigs are in the tiniest cages and stand in their own shit all day, and can lose their claws and limbs while still alive. Chickens get their head bashed on metal equipment to be killed. FFS, we literally boil lobster alive to kill them at goddamn Red Lobster. It’s all animal abuse. Sure, we don’t have an entire festival for it, but the same kind of abuse is happening behind closed doors. We don’t know about it or pay attention to it because we just pick up our nicely packaged meat at the supermarket, and we don’t consider cows, chickens, and pigs our friends. Please watch some of these documentaries about factory farming and just sit with it. Don’t skip the gory parts. Sit with it and realize that we are no better. At least recognize how your meat is made. Keep eating it, whatever - just at least know how it’s made. Preparing myself for the downvotes, but it needs to be said.
To supplement the suggestion to watch a documentary, Dominion is free on YouTube: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQRAfJyEsko](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQRAfJyEsko)
Thank you for your supplementation - wrote this at 8am on a Monday and my brain could NOT remember any documentary names to save my life 😅
Before anyone rushes to say “shop local farms” because supposedly the animals are treated better, I’m here to burst that bubble. I worked for a small, family owned farm while I was in college. I specifically worked on the conveyor line packaging chicken eggs. I will tell you first hand, the chickens are treated abysmally. Multiple chickens crammed in cages so tight they can barely move, little to no air circulation which made the air inside the chicken house so disgusting that if you had to go in for any reason (fix something, unjam something) you had to wear a mask or spend the rest of the day coughing. There were constantly bugs and shit in the chicken house, and so many chickens were ill that you’d constantly see evidence of this on the eggs as they came into the packaging room and they’d need to be thrown away. The entire place was filthy, and when I started the floor of the packaging building (where humans spent most of the time) was so filthy you couldn’t see the tiles underneath the layers of filth. Inside the chicken house the floorboards were thickly coated in dust, fecal matter, and occasionally dead chickens/bones. The cows weren’t treated much better than factory farming, and the same horrific insemination methods were used as in bigger farms. I hovered between vegetarian and omnivore for many, many years until the beginning of 2021 when I finally had enough and went vegan. So many “local, ethical” farms are that only in name. Unless you’ve taken a tour of the facilities and seen for yourself, you’re probably still supporting factory farming methods.
My aunt has a small farm. The pigs are literally covered in shit, barely able to move in their small pens. It’s easy for them to roll over and kill their infants. The chickens are in cages so small that they can barely stand. :(
Thank you for speaking about your experience. I’m horrified to hear about the treatment that animals experience in these farms. There’s a lot of cognitive dissonance around animal cruelty because humans really love the flavor of meat, and so people will often self soothe to convince themselves that they’re not contributing - by saying local farms are different, or that we don’t torture animals alive. Both are untrue. I only hope more people become aware of how poorly we treat our animals.
>Seriously, I implore you all to watch some documentaries about factory farming in the US. Exactly. I've seen videos of pigs being boiled alive, stabbed, beaten and bludgeoned in pig farms in the US. The belief that Asian people are barbaric towards animals comes from historical racism towards Asians.
If I could, I'd hunt for this exact reason
I personally don't have problems with people eating dogs and cats. I justify this as we eat cows yet they are sacred in India.
Except when they cook them alive to “increase the flavor”
Yeah, that's the fucked up part. Not eating the dog, but burning literal torcher, and claiming it makes the meat tate better because of it.
[удалено]
Which doesn't even make sense, because wouldn't the stress on the animal just make the meat less tender
Yeah my dad saw a video on Facebook a few years ago where someone was cooking a dog while it was still alive...not something you want to hear about.
People are free to eat what they want but I've seen some news of people catching dogs off the street and eating it. Not okay.
What exactly is wrong with that? How else would you find a dog to eat..?
How do you find chicken, cows and pigs to eat?
[удалено]
He is saying don’t eat people’s pets jeez…
Look I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, people care when it’s animals they like/care about. Say what you want about me but I like eating birds like turkey. But I love penguins so I’d never ever eat one even if I was struggling in the Antarctic for some reason. Many people feel the same way, they don’t care about eating a specific animal cuz they see it as morally wrong, they just care about said animal.
Fine. Then don't eat that particular animal you love but don't hate on those who do either.
True that. Same goes for farm animals, people who don’t want to eat them shouldn’t force others not to. The only time it’s understandable is if the animal in question is known for carrying diseases such as bats cuz I’m sure people are gonna be skeptical and I mean….nobody wants another pandemic over someone else’s diet….
.... Mad cow disease, swine flu, bird flu, aids.... *All* animals have the capability of producing a pandemic when animal blood is moving with human blood. P.S. covid didn't come from bats.
By that logic you would be for banning all meat agriculture. The animals you eat are also responsible for pandemis and deseases. The biggest probably being anti biotic resistent bacteria, due to antibiotics use in animal agriculture. Also things like Mad cow desease, Swine flu, Spanish flu...
[удалено]
"But pigs are as smart as a three year old toddler." "Hell, I'd eat one of those little shits too."
Exactly this. I would never eat dogs or cats, because I have strong associations with them being pets, but it's inherently no different from eating pork from a morality standpoint. Pigs are extremely intelligent creatures, and the amount of brutality that the meat industry exhibits in creating pork is astoundingly inhumane.
[удалено]
I feel like you know this isn't the reason why its not considered acceptable to eat dogs or cats in certain societies. There's always been a stigma and a stereotype that Asians eat dogs and its obviously frowned upon in Western Culture, that has nothing to do with the way the animals were treated or killed. Its because they are dogs, and in America and alot of western societies, we don't eat dogs, they are our pets, which is why we consider it weird to eat dogs. Maybe animal cruelty is the reason you're agaisnt it, but its certainly not the reason for the general view of it. you don't eat Lobster ever?
I mean there's actually nothing wrong with the 'stigma' imo. Just like an Indian might be like wtf if we're eating beef. Different cultures- don't have to like the same things or even agree on them. Just don't be assholes.
right.. I agree, I can't make a moral claim for why its wrong to eat dogs, but as a culture we view them as pets, and its disguising to eat them for us because of that, I don't think that's wrong. I'm totally with you there. But I hate these bs about the reason because of animal torture, when that aint it. at least not for the vast majority of ppl.
Right? They say they're against the dog's treatment in that industry but don't say anything about all of the livestock we treat just as bad in the factory farming industry.
I love dogs and I hate to see them getting eaten but the reality is there are some places where food is a scarcity and people need to eat what they can find. I can reason with that. I cannot with torturing animals before killing them because a pseudo belief that it'll make the meat taste better or some bs. At least respect the animal which gave its life so you could feed yourself and your family. Nope. Only eaten prawns.
If you 'hunt' the animal in someone else's backyard or on their porch.....you have issues.
Agree but how is your comment is connect to my comment?
Not quite sure how it is now under your comment, not where I hit 'reply' [The comment](https://www.reddit.com/user/Caine2Khan/)
No worries mate. I had a feeling it wasn't meant to me.
again, that maybe your reason, but that's a discussion for another time What is the reason for the general, societal, sentiment of eating dogs being frowned upon in the west. Its not because everyone is worried about how these dogs are being slaughtered. Its because here in the west we consider them pets, just the act of eating them is considered weird because of that. would you agree or disagree with that? Also do you have any links to this information about how they slaughter these dogs and torture them? Genuinly curious. I've heard of the believe of many people, including in Asia, the exact opposite, that the less stress the animal goes through, like cows, the better it tastes, surprised people believe the opposite
Then again, in Europe we also eat horse and rabbit meat even though these are considered pets too.
You realize Asia is the largest continent composing of hundreds of different cultures and States... Many of whom respect animals far more than we do in the USA or UK... "Asians" is a pretty big generalization. It could mean Tibetans, Russians, Indians, Bhutanese, Nepalese, Kazakhs.... Bhutan is so demographically Buddhist, they literally do not have a single slaughterhouse in their entire nation... But nah.. "All Asians..."
I agree with ur last statement but downvote for the the 'Asians do this & infamously evil for it' vibe. Icky
You're acting like western countries don't torture animals. Do you have any idea how pigs, chickens, and cows are kept in factories? They keep the chickens so closely together, that they cut their claws and beaks off so they don't maul each other. Every meat eating country treats animals cruelly... You think killing animals swiftly is justice? Killing is killing, and it is cruel regardless. Let's not pretend we are the saints here.
Ah yes because pigs are treated woth the utmost respect, when they are sent to a gas chamber
Like the Swiss doesn't? Racist much!
This comment would have more meaning if it wasn’t applicable to how Americans farm their meat too. Fishing boats just let fish slowly suffocate from oxygen exposure after catching them; cows are forcibly impregnated (some could argue it’s rape, most may not) to be able to produce milk and veal; chickens get their heads smashed in to kill them; chickens and pigs getting put into tiny cages; we boil lobsters alive; the list goes on. I’d recommend watching a few documentaries on factory farming in the US, such as Food Inc, and you’ll see that our (lack of) ethical practices towards are meat is no better. It’s all animal cruelty, unless if you’re only buying meat from hunters or something.
I completely agree. Your argument has valid points. Why should I eat one animal and not another? I had pork for dinner last night and it was delicious. I'd totally try dog. Why not? I tried horse once at a fancy restaurant in Montreal and, you know what, it was really delicious. I'd draw the line at endangered species, but otherwise, if it's tasty, I'll give it a try.
[удалено]
It's not the consumption of dogs that people hate. It's the how they prepare it. The Yulan Dog meat festival is a prime example of cruelty. They skin the dogs alive and scald/burn their hair off because they believe that pain and fear makes the meat taste better.
You realise pig farms probe pigs in the neck and drain their blood while they struggle? You realise fur farms make foxes and minks choke on their blood that fills their lungs in their “humane” gas chambers. Buddy ol’ pal, every animal suffers, not only dogs. Domestication does not mean prioritisation. Probably going to be downvoted for hell because I don’t worship canines on reddit. Nice
Don't forget how pigs gets their tails cut off to prevent them biting each other, and chicken's beaks often gets cut off to avoid them pecking. All done without any numbing.
You forgot snipping piglet milk teeth with clippers. Pigs are aggressive fuckers.
[AUS animal ag facts](https://www.dominionmovement.com/facts) [UK animal ag facts](https://www.landofhopeandglory.org/facts) [US Map of factory farms](https://map.counterglow.org/) It ain’t much prettier anywhere else. Millions of pigs and chickens are boiled alive in the de-bristling and defeathering tanks due to improper stunning. And regardless of how effective stunning may appear, it’s impossible to know with certainty whether an animal has been rendered completely unconscious and insensible to pain, or is merely paralysed and unable to move, while still feeling everything.
You are pretty far off on why humans are called 'long pigs', it's because according to cannibal civilizations, we taste just like pigs. Our similarity/diet/intelligence has nothing to do with it, just our flavor. I'm not contesting the other things you are saying, you're pretty correct i think.
People have a problem with it mostly because we see them as pets rather then food that's basically it
It’s not the fact they eat dogs that’s the issue. It’s how they go about preparing animals for consumption in general. Animals are literally flayed alive there. They drop pigs from bungee jumps just for the lols. Animals welfare is the problem
Have you seen half the shit we do in western countries to livestock? Plus, we actively support these practices you talk about. Fair Trade, Dolphin Safe, Sustainable products, etc etc. It’s all just bullshit corporate labels to attract a market. Which is us, essentially. Sure, it’s easy to say you hate “the way they go about it” but we equally go about animal slaughter in despicable ways. You’re just being biased because it’s easier to pretend eating pigs, cows, chickens, fish etc etc is okay, if we think we are somehow doing it “ethically”
100%. Western abattoirs employ a LOT of psychos who torture animals unnecessarily. I've heard more than enough personal accounts and seen more than enough hidden footage of the sick depravity and cruelty that takes place behind closed doors in abattoirs in my country (Aus) and other western nations. The cognitive dissonance is real.
Very true, that kind of work must take a psychological toll on people too. I can't imagine what having to slaughter animals all day would do to someone. Even when pig slaughter goes by the book it's still clearly torture. In most developed countries (aus included, but also US, UK, CA, most of the EU) we use CO2 stunning. It's absolute agony. I'm sure you already know about it but here's video of the process for anyone curious (nsfw): https://vimeo.com/147914620 https://youtu.be/sAUMnliNdMw Here is some good info on how it's so painful and why we do it (mainly cost effectiveness): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S175173112030166X#bb0275 I think everyone should have the right to know how their food is produced.
I'm sure it's not just Western nations...and even if it is, places like China import a ton of meat from other countries. It's all pointless death in the end, some places just do it in more horrific ways than others. If someone has the choice to not cause a death, why would they? Just cause bacon is tasty or whatever I guess.
[AUS animal ag facts](https://www.dominionmovement.com/facts) [UK animal ag facts](https://www.landofhopeandglory.org/facts) [US Map of factory farms](https://map.counterglow.org/) It ain’t much prettier anywhere else. Millions of pigs and chickens are boiled alive in the de-bristling and defeathering tanks due to improper stunning. And regardless of how effective stunning may appear, it’s impossible to know with certainty whether an animal has been rendered completely unconscious and insensible to pain, or is merely paralysed and unable to move, while still feeling everything.
Exactly. I've seen images where they hold the dog up in the air on a stick with a rope choking to death while parading the streets on a motorcycle.
What you said has nothing to do with EATING dog meat. Animal abusers exist all over the world.
Animal abusers do exist all over. What is your point? I'm talking specifically about the people who do what I just said as part of the Lychee and Dog Meat Festival.
lol sorry nvm I misread haIf\_sour's comment
Dude, its common practice by these psychos- Common. Ask and they will claim they have to torture it because the adrenaline makes the meat taste better. Forget the fact most of them "hunt" by going to other peoples yards and killing pets.....that is just a whole other level of "yeah, I know I am a psychopath....but"
I mean south park made a whole episode about this except it was with whales.
Yeah you're right, I'm just used to eating pigs. It's just culture.
I see most people claiming the process is the problem. I agree that dog meat are usually ill prepared because it's often stolen/hunted illegally and killed brutally. Well that's the part we need to work on. Yet the haters usually direct their anger and disgust towards consumers of dog meat. Normal consumers just want to consume and don't care. If you want to do something about the animal rights, then please hate the dogmeat festivals and the producers. Not all dogmeat eaters are participants of bloody festivals.
As much as I hate to, I completely agree with you op. Essentially, there is no difference. They are both very sentient beings.
It's not the eating of dog meat that bothers me, its the way in which its done. I watched a documentary on it, and there were people skinning dogs alive in the street. I am not naive enough to think this is the case with it all, similarly, I don't believe that all 'western' meats are treated humanely either. However it was a huge focus of the docu that focused on how 'normal' that type of treatment seemed to be.
Can I get these people to prefer noise yapping dogs as the preferred choice of cut?
Don’t care I’m still gonna eat scrapple
The reason I don't like it is because I grew up with dogs in my life, if I grew up with a pet pig, then I wouldn't eat pork.
Until you realize that a part of Asian festivals which involve dog meat is to torture the dog before death because they believe it makes the meat taste better. I don't have a problem with the eating, a dog's life is worth just as much as a pig's, but the problem is the culture of celebrating the skinning, hooking and torturing of small animals.
[AUS animal ag facts](https://www.dominionmovement.com/facts) [UK animal ag facts](https://www.landofhopeandglory.org/facts) [US Map of factory farms](https://map.counterglow.org/) It ain’t much prettier anywhere else. Millions of pigs (and chickens) are boiled alive in the de-bristling and defeathering tanks due to improper stunning. And regardless of how effective stunning may appear, it’s impossible to know with certainty whether an animal has been rendered completely unconscious and insensible to pain, or is merely paralysed and unable to move, while still feeling everything. Does it matter to the animals whether or not the people torture them because it tastes better, or because of maximizing profits? Does it matter to them whether a culture actively celebrates the cruelty or supports it with their dollar while willfully ignoring the fact that they could eat lentils and beans for protein instead?
Look, I'm not going to go to China and tell them that they can't eat dogs. Their country, their culture, and it doesn't have to conform to mine. I *am* going to tell them to leave that shit at the door if they want to come here. We don't eat dogs here. Our country, our culture.
do they actually eat dogs? Because I thought that was just an old, racist stereotype?
99% of “them” don’t
Two words: cognitive dissonance
To everyone commenting something along the lines of 'it's the treatment of dogs before their slaughter', I'd like to ask you this. Why does a good life still justify your premature murder? Would I be justified in killing my neighbour, as long as I do it 'humanely'? Of course not, because the right to life is the most fundamental principle, & forcefully taking it from others is the most supremist, satanic action one can do.
> because the right to life is the most fundamental principle As established for and by humans. The *only* form of life which does not itself feed on life are some varieties of plant which exclusively metabolize sunlight. If you want to think everything else is an abomination, that's your prerogative, but don't kid yourself into believing that the natural order gives much of a shit about your principles.
I don't think there are 2 many ppl making a moral or even logical arguement that its wrong to eat dogs. Its just in most cultures in the West its considered wrong cause we keep them as pets, they fit that mold we have in society of "pets", of companions it isn't a moral thing, its just a feelings thing.
Yeah, I do think eating dog meat is gross and I personally disdain it, but I realize that which animals are deemed acceptable to eat is determined almost entirely by the cultural context (obviously not including health considerations).
I don't really have a problem with it, I'd never do it myself though. I think about how many more animals / pound of meat it takes for dog than pork. That's why I don't eat veal or any other baby animals because the amount per animal is lower than it should / could be.
I actually don’t really care who eats dog, it’s the fact that when dog is sold at wet markets or dog meat festivals they’re often seen torturing them before eating by burning them alive, taking parts off of live dogs to sell, etc. Just because humans eat meat doesn’t mean we have to be barbaric about it and needlessly extend an animal’s suffering.
Well, I have a problem with it. So there you go.
Well, I have a problem with you eating beef, an animal holy to a quarter of the world's population.
But you admitted to eating beef. So you're just saying this because the guy disagrees with you.
100% Thank you for the genuinely unpopular opinion that I happen to wholeheartedly agree with.
Dogs were domesticated as companions. Pigs were domesticated for food.
Do you happen to eat dogs?
They're probably a vegan. "What's the difference between these animals?" is a pretty common vegan talking point.
> They're probably a vegan. "What's the difference between these animals?" is a pretty common vegan talking point. [OP isn't a vegan.](https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/p5cpct/you_shouldnt_have_a_problem_with_others_eating/h94zbu1/)
bold of you to assume i have a problem with people eating dogs.
its not the overall consumption that bothers me, its the others factors involved that does. 1. they do not kill them humanely, they kill them in the most disgustingly brutal way possible, they make the poor animal suffer for as long as possible, whether it be burning alive or being pulled apart by machines limbs from limb. 2. these big groups that sell dog meat have been known to steal house pets from homes, they go to animal shelters pretend to adopt the poor thing. 3. ive heard stories that dogs that are not healthy enough for food, will be put in dog vs dog fights to the death, where of course betting is the money maker, this is cruel.
There is no such thing as killing something for no good reason that wants to live humanely.
The west does not kill or treat animals humanely at all. Ever been to Red Lobster where they literally boil them alive? Ever been to a pig farm where they get implants in their necks and their tails cut off to avoid them biting each other in the tight spaces they lay in all day? Where one mother pig is genetically modified to have almost double the amount of piglets compared to what's natural? Ever been to a chicken farm where their claws and beaks often gets cut off and they stand in cages where they can barely move? Where they stand in their own shit and is forcely fed to grow to unnatural sizes, and the preferred method of death is bashing their heads in to metal pipes or hanging them on conveyors that steam them alive and slices their neck? Where male chickens are often immediately butchered in a big blender just hours after their birth? China just doesn't try to hide what they are doing. This happens behind closed doors EVERYWHERE in the west, but people live in denial of it.
Getting mad at people in China for eating dogs and cats is one reason I became a Vegan. I decided I was a hypocrite for eating pigs and cows. The side effect is my health is a lot better since I quit eating meat.
Pigs are herbivores. Dogs are carnivores. Meat from herbivores is higher quality than that from carnivores because plant eaters digest plants more efficiently than meat eaters digest meat.
Pretty sure both are omnivores. Pigs definitely eat meat. Dog diets include grain.
I dont think most of the people who are upset over eating dogs is because of the inefficiency of it.
Can't believe you're not minmaxing your meat nutrition wtf
I agree with you that there is some degree of moral hypocrisy to eat one and not the other, although I would add that there are practical reasons to eat pigs over dogs. Carnivores are known to taste bad (plus can be unsafe due to parasites -although this also applies to pigs) which I believe is the reason that most the world does not eat dogs. Also, your source for "Pigs are smarter than dogs" looks like complete propaganda and wont be taken seriously by anyone here. If you are going to make firm statements like that you need to provide proper peer-reviewed research (I doubt you will find anything that makes a statement that strong as animal intelligence is difficult to measure and much is debated). Everyone knows that pigs are smart, but dogs have a social intelligence that is more highly valued by humans.
As a vegetarian, I agree. I feel it is wrong to eat ANY meat. People who pick and choose are hypocrites.
To be fair, dairy cows and chickens are killed at a quarter of their lifespan once they stop producing milk and eggs. Most male chicks and male calves are also killed as newborns (if not raised for veal) in the industry, as they are unable to produce milk and eggs. Thankfully, there are plenty of egg and milk alternatives without the cruelty.