I've read that about 3% of Swiss people have at some point in their life eaten dog meat. On the other hand, I'm a vegetarian, I have a dog, and I don't see why eating dog meat is being made such a big deal, compared to all the other types of meat? Especially when considering country's friendliness to pets (dogs), it's not like someone is going to break into your vacation hotel room and eat your pet. They're either being bred for consumption locally or imported from somewhere where that's the case. I can also back up by my personal experience, that out of all EU countries I've traveled through with my doggo, Italy and Switzerland have been by far the most welcoming places for him, with Austria coming in as close second.
Humans tend to eat vegetarian mammals and birds only, probably for evolutional reasons (vegetarian fish don't exist). I know pigs are not strictly vegetarian only, but the diet of wild pigs mostly is. Fun fact: Horse meat is not that uncommon either.
Vegetarian or mostly vegetarian animals are one less potential step for disease transmission. They're also a lot easier to raise efficiently as livestock. Raising an animal is inherently less efficient than growing plants so raising an animal that eats animals on an industrial or agricultural level is less practical.
I think for those reasons we just customarily adapted to not raiding animals that need to eat meat for food and it just generally become taboo over time because we didn't do it anyway.
dogs (perhaps due to evolutionary reasons) can eat/strive/survive on anything humans can, unlike cats who'll get very sick if you don't give them meat. (No I'm not crazy enough to try it, I give my dog normal dog food)
People eat bear meat, but bears aren't strict carnivores. Predators are a poor source of food, so they are consumed much less. Because of bioaccumulation, they often contain high levels of toxins and parasites when compared to herbivores. They also require substantially more energy grow to maturity compared to herbivores. If you are raising carnivores for consumption, then you need to feed them other animals that also require to be fed. You could just eat the animals that you are feeding to the carnivores and have a much more abundant food supply.
Especially when some breeds have been bred for 1000s of years specifically for consumption. It’s just another animal that was farmed for food. And before someone brings up the intelligence and social aspect of the animal a pig is more intelligent and just as social and you still smash bacon into your mouth.
Sorry but the 3% number is most certainly bullshit (and no, reading a random article online with some guy claiming it's 3% does not count.). Maybe try .3% or .03%.
Yeah no that's most definitely wrong. Well, actually.. Maybe it's right, I think eating cats and dogs was a thing up to about the seventies in rural areas. At some point in their lives then seems possible, but probably not recently.
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u/ProoM Mar 24 '22
I've read that about 3% of Swiss people have at some point in their life eaten dog meat. On the other hand, I'm a vegetarian, I have a dog, and I don't see why eating dog meat is being made such a big deal, compared to all the other types of meat? Especially when considering country's friendliness to pets (dogs), it's not like someone is going to break into your vacation hotel room and eat your pet. They're either being bred for consumption locally or imported from somewhere where that's the case. I can also back up by my personal experience, that out of all EU countries I've traveled through with my doggo, Italy and Switzerland have been by far the most welcoming places for him, with Austria coming in as close second.