The primary reason that we eat certain animals and dont eat others is utility. Hence why horses aren't eaten in many places. They had extreme utility for centuries and that affected the culture of the places that used them for utility. It became cultural and in some places religiously bad to eat them for their service to mankind.
On the other end of the spectrum many places refuse to eat dog and cat meat for a variety of reasons
1. because of the populous being uneducated on animal intelligence and thinking that its wrong to eat them because they are smarter than the other animals
2. a general cultural bond to the creatures. It's a lot harder to feel ok eating a given kind of animal when you think of that animal as a source of companionship/friendship.
Cats and dogs both have elements of the above, the utility, as well. Most dog breeds were breed to task. Cats got "tamed" by humans for utility, keeping rodents out of food stores that cats dont want to eat themselves.
Another important point is breeding and evolution. People have been breeding livestock to be cheap and easy to raise and breed, docile, bountiful to harvest, and broadly tasty to eat for millenia. Other animals, such as dogs, cats, and horses, are simply not as worthwhile to keep as food sources, and in many cases just don't taste as good, largely by virtue of not being bread for it.
As for why one and not the other from the start, dogs, cats, and horses came wild, difficult to tame, even harder to pen creatures, while most livestock were pretty docile to begin with. Not to mention dogs and cats are carnivores, meaning you would have to put meat in to get meat out, which is far less than ideal when you're a stone age farmer looking for quantity.
Because I choose to. I could form an emotional bond with one of those chickens too, but I don't feel like it.
1Reply
deleted
· 2 years ago
An old-fashioned name for cats in Germany and Austria is "Dachhase" which translates to "Roof bunny" and was coined after WW1. When people were really, really hungry, some of them started eating stray cats and reportedly they taste exactly like rabbits. In fact, their skeleton looks very similar without head and paws. Only trained biologists could tell the difference without these parts.
On the other end of the spectrum many places refuse to eat dog and cat meat for a variety of reasons
1. because of the populous being uneducated on animal intelligence and thinking that its wrong to eat them because they are smarter than the other animals
2. a general cultural bond to the creatures. It's a lot harder to feel ok eating a given kind of animal when you think of that animal as a source of companionship/friendship.
Cats and dogs both have elements of the above, the utility, as well. Most dog breeds were breed to task. Cats got "tamed" by humans for utility, keeping rodents out of food stores that cats dont want to eat themselves.
As for why one and not the other from the start, dogs, cats, and horses came wild, difficult to tame, even harder to pen creatures, while most livestock were pretty docile to begin with. Not to mention dogs and cats are carnivores, meaning you would have to put meat in to get meat out, which is far less than ideal when you're a stone age farmer looking for quantity.