Don’t eat my Cat!

I find it rather humorous that most people have no problem eating pigs, birds, cows, lobsters and just about every other animal on this planet including our closest cousins out in Africa but damn those cat eaters!

Chinese know how to eat

If you ever ate at a traditional Chinese restaurant, no, not those Westernized ones, a real authentic Chinese restaurant where the waiter doesn’t speak a word of English and you can see the cook out in the back smoking between preparing meals. Notice the menu (you will need an interpreter), just about every part of an animal is available, from the stomach of a cow to the head of a fish. The Chinese culture is incredibly resourceful and open minded regarding food preparation, even with their vegetables, there is incredible variety compared to what is available in Western restaurants. Menus that go into the hundreds of available dishes are common place where in Western restaurants, you are lucky to have a choice among 20 types of dishes. Chinese cooking is also incredibly fresh, vegetables are bought at the market that day or the day before, the fish is swimming in the tank up until the second after you order it and that tea has been made from whole leaves upon your arrival.

Cats, Dogs and Spiders

Haven eating at more then my fair share of authentic Chinese restaurants, the fact that you can eat cats, dogs and even spiders (deep fried mind you) really isn’t a surprise to me. In South America they love their deep fried insects and I am sure when I was in Malaysia that I ate some things that if I knew what I was eating, it would have induced instant bulimia once the meal was over.

Why are Cats and Dogs off limits?

I don’t understand why people are offended that some cultures have different interpretations of what is acceptable to eat and try to impose these values on other cultures. In the Congo, they love their bush meat while in Russia they love their caviar. In the United States, they love processed meat products while in Korea, freshly cut squid and dog are celebratory dishes. Eating a cat? Evil. Eating a dog? Evil. I would far prefer to eat a fresh cat then a processed hot dog if I had the choice. Other then our emotional attachment to dogs and cats in our culture, there is nothing wrong with eating our feline nor canine friends. We are animals just like these animals, and in a survival situation, roasted “mans best friend” with onions would be first up on the menu.

Pets vs Food

I think this uproar over eating cats is simply a lot about nothing, really. George Clooney had a pet pot-bellied pig which he loved and I am sure to him, eating bacon in the morning with eggs probably makes him nauseous, same thing with cat and dog lovers. This doesn’t mean there is something wrong with eating these animals (and insects), their nutritional values are certainly healthier then the commercially processed junk we buy in the supermarkets. The deeper question to ask is where are all these self-professed “animal lovers” when a cow, fish, bird, pig or any other animal is slaughtered for human consumption? You cannot have it both ways and expect to be taken seriously.

The Bottom Line

One persons pet is another persons food.

Reference
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=3361506