Carnivore Confusion: Difference between revisions

* While adult humans are (almost) immune to Carnivore Confusion, most children are horrified when they first learn (or figure out) where meat comes from. Even adults are not completely free from it - people tend to be squicked out by eating animal species that are, in the given culture, usual pet species or otherwise held in high regard. That's the reason people in the West often think that eating cats, dogs, parrots, small mammal pets, or horses is terrible (though horse is eaten in France), while it's perfectly fine to eat pigs, which are at least as intelligent as any of the above, and certainly more similar to humans socially.

** Pets are seen as part of the family. Pet species have been bred to become part of the family. The concept of someone eating dog or cat meat is akin to someone eating your adopted brother, sister, or kids. Universal prey species are generally immune from being thought of in such a manner because they're rarely kept as pets. Livestock such as cattle and pigs have been bred to be less intelligent and more tastey then their wild counterparts.

**** In my societies where cats and dogs are eaten, they aren't raised just for the purpose, but are taken (stolen) from someone (who raise them as pets and most often quite treasure them), since raising a cat or dog well is much harder than the profit it provides. Many people come to hate the food after their pets are stolen.

** There are semi-vegetarians who classify meat sources by how intelligent they are believed to be (although how accurate these beliefs are vary, especially as science marches on). There are many people who will eat fish but are squicked out by the thought of eating squid/octopus.