Why do we finding eating some animals acceptable and not others? Why is this different in different cultures?
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Some animals are more tasty than others. We’ve selectively bred food animals for tastiness for centuries.
A lot of it is just a quirk of history. Things like availability of certain animals, whether those animals were used for other thing, and ability to safely store meat all played a roll.
Straight up just, “because”. I like grouse. I like moose. I like bear. I like deer. If it swims, I’ll eat it. Rabbits are pretty bad ass.
That’s because I’m from northern MN and that’s what’s worth killing and eating. Now I live in the Twin Cities. Just a couple hundred miles away and no-one eats grouse, moose, bear, venison, rabbit, or local fish that they caught themselves. Here people eat fancy. I’m sure there are some people down here that eat food that they’ve killed themselves but I don’t know any of them.
People eat what lives where they do usually. There are some specific religious rules, but they’re typically based in reason. We don’t eat owls because eating birds of prey is dangerous. They’re full of diseases. That sort of thing. Don’t eat animals that carry their house on their back. Again, full of diseases. There’s a good chance that eating pangolins gave us Covid-19. Armadillos carry leprosy. Turtles are usually made out of salmonella. Don’t eat animals that carry their house with them.
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First: vermin. If an animal is widely considered to carry disease/is dangerous to have around/is just dirty, we don’t eat it. For the Western world, that would be things like rats, mice, and cockroaches. You don’t want them in your mouth; you just want them *gone*. For cultures, this often extends to things that *look* like vermin. Lobster was, early on, considered inedible and fit only for criminals. There were regulations to prevent it from being served daily to prisoners and servants. All because it looked like a giant sea bug. Lobster is a good example of changing taboos, because as it became rarer and we developed the ability to transport it inland without rotting, the allure of the expensive and exotic coastal food kicked in.
Second: Religion. This often ties into the above, because many religious restrictions were meant to prevent disease. Pig carries trichinosis. Dogs were widely considered “dirty” for many years (not surprising- have you seen what dogs will eat?), and still are in some cases. Others were based on utility, see: Hindu and cows. Cows provide milk, they provide labor, they provide manure. If you kill your cows, you kill next year’s harvest.
And on that note: utility. You don’t eat an animal that is better for you alive. Often ties into “religion” because what’s religion but a set of rules to follow. If course you can’t eat cats! If you eat cat, next year you’ll only eat rat! Go apologize to Bast for even considering that, and no we don’t care that you’re hungry.
Finally: Companionship. If the animal is widely considered to be one that has a personal bond with its owner, a taboo on its eating is likely. You can see this clearly with horse meat. In early and up to premodern history, horses were associated with war. They were extensively trained and in medieval times were often loyal to a single knight. In the early 1900s, “man’s noblest companion” was a description used in cavalry recruitment. Even in peace, they were used to pull ploughs- they were a food making animal, not one you ate itself. They were valuable. They had names.
There *was* a surge in horse meat consumption when the industrial revolution kicked off. Suddenly, horses were less needed, less valuable, and there were a lot of poorly-paid starving people who needed cheap meat. A carriage-horse that broke an ankle and was shot in the streets, well, that carriage horse was brought to the abattoir and parted out.
But wait! The rich still had their companion horses! Are these *poor* people eating *horse* meat? How disgusting. Horse meat being labeled as poverty food put a huge damper on any sort of horsemeat industry in Europe and the US, and any attempts to prop it up met with massive public lashback. Companies were accused of adulterating their beef with horse meat (and some did), buyers were accused of selling horses across the border for slaughter (…and some do). All because the rich liked their pets in both the past and future.
Why the heck do we eat pigs? I mean yes, theyre delicious, but theyre super intelligent and clean animals. If size werent a factor I think they’d be more common as companion animals.
I try not to think about it, because put a plate of ribs in front of me and Im in Heaven
Different animals are raised for food in different countries, but beef chicken and pork are commonly chosen for 1.taste, and 2.economics. Taste is somewhat subjective, but these three typically have wide appeal. and they are generally easy to raise or their return on investment is high.
How “cute” are they?
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Allot of it has to do with how easy they are to raise. Animals that are carnivores are going to be expensive to feed and more dangerous to tame.
Small animals like rats are nasty, carry diseases, snd have little meat.
Where cows and chickens get a bigger bang for your buck. Cows can graze on unfarmable land, and chickens can eat anything while making both eggs and meat
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