d000hg, on 23 Mar 2016 - 11:31 AM, said:
Point of order, horse meat is pretty good.

Never tried it! I definitely wouldn't mind the experience, I just always heard it was too stringy and tough. Bison is good!

In the UK a few years ago if you bought cheap supermarket beef chances are you were eating horse meat.

They were using horse meat full of steroids (not fit for human consumption) and passing it off as beef.

All levels of merciless hell came down on the companies doing it, labelling changed and now if it says beef on the package it is beef.

On that note though I've had horse, along with other meats such as crocodile, ostrich, buffalo, shark, whatever the local speciality meat suppliers sell. I like to try everything.

I can attest that horse is OK but tastes a lot like beef. Considering horse is a lot more expensive, if it tastes like beef you might as well get beef. Horse is a lot leaner though and better for you.

Enjoy!

How many cats know how to open a door?

Both of my cats know how to work doors, though they get frustrated when the doorknob is round (they have no way to grip those properly). One of my cats learned how to work the bathtub faucet at my old apartment. I had to shut the valve off every day after my shower or else he would run the water soon after I left for another flowing water source (they also had a filtered fountain but they liked using both).

As to the more general topic of eating meat, I'm usually unimpressed by the reasoning of those who don't. Pretty much everyone draws the line somewhere, whether that's eating any meat at all, eating cows but not dogs, or dogs and cows but not humans, and on and on. I don't judge people for finding a limit that they are comfortable with and sticking to it. But I rarely see a lot of internal consistency with that dietary choice and broader behaviors. It's easy to say that you won't eat a mammal but will eat a fish and then look harshly on anyone who eats mammals. But unless people are willing to take their views to the ultimate possible extreme, like Buddhist monks who step cautiously to avoid insects and filter water to avoid consuming microscopic organisms, then the operative question isn't whether or not your personal list of things-its-ok-to-eat is better than that of some other person who eats more things. The question is, why is where you've drawn the line superior to every other conceivable arrangement, including those more cautious of living organisms than your own?

It's easy to say that you won't eat a mammal but will eat a fish and then look harshly on anyone who eats mammals

I wouldn't loo harshly on anyone that eats anything except other people :) I'm very open when it comes to meat.

I wouldn't eat monkeys though or any other primates. The risk of communicable disease is too great. It is said this is one of the possible vectors of how HIV first migrated from monkeys to humans...

I stand by what i said, IF i was a dog, and IF i was in a family / not given a choice of being in the wild or not but just having to live with a family in a town without dog partners living with me, yes i'd rather be castrated.

You are asking and answering impossible questions by "...IF i was a dog, and IF i was in a family / not given a choice of being in the wild or not but just having to live with a family in a town without dog partners living with me, yes i'd rather be castrated."

I'm not asking those impossible questions, you are, you asked "How would you feel if you imaging you are castrated?" . My answer is "pretty happy about it if i was in the situation a dog is in"

Point of order, horse meat is pretty good.

As is dog meat. Though the way it is "prepared" is somewhat atrocious, to say the least.
Then again, being killed and torn to pieces, not necessarily in that order, is no fun for any kind of living being, and the way this happens in nature is not precisely humane either.

For me Its not that dog would or would not taste good, its the psychological aspect. Unlike sheep and goats, dogs and cats have a character, visible emotions, a face and are friends with humans. How can you bear to eat them???

No it's the cultural aspect, you say "unlike sheep and goats", well no not unlike them at all, except you probably haven't met a whole lot of them to make your own opinion. A lot of the meat animals we breed are very friendly animals if living in proper conditions.

Dogs aren't friends with humans, they become friends with us because we pet them, i'd rather be facing a wild sheep than a wild dog (well except maybe a very tiny wild dog breed i guess hehe).

For me Its not that dog would or would not taste good, its the psychological aspect. Unlike sheep and goats, dogs and cats have a character, visible emotions, a face and are friends with humans. How can you bear to eat them???

As far as cats go, I'm rather seeing them as dumb, useless creatures compared to other animals. My bumblebees manage to open a door to enter their home (the door is there to keep the wax moth out). They have brains the size of... you cannot even call it "brain". Ganglion would be more appropriate. Still, they manage to open a door! That's a fucking awesome intellectual thing for such a small animal. How many cats know how to open a door? Have you ever had a ferret in your garden? Now those are really animals with a characer, and they're smart.

All of my cats have opened doors and very pretty clever overall, however all of them have the cat attitude of looking at you with a look that says "yea i can open that door, but you're gonna do it for me master!". Cats are like that hehe.

Unlike sheep and goats, dogs and cats have a character, visible emotions, a face and are friends with humans. How can you bear to eat them???

Translation: You have not spent much time around sheep or goats.

People have pet pigs, pet goats, pet sheep, pet rabbits, pet chickens. Most people don't eat their pets, even if they have no difficulty eating that species normally.

Horses and cows especially, farmers can form bonds to, because they can live a long time - horses can live for over 20 years, supposedly! (Cows more like 10, I think - but I've never had any cows or horses myself).

If you've been working with or milking the same animal for over five years and are now familiar with all its idiosyncracies, I'd bet you'd have a really good bond with it - especially if working with a horse that is laboring alongside you, season after season.

Or perhaps I've just been reading too much James Herriot. :P

Horses and cows especially, farmers can form bonds to, because they can live a long time - horses can live for over 20 years, supposedly! (Cows more like 10, I think - but I've never had any cows or horses myself).

If you've been working with or milking the same animal for over five years and are now familiar with all its idiosyncracies, I'd bet you'd have a really good bond with it - especially if working with a horse that is laboring alongside you, season after season.

Or perhaps I've just been reading too much James Herriot. :P

It really dépends on each person's views and feelings, some don't care, some bond with all animals, some with a few and don't care much for the rest of the pack.

I have a friend married with a guy that has a small sheep farm on top of his job, they care for their sheeps, they bond with them, but they still have to eat them even if it feels weird.

I have a friend married with a guy that has a small sheep farm on top of his job, they care for their sheeps, they bond with them, but they still have to eat them even if it feels weird.

It is an interesting experience to eat an animal you know the name of.

Friends of our family also kept sheep, and I remember they coming by one christmas, and the youngest son (7 or so) hands over a smoked sheeps leg and says. "This is Pontus!"

(That summer, we had visited their farm and played with the lamb named Pontus)

None of us had any problems eating it though, it just felt a bit more personal and special then just any sheeps leg from the store.