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Permalink Reply by Heather Spoonheim on April 21, 2011 at 2:26am

Interesting.  I don't think it's irrational to prefer certain types of flesh to others, though.  My main concern with human flesh, aside from lack of availability, is the horrible diets that humans have.  I wouldn't want to eat anything that consumed that diet.  I've eaten dog but never had the opportunity to try cat, although with cats I sort of suspect there would be an ammonia sort of aromatic that one typically finds in unpasteurized cheese and that is very disagreeable to me.

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Permalink Reply by Natarajan Shanker on April 21, 2011 at 2:50am

Well it is  rational if you really have a preference in terms of taste. But, many people have no idea what cat or dog tastes like, but they are like "yuck" at the idea of eating dog or cat.

 

A couple of days back we were driving on the highway, looking for a motel. All of us were very hungry, and I was the only vegetarian in the car. We found a dead dog (hit by some vehicle) lying on the road with its flesh & blood all over the place. I commented, "Well there's your lunch". My wife (non-vegetarian) said, "well just because you don't eat non-veg, you dont have to say things like that!". I said, "Whats the problem? You love that stuff, right? If you can eat goat, then why not dog?". Grim silence.

 

They had goat biryani and chicken curry for lunch. Guess I will never understand.

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Permalink Reply by T A A on April 21, 2011 at 2:59am

I've never understood disdain for certain flesh over others. To me it's pretty much all the same, except some taste more exquisite. Generally speaking, carnivorous animals are less "safe" to eat than herbivores, due both to toxin bioconcentration in the fatty tissues and to parasitic load. Horses are my favourite domesticated animal, yet I've never had any issues with eating it.  Most people simply mimic what they've learned. A child's likes and dislikes, fears, phobias, religion, are very influenced by upbringing. If one does not learn fear of irrational things, it will be mostly absent.

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Permalink Reply by Arcus on April 21, 2011 at 12:36pm

The only real answer would be social convention.

I don't think I would start a steady diet of cats and dogs because I have been psychologically programmed not to thing of those species as food. If I ever try it I may even be so disgusted by the thought that it will effect my perception of the taste.

I have eaten horse and, apart from it tasting disgusting, I have no quams about it. But I do know that in other cultures horses are not considered as foodstuff. It is quite common to have social conventions against the consumption of certain animals and nearly all have one about consuming fellow humans.

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Permalink Reply by Heather Spoonheim on April 21, 2011 at 4:13am

If you encountered a crate of tomatoes that had just fallen off a truck and splattered all over the highway would your mouth water at the thought of slurping them up?

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Permalink Reply by Natarajan Shanker on April 21, 2011 at 6:47am

No, I'm not very fond of tomatoes. But if it were mangoes it would have that effect, yes.

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Permalink Reply by Heather Spoonheim on April 21, 2011 at 7:03am

Guess I will never understand.

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Permalink Reply by Natarajan Shanker on April 21, 2011 at 2:56am

By the way, I think this ties in nicely with the other topic about disgust as a psychological factor that influences notions of morality. In the case of meat, I wonder which one came first and created the other - the disgust or the morality?

 

In my case at least, I do not at all agree that it is immoral to eat meat in any way. Save animals and eat plants? Why, because plants cannot run? I don't buy that. I'm just not able to overcome the disgust. In fact I tried a lot to convert to non-veg, and gave up.

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Permalink Reply by T A A on April 22, 2011 at 12:56am

I disagree with the morality assessment. Disgust is a learned behaviour, morality is simply the grouping together of sets of learned behaviours within any given society. My mother thinks eating a fresh berry in the forest is disgusting, because her mother thought it was disgusting, as did her mother, and so forth and so forth. She will collect wild berries and not eat a single one before it's been subjected to gallons of water to clean them from nature's impurities. People find all sorts of really normal behaviours disgusting. I know people who think eating with their fingers is disgusting, still others who think human nudity is disgusting. There are no limits to the possibilities of disgusting being taught. The cannibal peoples through times did not think eating humans was disgusting.

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Permalink Reply by Heather Spoonheim on April 22, 2011 at 1:00am

As far as nudity being disgusting, I prefer to judge that on a case by case basis. :D

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Permalink Reply by Akshay Bist on April 22, 2011 at 12:03pm

lol

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Permalink Reply by Natarajan Shanker on April 22, 2011 at 2:20am

Morality is also learned, isn't it? I am not suggesting a direct correlation between morality and disgust, but isn't disgust often used as a strong deterrent to discourage people from indulging in a behavior which a system of morality decrees as wrong?

 

Examples: The whole incest thing. Homosexuality.

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