Vegan lifestyle articles that discuss ways of living in peace with humans, animals, and the environment.
It’s not a lot of legal restrictions holding us back from eating our cute, fuzzy, companion friends. It leans more towards societal and cultural norms, ethical values and an experimental palette?
Well, you wouldn’t eat a member of your family, would you? We build
silent bonds with our pets such that they become to form a part of our
family. The act of killing our beloved friends and companions that just
happen to be of a different species feels so wrong that most would not even
think about doing it, let alone consuming the meat. This is because we tend
to draw a line between those animals we keep as pets and those animals we
consider only as sources of food. The association between animals and food
helps to swallow any guilt about killing the animal and makes it a more a
necessary process by which we continue to survive. But pets are animals just
the same as chickens, cows, and sheep. So setting aside this emotional bias
that we have towards our pets, what is stopping us from eating cats, dogs,
guinea pigs and horse? As it turns out, very little.
While killing your pet and then eating it sounds like first degree murder,
the truth of the matter is that up until the end of 2018 if you found
yourself in one of the 44 states that only required you to humanely kill
your cat or dog, then there was nothing else stopping you from consuming
that animal as food. The only other guideline to follow was that the pet
meat could not be sold to or in restaurants or supermarkets. In other
jurisdiction, such as Michigan, the horse or dog meat needed only to be
properly labeled and no other rules were set. In fact, depending on how you
interpret the law in the state you were in you might have found room to
argue and possibly legally retain the right to eat cat or dog meat. However,
with the recently passed “Dog and Cat Meat Trade Prohibition Act of 2018” it
is now illegal in the U.S to “knowingly slaughter a dog or cat for human
consumption” and to be basically be dealing with dog or car meat in general.
The penalty for a violation would only be a fine which would not be greater
than $5,000. In some jurisdictions like New York, for example, dog and cat
consumption had already been illegal prior due to the specific language used
in the relevant law. New York makes it illegal “to slaughter or butcher
domesticated dog or domesticated cat to create food, meat products for human
or animal consumption.”
If you missed the opportunity to legally consume cat or dog meat, other pets
are still legal to murder and consume. Perhaps you would like to try horse,
guinea pig, or rabbit? Maybe these are not animals you would normallyconsume
but horse meat is sold and consumed in different parts of the world as is
rabbit meat. Guinea pig is a staple in many South American countries.
Americans do not associate these companion animals that we regularly create
relationships with as food. We treat our horses much more humanely because
we do not eat them – we just use them for entertaining by forcing them to
race. Horse, guinea pigs, and rabbits may not be on the same level as dogs
and cats as far as being a popular choice for a pet. Still, there is a sense
of reservation when thinking about eating these animals but under the law
there is not much restriction on eating horses, guinea pigs, or rabbits.
Actually, guinea pig meat and rabbit meat happens to be regulated and
monitored by the FDA so it is perfectly within your legal rights to consume
horse meat and perfectly safe to eat. So, it is legal to buy, sell, and
consume guinea pig meat. You might even order guinea pig by going to the
right restaurant. It is also legal to buy and sell horse meat in most
states. The only restriction on horse meat is that you are not allowed to
slaughter the horse which means you will not find a supplier in the U.S but
that does not mean you can’t order it online if you really had a craving for
horse.
So, the answer to our question is that it’s not a lot of legal restrictions
holding us back from eating our cute, fuzzy, companion friends. It leans
more towards societal and cultural norms, ethical values and an experimental
palette?
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