I'm having a lobster followed by bits of a pig for dinner tonight. What's the fundamental difference?

Oh, and tomorrow it'll be a Leave voter who can only blame him or herself.

Nice to see great Christmas cheer on the forum. I eat meat, I am careful where I buy it, maybe you feel that I am being naive, that is your prerogative, tbh I don't give two hoots but if you think that the way the dogs are "stored" and then inhumanely despatched is fine then you are pretty screwed up.

I get it that you are embittered about the Brexit vote but does it have to be brought into so many posts? Merry Christmas.

My pig has been well brought up. I can't say the same about everyone.

I'm sure that shirtback can verify this..

When I visited China, whilst living in Hong Kong, I was taken to what I thought was a pet store. It wasn't. It was a live meat store. Monkeys, cats, dogs.. you name it, it was there (including rats). Walking through the market, there were dogs (and cats) skinned and hung on hooks.

They don't humanely put them to death. If they did, I wouldn't have so much of a problem.

Dogs are strung up by the neck or tied up and are beaten to death, to tenderise the meat. Cats are put into vats of boiling water, skinned (while still alive) then thrown into vats of ice cold water, where they eventually drown. Pigs are put into vats of boiling water (alive) to make it easier to remove the bristles. (I used to live above a pig farm and hearing them scream was not pleasant). Chickens are plunged into vats of boiling water and then plucked while alive. Frogs are the same, except they skin them and dismember them while they are alive.

To each their own - eat what ever you want, but at least have the humanity to prepare and kill animals without them suffering.

Call me naive if you like.. but that's how I feel.

Sigh....I hope that makes you feel better

That was my point as well

I've eaten dog & cat, in China. Not by choice, rather in an awkward situation where as one of only two foreigners at a large official banquet, I felt unable to refuse without causing offence. I didn't realise dog was dog at first - seemed like tough old pork. Cat was delicious.

And yes, visiting the local market was upsetting.

When I lived on one of the outlying islands in HK, we had no need of an alarm clock. The daily pig dying (loudly) was sufficient.

I am trying really hard to keep a happy face on, but tomorrow cannot come fast enough so I can have my apartment back.....

My first thought when I read this was that you have a point. Having flip-flopped several times since, I have ended up (mostly) disagreeing. People are more important than animals. People in Aleppo, the Yemen, Burma, refugee camps. There are so many people abroad, and right here, I feel sympathy for. But in the end, beyond the odd donation, i don't do much, or anything. So I'm not going to agree that these people are wrong. They cared enough to help a living being that needed it, which is much more than I do. Good for them.

I support your view. I'm not familiar with the specific issues around eating dogs or cats but I do know a lot about the arguments concerning eating horses. It seems to me that a reasonable person should require that all meat come from an animal that was:

- humanely killed (so kosher is likely ok, halal probably not)

- raised as a food animal (otherwise any kind of drug may have been shoved into it - especially a feature of race horses)

Stolen pets sold in Asia fail on both counts, It's both wrong and stupid to eat dogs and cats at this time; if someone launches a dog farm raising them as food and captive bolting them then I won't eat them but, as Novo, suggests, that's just like pigs or cows.

My aquarium light broke, wouldn't be so bad if it were fish only, but the plants need good light, probably end up losing all the plants, bu the fish will be fine.

Through a link on another site I found myself watching a movie on Netflix called COWSPIRACY. Interesting stuff about Animal Agriculture. If you have young children you should watch this for information on the world they and their children might Inherit. Some statistics there I don't know to be true, but if anywhere close to the truth, I'm glad I'm an old man.

My earlier, perhaps contentious, comment wasn't about animal cruelty (which I despise), but simply about species centric emotional discrimination.

However, I, like most people, don't inquire deeply into the origin or method of dispatch of the cow, lamb, piggy or turkey that I buy.

I think there's an element of cultural disparity in some of these posts.

BTW the lobster was Canadian, much cheaper here than in Canada. I greatly hope it had a dignified demise.

My initial post, # 973 was pretty clear, my issue was with the cruelty, not the cultural differences

I'm looking out the window at what appear to be cartoon clouds and sky

I half expect to see some words up there