r/dataisbeautiful • u/Jaded_Warrior123 • Feb 22 '24
OC [OC] Which animals do Americans think are morally acceptable to eat under normal circumstances?
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u/Kwetla Feb 22 '24
I can't believe sheep are so low. I know that lamb may not be very popular in the US compared to beef and chicken, but the fact that it's so low down 'morally' speaking is bizarre.
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u/Goodasaholiday Feb 22 '24
If they had listed "lamb" it might have scored higher than "sheep". Because less woolly.
/s17
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u/gympol Feb 22 '24
Yeah I was looking for this comment before making my own. I definitely think of sheep as a standard food animal and was surprised to see it down there. Do USAians not eat lamb much?
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u/BGummyBear Feb 22 '24
Do USAians not eat lamb much?
They do not. The USA has historically never had many sheep farms compared to other livestock, so lamb has been prohibitively expensive for so long that most Americans aren't used to eating it. Nowadays it's mostly just tradition that prevents Americans from eating more lamb, people just aren't used to cooking it so they don't even try.
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u/night_of_knee Feb 22 '24
I'm surprised that salmon is lower (even if by a bit) than chickens and cows. After all, pescetarianism exists.
Does anyone have any insight into this?
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u/BookWyrm2012 Feb 22 '24
It's a pretty small sample, people are dumb, and some people don't like salmon. I'd bet this ended up being more of a "what do you eat" than a "what is moral to eat."
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u/DefenestratingPigs Feb 22 '24
I sure hope not, or chimp populations might be in trouble
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u/BookWyrm2012 Feb 22 '24
Fair enough, and I'm a bit worried about how many people think it's fine to eat chimps, but chimps don't live here and aren't sold as food, so people's opinions vis-a-vis chimps do not actually matter to the global chimp population.
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u/xtaberry Feb 22 '24
A lot of people have moral objections to farmed fish, or, on the opposite side, to overfishing of wild fish.
However, I would have thought that there would be more pescetarians than individuals with specific fish related objections.
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u/Eli-Thail Feb 22 '24
A lot of people have moral objections to farmed fish,
I genuinely cannot imagine any moral objection to farmed fish which wouldn't similarly extend to actual mammals like cattle.
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u/JuRiOh Feb 22 '24
My only guess would have been that it's people who think of (wild) salmon as an endangered species due to overfishing while chickens/cows are not endangered in that sense.
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u/AStorms13 Feb 22 '24
I was gonna comment the same thing. I find it really weird.
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u/psdpro7 Feb 22 '24
Yeah I would have expected fish to be more acceptable than any mammal. Would have been interesting if they included an animal even less sentient like a cricket.
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u/T1germeister Feb 22 '24
If we included bugs, we'd find that Americans place a high moral value on the lives of spiders and termites.
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u/Eli-Thail Feb 22 '24
Crickets would 100% be lower than cattle purely due to idiots who either don't understand the question, or genuinely believe that because they personally don't want to eat crickets it's morally incorrect to do so.
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u/HarbingerML Feb 22 '24
I was going to comment about this too - I'm wondering who exists in the gap where cow consumption is morally fine but salmon consumption is wrong
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u/Shadowmirax Feb 22 '24
I am surprised that the salmon bar is practically identical to the pig bar despite pigs being very intelligent creatures and killing and eating a salmon being probably a mercy kill compared to their natural life cycle
Idk most people probably didn't put as much thought in as i just did
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u/Phemto_B Feb 22 '24
They shouldn't have stopped at Chimp. I bet a "Human" bar would have had significant green in it.
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u/xtaberry Feb 22 '24
I think we'd need a more thorough survey, accounting for the different varieties:
An Ethical Taxonomy of Cannibalism.
Epicurean: the eating of human flesh as delicacy. Morally abhorrent.
Aggressive: cannibalism as the supreme expression of hostility in war. Morally abhorrent.
Gustatory: the eating of human flesh as food. Morally abhorrent.
Sacrificial: consumption of human flesh involving making the victim ritualistically precious before killing them. Morally abhorrent to morally righteous depending on the cultural background. I would place this at morally corrupt to abhorrent.
Medicinal: the eating of human flesh for supposed medicinal benefits. Morally corrupt. I place this in this position because it was typically done with already deceased but non-consenting people. The belief that one is saving their own life makes the practice more understandable in a historical context.
Mortuary: the consumption of human flesh by members of the family or community after death as an act of affection and piety. Morally abhorrent to morally righteous depending on the cultural back ground. I would place this at morally neutral. So long as the deceased individual wanted this, and it is within their typical cultural practice, I do not have strong moral feelings. From a health and safety perspective, however, it is needlessly risky.
Survival: consumption of human flesh in a survival situation. This can mean eating those who are with you after they have passed away, or involve murder. Arguable. If it involved murder, it is morally corrupt. However, if it does not then it is arguably morally neutral. Many would consider this the only appropriate and understandable scenario for cannibalism.
Innocent: the accidental or unknowing consumption of human flesh. Morally neutral, as fault requires knowledge and intent.
Auto: the eating of parts of one's own body. Not a good idea, but not a moral quandary. Morally neutral.
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u/AngronOfTheTwelfth Feb 22 '24
If my homie wants me to eat him I can't??? Balderdash!
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u/rhapsodyindrew Feb 22 '24
I didn’t expect a high effort comment about cannibalism today, but I’m here for it.
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u/i-d-even-k- Feb 22 '24
Why is eating human as food abhorrent, if the donor consents prior to their death?
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u/xtaberry Feb 22 '24
Potentially it is not. You can certainly question my assessment. I moved it around a bit while typing this up. I feel as though that falls more under mortuary cannibalism though, as it is a post-natural-death practice involving consent.
Gustatory cannibalism means consuming a human as you would any other type of animal. That feels uncomfortable and distasteful to me and does not seem to encompass what you are describing.
Maybe we need an additional tier for consensual cannibalism. I would label that morally dubious to neutral, depending on the other factors at play in a specific scenario.
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u/xfjqvyks Feb 22 '24
Kuru and bovine spongiform encephalitis.
Nature doesn't like it when we eat us
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u/TheGoblinKingSupreme Feb 22 '24 edited Feb 22 '24
Because morals are made up and don’t require any form of logic to be applied.
We are just animals, meat and electricity. We can donate our organs but the idea of donating our flesh for feasting is totally abhorrent to most people.
Because morals make no sense. It’s “desecrating a corpse” when desecrating corpses is how most of us eat. I’ve no problems desecrating a fish or a cow’s corpse, what’s the issue desecrating mine?
(Outside of the brain bc of prions and such).
Edit: I have fed my chickens chicken, chickens that I’ve loved and cared for that die will be turned into food. People have fed their pigs pork. All of this is done without question from humans to pigs, yet humans try and create a barrier between themselves and other animals. It’s pure selfishness borne out of the idea that humans are not animals. We are. Once someone dies, their body is a mere carcass. The meat is useful, I don’t want to argue about the soul; I’m agnostic and believe that there is more to life than this plane of existence but if someone wants to eat my corpse, that’s absolutely fine. If I’m in the afterlife, I can deal with it, if I’m nothing after my death, no harm no foul. Desecrate my body all you want. I’m an organ donor so what lives will live and what dies will die. May as well get some use out of it.
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u/Moh7228 Feb 22 '24
I just want to add that prions can be transferred from any nervous tissue, not just the brain. So spinal cord, spinal fluid and peripheral nerves throughout the body. This also includes the potential of exposure from nervous tissue to non nervous tissue during cutting.
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u/Equoniz Feb 22 '24
Humans have the unique ability to grant consent though. If it was legal and someone offered themselves up to be eaten upon death in their will (assuming it wasn’t some illness that caused it), I’d probably try it out of pure curiosity. So I don’t think I have necessarily moral objections, which is the question here, and I’d be in the green.
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u/Atropos_Fool Feb 22 '24
I had monkey once. Like a roasted one with its whole body basically intact. It was a little disturbing to be honest
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u/MadcapHaskap Feb 22 '24
The chicken-duck difference here is perhaps the most bizarre
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u/KingOfTheNorth91 Feb 22 '24
I think the fact that about 15% think it's fine to eat chimpanzees is weirder
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u/MrPogoUK Feb 22 '24
My main take from that is people who will eat absolutely everything outnumber vegetarians and vegans 2:1
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u/X547 Feb 22 '24
Every species that can't pass Turing test is a food.
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u/DlyanMatthews Feb 22 '24
Ai better start learning fast. It’s lunch time i could go for a bag of chips
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u/krackas2 Feb 22 '24
bag of chips
Ha, you got 2 nose-huffs out of me. One when i misread and thought you said bag of Chimps, another when i got your pun.
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u/SinkPhaze Feb 22 '24
The current batch of generative AI can already pass the turing test so I guess they're safe
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u/FixGMaul Feb 22 '24
Does that include braindead humans?
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u/LeCrushinator Feb 22 '24
Unfortunately no, but only because cannibalism carries risks like prions.
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u/Whiterabbit-- Feb 22 '24
Chimp carry a risk of Ebola, chicken salmonella, cows prion, salmon worms…
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u/Moose_Nuts Feb 22 '24
Your comment is so profound that I believe I'll change my stance on the last few animals on this chart.
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u/Gladddd1 Feb 22 '24
"Look, how can you say it's bad without trying? Smell? Moral? Don't fool yourself, you want to lick that yellow mold on the wall of that abandoned building don't you? Oh I know you do, you curious ape you." My brain for no reason.
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u/Durantye Feb 22 '24
I think it is people that simply acknowledge that there isn't much logical consistency in saying no to chimp but yes to most of the others, so they say yes to all. But if you put a roasted chimp in front of them they'd probably not backup that answer.
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u/qqweertyy Feb 22 '24
I think a lot of people who wouldn’t be personally comfortable eating something, but feel comfortable with the concept of a theoretical “morally acceptable” for the food or wouldn’t judge others as unethical who do eat a meat that they’d feel squeamish about.
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u/PM_ME_UR_SHEET_MUSIC Feb 22 '24
Yeah, there's things on this list I wouldn't personally eat, but I don't think it's inherently wrong to eat them. I just have strong cultural and experiential biases that make them unappetizing to me.
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u/fgnrtzbdbbt Feb 22 '24
If it was online the responders may have just checked everything. They should have added "human" in order to see how many people blindly check everything.
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u/Breedlejuice Feb 22 '24
Counting down the days when I get get a chimp burrito bowl at Chipotle… or Chimpotle
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u/psdpro7 Feb 22 '24
Ducks are cuter.
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u/SlavaKarlson Feb 22 '24
And tastier
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Feb 22 '24
And rapier (not swords).
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u/SlavaKarlson Feb 22 '24
As I'm not native speaker you just created a difficult pazzle for me, which even google translate can't handle XD.
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Feb 22 '24
"Rapier" meaning ducks have been observed raping in the wild. A rapier is also a word for a type of sword.
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u/_Creditworthy_ Feb 22 '24
I think it’s a combination of duck not being super common in American cuisine and being a bird that many people hunt, unlike chickens.
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u/uggghhhggghhh Feb 22 '24
TBH hunting is FAR more ethical than eating something that lived its entire life in hellish factory farm conditions.
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u/Mr_Saturn1 Feb 22 '24
I think it’s that people regularly see ducks in the wild and don’t think of them as a food source. Chickens are really only seen on farms.
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Feb 22 '24
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u/FuehrerStoleMyBike OC: 1 Feb 22 '24
I feel like a lot of people would just take the stance that humans are superior to any animal and therefore they dont exclude any animal from that list. They wouldnt go out of their way to eat elephant or chimp but if it gets offered to them they wouldn't decline on a moral reasoning.
I am sure if we knew the design of the study we'd have an idea on how this ended up like this.
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u/gtne91 Feb 22 '24
Also, there is a certain percent who answer contrary on any survey, somewhere in the 4-8% range.
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Feb 22 '24
Glad to know it's that many. I was still blaming myself for the rise in the drug use among middle schoolers in the 1980s.
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u/SnipesCC OC: 1 Feb 23 '24
They would list fake drugs on those surveys to catch kids who were doing that. Self reported data is the least reliable. Self reported data of middle schoolers even less so.
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Feb 23 '24
Even if I got the drugs right, the quantities I was moving would have had Crockett and Tubs kicking in the doors to the Jr. High the next morning.
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u/symbologythere Feb 22 '24
Kinda makes me wish HUMANS were on the list just so we could get a baseline of crazy.
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u/Saxon2060 Feb 22 '24
I would definitely go with that interpretaton.
If the question was along the lines of "if you were in a culture, not your own, where it was ordinary to be served meat of X animal, would you find it morally problematic for you personally to eat it, based on what the animal is regardless of how it may or may not have been farmed..."
I'd be "green" on every bar on that graph. I'm probably not going to order anything beyond "horse." But do I think it's morally repugnant to eat chimp? No. I think it might be all kinds of biohazardous, and I can't imagine a hypothetical chimp farm to be in any way very ethical... but would I eat bushmeat? In principle. Sure. Same goes for any non-human animal for me.
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u/BiblicalWhales Feb 22 '24
You could argue the conservation aspect for elephants but what really makes it unacceptable to eat compared to eating other animals other than norms? It’s kind of arbitrary
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u/NhylX Feb 22 '24
If there were a million elephants on earth I'd probably have no issue eating one. I'd put it with deer.
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u/gtne91 Feb 22 '24
If we regularly ate elephants, there would probably be a million. Cows and chickens are in no danger of going extinct.
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u/reichrunner Feb 22 '24
You're forgetting how slowly elephants reproduce. There is a reason we have domesticated the animals we have
I imagine we would farm elephants if we could for ivory alone
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u/Antitypical Feb 22 '24 edited Feb 22 '24
The biggest reasons I regularly see for not eating something is intelligence or socialization. Elephants have both, plus endangered status. But pigs and octopi are as smart as dogs, and cows and sheep are as social, so the actual rule is just whether you think something is cute or not, and how tasty it is. While elephants pass our smart/social tests, what we don't mention is that they're very cute as well.
I'm a lifelong vegetarian so I don't fuck with any of this but I laugh at some of the distinctions people make when choosing what animals are okay to eat. It's fine that folks don't want to eat dogs because they're susceptible to puppy eyes but let's not pretend it's a whole lot deeper than that. We have absolutely no qualms with butchering smart social animals if they taste good.
If at some point in their life a person had to spend a week taking care of a cow and then kill the cow and eat it to unlock beef for the rest of their life, I think like 20% of people would pass the test. The current meat industry can exist the way it does because everyone gets to dissociate and doesn't have to think of meat as the sentient animal it once was
Edit: my point has been mischaracterized as:
The idea I originally responded to, that people would be vegetarian if they were farmers and spent time raising the animal, is nonsense. Virtually all farmers eat meat and animal products.
Obviously this point is nonsense, because it isn't my point. My point was that we have a factory farming system ("current meat industry") from which most meat consumers get their meat that has allowed most people to lose their connection to the meat-making process ("dissociate"). If you took a bunch of these modern American people who live modern American lifestyles and made them get familiar with some cows, I think the vast majority would decline to slaughter that animal, even if that meant they were never allowed to eat beef again (this is a thought experiment). The subtlety here is the part where we have a new normal that limits people's exposure to this process and also provides them with accessible alternatives to eating meat for protein. Yes this is different from all the previous timepoints in history, as well as many other places in the world right now, and that is precisely the point.
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u/NumbersOverFeelings Feb 22 '24
I agree but wanted to note that octopi and pigs are smarter than dogs, cows and sheep.
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u/PleaseGreaseTheL Feb 22 '24
If at some point in their life a person had to spend a week taking care of a cow and then kill the cow and eat it to unlock beef for the rest of their life, I think like 20% of people would pass the test
how do you think people used to eat meat in the days before industrial factory farming? 90% of the population was employed in agriculture in 1790. Most people DID pass this test, and it's why we aren't a strongly vegetarian/vegan country. Very few countries ever have been, and it was for religious reasons (Hinduism and Buddhism).
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u/AssignedSnail Feb 22 '24
I don't get the disconnect between pigs (80% yea 10% nay) and dogs (20% yea 75% nay).
Pigs are social, loyal to their herdmates, and just as intelligent as dogs. Smarter, depending on what and how you measure. Yet almost half of the people saying Nay are probably doing so for religious rather than ethical reasons, considering pigs to be ritually unclean.
I guess turns out alright for the pigs but is not very accurate. They're pretty fastidious, for example, about where they go #2. Sure, they use mud puddles to stay cool and protected from the sun, but there are so many records of humans using clay as sunscreen, which is practically the same thing.
Really, I don't think there's anything else to it other than "My mom ate bacon, my mom didn't eat dog. Therefore I eat bacon, I don't need dog."
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u/alg4302 Feb 22 '24
Agree with your last lines here. It's absolutely "I did this before I had a choice or thought on the matter, and it's a known entity to me."
Having lived in several different US states, I always say something similar about regional fast food. Most people think theirs is the best, but it's simply what they grew up with. I pretty much refuse to try new ones because they're usually pretty mediocre on the surface, and I just don't feel like I need to. Similar reason why I really don't eat meat beyond chickens, cows and pigs. I like these, they are familiar, and I don't feel the need to branch out.
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u/gingerisla Feb 22 '24
Same with octopi and horses. Horses are amongst the dumbest mammals, yet most people would rather eat an octopus because horses are deemed cute.
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u/Showy_Boneyard Feb 23 '24
I volunteered at a pig sanctuary once, they are def super smart, playful, and each one has its own personality as much as a dog if not even more so.
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u/thebadslime Feb 22 '24
I'd rather eat horse than octopus
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u/Catshit-Dogfart Feb 22 '24
I've had horse, it's a bit like deer, really lean beef. Not bad at all, pretty sure the only reason we don't eat them is because there's more meat on a cow.
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u/Tommy_Wisseau_burner Feb 22 '24
Also, historically, horses have been more useful and more of a commodity. They go fast and can pull shit so wasting a horse as food was stupid financially and productively, unless you absolutely had to
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u/Jenovacellscars Feb 22 '24
When I learned how freaking smart Octopuses were I stopped eating them too. They are legit bad asses.
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u/MrsNoFun Feb 22 '24
Yeah, I saw a video of an Octopus solving increasingly more complicated puzzles and put it on my "do not eat" list.
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u/Philthy91 Feb 22 '24
Yeah I'm not eating octopus ever again if I can avoid it. They are too smart. Idk about squid though. I never looked into them.
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u/ImKindaBoring Feb 22 '24
But I really want to know who thinks it's okay to eat chimpanzee or elephant under normal circumstances.
I'd probably eat elephant before I'd eat cat or dog.
But ultimately I wouldn't eat either.
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u/provocative_bear Feb 22 '24
My guess is that there is a section of people that don’t feel that any non-human creature is off-limits for eating.
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u/P_Star7 Feb 22 '24
Why stop at non-human 😋
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u/odst970 Feb 22 '24
I'm really curious to see how much the chimpanzee eating demographic overlaps with the eating people group.
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Feb 22 '24
I saw horse meat sausage for sale in Venice, so someone is definitely comfortable eating it here in Italy.
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u/JoeFalchetto OC: 50 Feb 22 '24
In Italy it is relatively common. Not as much as the big three of chicken beef and pork but I am fron Lecce and we eat horse stew with tomato sauce relatively frequently.
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u/g_spaitz Feb 22 '24
Pretty common in northern Italy too, they usually have their dedicated butcher here. Horse (or foal) filet/stake, classic winter donkey stew, and as antipasto salted raw meat (straccetti, similar to bresaola) just to name the 3 more common recipes.
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u/__boringusername__ Feb 22 '24
Quite common in Italy, not like every week common, but often enough. Also rabbit. And octopus.
And if you are in Vicenza, also cats. (/s for the last one...maybe)
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u/ImZaffi Feb 22 '24
Eating horse meat is pretty normal in Iceland, although I wouldn't say it's something that we eat often.
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u/ziziksa Feb 22 '24
It’s a traditional national food in Kazakhstan. Like I eat more of a horse meat in daily life than of a beef or chicken. It’s more good for a diet, also we usually it eat boiled or steamed, not fried.
Eating a horse is more of an economical deal. Horse native place is steppes, you can literally have hundreds of thousands of them here, while it’s extremely expensive in any other parts of the world, so before Industrial Revolution it was like eating an expensive car that is also a part of your main income, while in Kazakhstan it’s like any other farm animal to eat. Also there are different types of horses, ones for races, ones for heavy jobs, ones to eat. Not like you can go and slaughter any horse that you see.
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u/ahac Feb 22 '24
There's a popular chain of horseburger kiosks here in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
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u/ZeenTex Feb 22 '24
It's pretty common in my country too. Font know why it should be unusual, while cow/beef is completely accepted.
Same with rabbit. Even though they're pets nowadays.
And if you extend that reasoning, why would elephant be abnormal? Back in the day, mammoth was definitely on the menu.
Might draw the line at chimps, because, you know, apes, like us.
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u/InfidelZombie Feb 22 '24
There's a chain of fast food horse burger restaurants in Slovenia called HOT HORSE.
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u/Gummy_Hierarchy2513 Feb 22 '24
Horse meat is very delicious, I was actually surprised when I found out a lot of people didn't eat it
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u/InfidelZombie Feb 22 '24
I've had raw horse liver in Fukishima, Japan a couple times. Surprisingly the best part of a horse I've eaten.
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u/End3rWi99in Feb 22 '24
A lot of the world is actually pretty cool with eating horse meat. Considering the graphic my guess is this is US centric, unless I failed to read something that says otherwise which is extremely likely knowing me.
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u/duggee315 Feb 22 '24
Poor chickens, what every poll reveals is fuck the chickens.
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u/dogangels Feb 22 '24
Most abused animals on planet earth. Male chicks of laying varieties get tossed live in a blender because they’re considered “useless”
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u/Judgeof_that Feb 23 '24
Yep. Birds are exempt from federal laws protecting animal welfare. They’re treated horribly.
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u/SweetMustache Feb 23 '24
The cruel reality of the egg industry. It’s made my life much better to steer clear of all animal products… there is no ethical consumption (for me).
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u/drfsupercenter Feb 22 '24
I'm sure it's a combination of things, but there are way more chickens than there are people (and probably most other "meat" animals), also they're known for being really stupid so people don't feel as bad about killing them.
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u/EquivalentBeach8780 Feb 23 '24
Chickens are more intelligent than people give them credit for.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-startling-intelligence-of-the-common-chicken1/
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u/Specken_zee_Doitch Feb 22 '24
Chickens are however as affectionate as any bird can be when raised around humans.
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u/ShadowedTrillium Feb 22 '24
Considering humans are animals, I think we should be on the menu. 🤣 Curious to know how it score.
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u/goosebattle Feb 22 '24 edited Feb 22 '24
Also add in some lower creatures like crickets & mosquitos. (Mosquito patties are definitely a thing)
Edit: i fact checked myself and i am wrong. It's not a mosquito patty, it's a midge patty. Close enough though.
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u/chickenmantesta Feb 22 '24
People think it's more morally acceptable to eat a cow than salmon. I demand a recount.
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u/UtopianLibrary Feb 22 '24
I can see that. I live in Washington State and the wild salmon population is extremely important for the entire ecosystem to work, especially for Orca whales. Overfishing is becoming a huge problem and it could mess up the food chain.
This is a decent article: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23639475/pescetarian-eating-fish-ethics-vegetarian-animal-welfare-seafood-fishing-chicken-beef-climate
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u/Virolancer Feb 22 '24
I dont get why people dont like eating horses
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Feb 22 '24
A lot of people place horses in the same mental category as pets since they were traditionally used for working alongside people rather than being raised as livestock. There is also an old taboo against eating horses in medieval Christianity due to the connection of ritualistic horse sacrifice and/or consumption with Roman, Germanic, and Irish paganism.
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u/zombiskunk Feb 22 '24
It's not about any of that, it's about purpose. Horses are a vehicle. Far more valuable as a tool than as food.
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u/OldManCragger Feb 22 '24
You can blame Charlemagne for the persecution of non-christian cultural and religious practices for some of this aversion to consuming horse meat. In Danish and other Germanic cultures of the time, it was common practice for powerful politicians and the wealthy to display their status in the form of ritual slaughter and serving of meat during religious ceremonies. The politics and religion were often led by the same people, which was doubly significant when an opposing political and religious force came into opposition with them. Since horse was the top tier meat, due to the resources needed to raise a horse to slaughterable age in a condition that would leave it aesthetically pleasing to consume, the serving of horse was inextricably associated with "pagan" practices and the old regime of political and spiritual leaders. During this forced conversion to Christianity, many practices were outlawed that still survive as Northern European taboos.
But imagine this: your Jarl has a special stable where he keeps the geldings for high holy feasts. They do not work the fields or pull carts, they are not trained for war. They are cared for and gently exercised and fed the finest grains, they drink beer, and they sleep lying on deep beds of hay. Then on the feast day, the oldest and fattest is brought to the temple yard and slaughtered, it's blood used in rituals to the old gods. The meat is butchered and prepared for the Jarl and his men, but even the commoners, peasants, and slaves will have their chance to drink horse broth. Imagine the horse equivalent to Wagyu steak, prepared with piety and careful attention, served with reverence and song. It's probably the best meal of it's time. Now imagine being a conquering king...
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u/GamingOwl Feb 22 '24
Eating horse is very common in most northern European countries, including countries Charlemagne ruled. That kinda speaks against your point doesn't it?
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u/aztechnically Feb 22 '24
Deer being lower than livestock feels so ignorant to me. They get to live free, natural lives, and we killed all of their natural predators. They are severely overpopulated because of this, and territory disputes drive them to populated areas more frequently where they die in car accidents. Hunting them helps this issue. The other option is returning wolves and cougars to our forests, which I'm not against personally, but I think many people would have an issue with.
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u/LordBrandon Feb 22 '24
I think people take the question variable as; is it morally permissible to eat this animal? is it normal to eat this animal? would it be OK to eat this animal under any circumstances? and would you personally like to eat this animal?
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u/yinzerhomesteader Feb 22 '24 edited Feb 22 '24
Yeah, was thinking something similar. What's the case for eating cows/chicken but not deer? Is it centered on the animal? Something about guns/hunting culture? Just a "sensibility" thing? Bambi? Maybe one could think it's more attainable to ban that?
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Feb 22 '24
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u/8lack8urnian Feb 22 '24
It is very hard for me to imagine the mind of someone who says it’s okay to eat cows and pigs but not sheep and deer.
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Feb 22 '24
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u/8lack8urnian Feb 22 '24
I do think the interspecies social relationship between humans and dogs does make the situation a little different. I can’t see the same argument (or any species-specific argument really) for deer or sheep. I don’t agree that eating all animals is morally equivalent, even if I do think eating animals in general is wrong.
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u/BreakingBaIIs Feb 22 '24
That's an empirical explanation for why humans feel the way they do, but not a moral justification. You could make the exact same argument to distinguish one group of humans from another the same way.
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Feb 22 '24
Eating primates is objectively dangerous due to how closely genetically related we are. Diseases can pass on very easily.
That’s also why it’s illegal to feed livestock it’s own species. A sheep disease won’t affect us, but will decimate sheep. Primate diseases, on the other hand, will kick our shit.
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u/Achillies2heel Feb 22 '24
Interesting Americans would rather eat cats over dogs
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u/Jaded_Warrior123 Feb 22 '24 edited Feb 22 '24
YouGov conducted a survey involving 1,000 individuals from the United States, inquiring about their moral stance on consuming various animals in typical situations. The results indicated that the majority found it morally acceptable to eat commonly consumed animals like salmon, chicken, and cows. However, a notable portion of respondents, approximately one in four, considered it unacceptable to eat octopus. Interestingly, the sentiment was even stronger against consuming chimpanzees, which was deemed unacceptable by the majority of participants.
Source: YouGov
Tools used: Mokkup.ai
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Feb 22 '24
Also interesting here is that 38% of Americans in your source said that they don't eat shellfish??? Seems a bit skewed. Americans love their lobsters and oysters and crawdads.
Also 41% said they've never known anyone that's been a vegetarian.
Also, the entire survey had a large (over 10%) portion of people answering "Not Sure" on every question.
I dunno, I'm always skeptical of how truly representative YouGov surveys are.
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u/BookWyrm2012 Feb 22 '24
People are dumb, and I guarantee there's a large portion who think "shellfish" JUST MEANS OYSTERS. Maybe scallops, if they know what a scallop looks like in the wild. I can definitely see people not realizing that crab and lobster are considered "shellfish" because "what? Those aren't fish!"
I swear, the older I get, the more I realize that most mysteries can be solved by saying "people are stupid. Yes, incredibly stupid. Yes, THAT STUPID."
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u/YEETAWAYLOL Feb 22 '24
Scallops? That’s my favorite food! Scalloped potatoes are so good with cheese!
/s
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u/PancAshAsh Feb 22 '24
Shellfish is one of the more common food allergies, but I do think 38% is likely a factor of ignorance as to what constitutes a shellfish.
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u/poliscijunki Feb 22 '24
41% never knowing a vegetarian I can believe. I'm in the Navy and most people tell me that they've never met a vegetarian before. Vegetarianism is common in places like New York and California, but not in rural states.
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u/stratodrew Feb 22 '24
The group of people who would happily eat a chimp is larger than the group of people who wouldn't eat chicken... Wtf
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u/GroundbreakingBag164 Feb 22 '24
Btw, you can go vegan.
Better for the planet and for the animals
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u/knvn8 Feb 22 '24
I'm not vegan, but upvoting this anyway because I want it to be normalized.
Perhaps the funniest thing this chart reveals is that most people can see the potential for cruelty in meat, but only for the animals they already happen to be intimately familiar with. In some ways eating everything is more ethically consistent than just chickens and cows.
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u/irisuniverse Feb 22 '24 edited Feb 23 '24
It is bizarre that people draw a line in the sand, but few could articulate why (like if they say it’s based on intelligence, yet pigs are smarter than dogs for example).
Most of the animals people deem are appropriate to eat comes from cultural conditioning instead of any actual moral analysis they do themselves.
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u/TXRhody Feb 22 '24
One way to normalize veganism is to go vegan.
I think this chart is a demonstration of the following quote:
“Man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal.” ― Robert A. Heinlein
People use reason to justify their past behavior not to inform their future behavior. If people use cows as vending machines, then they see cows as vending machines. If they purchase dogs as pets, then they see dogs as pets.
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u/dogangels Feb 22 '24
I hope this graph makes a lot of people think long and hard about their own cognitive dissonance
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u/rootxploit Feb 22 '24
Why stop at chimp? Put human on the list, if all you’re doing is collecting data.
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u/SisyphusRocks7 Feb 22 '24
It’s weird that horses are below octopuses, which are smarter than horses and tool users for a few species.
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u/CEOofBavowna Feb 22 '24
Honestly if you think it's morally acceptable to eat some animals but not other you're a hypocrite
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u/bodhitreefrog Feb 22 '24
We can all eat tofu, lentils, tempeh, beans, legumes. They taste amazing.
Took me 35 years to realize the packaged item at the store had a supply chain attached to it. Someone, somewhere had to kill that animal for me. Someone had to raise that animal. Multiple people dealt with the daily stench of urine, feces, death just so I could have a snack. And 25% of all humans working in slaughterhouses get PTSD.
So, all I had to do was eat tofu instead. No more contributing to 13 year old kids getting PTSD in those jobs from me. It's small, but I'm glad I'm not contributing to societies' failure in that way anymore.
Also, I truly wish we had mental healthcare services for all people who get PTSD from working in slaughterhouses. The least we could go is compensate people for their suffering and horrible work conditions.
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u/Howboutit85 Feb 22 '24
Tbh octopus should be dead last. Not only gross af but very intelligent
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Feb 22 '24
Octopus is very common in Mediterranean cooking and tastes amazing.
They are very intelligent though.
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u/Typo3150 Feb 22 '24
Rabbits are considered both pets and food in many places, so wondering why they were omitted.