My encounters with animals

For initial several years of my life, I didn’t come across any animal as food or as pet. Then I came to know of couple of house-owners who used to keep a watch-dog as their pet. My interactions with those dogs were not any friendly. I always found those dogs to be very aggressive and threatening to me for no reason. So I used to perceive these pet-owners as very un-friendly people, who don’t want to socialize with anyone.

One day, my classmate told the story of how a watch-dog of a pet-owner nearby our school shooed away a thief last night. The dog even broke the chain he was tied with, to attack the thief. As a reward, the pet-owner fed him some extra chapatis. I was like, “Was their pet being under-fed all other days!”

Later on in my life, I happened to meet many pet owners with different animals as pet like cats, parrots, pigeons, camels, cows, buffaloes, horses, goats, sheep, rabbits, turtles, fishes, and even crocodile & wolves. People fancy many animals and want to keep them as their pet

I also came across people who used to eat chickens, fishes, deer, wild boar, wild cocks, goats, peacocks, pheasants, crabs and even snakes and live worms.

There I got confused

I was and still am quite confused by the choices people make for animals as their food and animals as their pet. I don’t know what exactly are the criteria or differentiating parameters to make this choice.

Personally, I don’t see animals as food or even pets. But I’d like to know how people decide on what to eat and what to keep as a pet.

Is bunny sweet or her meat?

About 6 years back, I heard that a hypermarket in an upmarket Mall at Gurgaon has started selling rabbit meat. I had never heard of rabbits as food before, though I’ve seen several projects promoting farming of rabbits in Himalayan villages. But they were focused on producing Angora wool from rabbits.

So, one fine evening, I went to that hypermarket. I normally don’t go towards the meat section but I specially went there that day and asked them for rabbit meat. 3-4 staff members immediately surrounded me. Then the manager humbly conveyed me that it’s currently out of stock. I inquired the rate they are selling it for and they informed me about it which was the same I had heard of. Anyway, I left that place at that time. But it again raised this question in my mind, how do people decide which animal is edible and which one is not!

For some they are pets, for others it's food. For me, it's a life-form

The world over, people are divided on it. E.g. Dogs are edible and a delicacy in China but people in USA would be shocked with the idea of consuming dogs . USA has got the largest number of dogs as pets in the world but none of them is opposed to eating a hamburger; whereas in India & Nepal, there are strict laws against slaughtering of cows.

Now a days, bunnies have become the third most popular pets in US. So when Whole Food introduced rabbit meat in their outlets, there were wide scale protests by the bunny lovers. But eating rabbits during Lent was popularized by monks according to legends. Pope Gregory is said to declare that rabbits were not meat and were counted as fishes.

Now India approves rabbits as "food" animals

Today, local cultures are intersecting globally. Last September, FSSAI notified an amendment in Food Safety And Standards Regulations to include rabbits as food in India. So now we have a long list of animals as food:

• Ovines: "of, relating to, or resembling sheep"
• Caprines: "of, relating to, or being a goat"
• Suillines: "of or relating to a pig"
• Bovines: : "any of a subfamily (Bovinae) of bovids including oxen, bison, buffalo, and their close relative"
  And now this list also includes domestic rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus).

But the question remains unanswered to me, “What are the criteria for inclusion and exclusion of an animal from our food chain?”

Why so limited list of animals as food, when there are thousands out there?

If it’s nutrition, insects and worms are said to be the most nutritious and eco-friendly to consume after plant-based diet. If it’s killing few animals, the huge ones like hippopotamus and elephants should be consumed. Shouldn’t animal husbandry focus its research & development efforts to improve productivity by enhancing these breeds? And if it’s ego, lion-hearted people will love to boost their ego by eating lion’s meat. Why not breed lions and start their intensive farming?

Do so called pet lovers, really love animals? If so, how come they keep one animal as pet and eat the other? Rationally speaking all animals are equal and humans can eat any of those. But do we really need to eat any animal for the sake of our life?

The author of “Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals” Hal Herzog says, ““We think of ourselves as a nation of animal lovers. What we really like to do with animals is eat them". But it’s all about our social construct. As I grew up in a society that didn’t consume any animal products and nor kept any animal as pet, I’m against consuming any animals or keeping them as pets. In other parts of the world, people grow up consuming animals and hence think it as normal.

Do animals really need to be categorized as food?

I don’t think there is any need to consume animals in anywhich way (as food or pet), when we can live a healthy and fulfilled life without it. Even if you consume animals, I’d like to hear the rational of categorizing the animal kingdom into food and non-food. Do you know any?