And it's sort of interesting you bring up Asia considering that the outrage over Asians eating dog meat is much greater in Asia than it is in the West. Dogs are more and more seen as pets and not fit for consumption. Worldwide, dog meat consumption has trended sharply downward.

I eat bacon. Does that make me a hypocrite? I guess. Is that an accusation likely to make me start eating dogs or stop eating bacon? No.

It has been done in their cultures for centuries, I don't have the kind of hubris to think that my culinary customs should be everyone's.

The other aversion is the efficiency of dogs as food, being carnivores it takes a lot more resources to raise dogs for food than it does for pigs. Any society that went for dogs were going to get out competed.

Everything I've seen is that pigs are far smarter.

I've never heard of dogs being smart?

I dunno, managing to convince the alpha species of the planet not to eat then and instead to provide them shelter and food with no expectation of work in return could be considered pretty smart.

Whales and octopuses, I think, also fit the "animals we know to live in threatened conditions" criteria many of us apply to deciding who to eat.

The "threatened conditions" is a bit more debatable, e.g. the minke whales that are being caught today by Icelandic and Norwegian whaling are of the same endangerment status as e.g. moose and wild boar - "Least Concern". Also Greenpeace et al. use quite a bit of disingenious reporting, e.g. talking about Icelandic fishing of "endangered whales" when those whales aren't actually endangered in the oceans where the Icelandic vessels fish, but literally on the other side of the earth. (I'm not particularly pro-whaling either, just food for thought.)

Octopi are even less endangered, the two large species are not on any conservation list.

But there are many, many differences between humans and dolphins. We're smarter, for one. Debate philosophy. Are rarely seriously in danger of starving. Have much more culture. Etc., etc.

So, probably as intelligent as nomadic pre-historic humans. I wouldn't rate that as "highly" intelligent. Just somewhat intelligent.

These are still pre-historic dolphins, since they don't seem to record history for themselves yet. If they carry oral traditions, they seem to be limited to hunting techniques, and not specific events and personalities measured across time. There is no evidence of symbolism invented by dolphins.

Either way, the octopus is similarly prehistoric, despite readily prehensile appendages.

Nor does a lack of hands readily explain the level of elephant intelligence, given a prehensile trunk.

Hint: the animals are less intelligent for doing so.

Mahi-mahi is a fish

Killing and eating a pig when you need it to survive is not immoral. Killing a pig because you felt like having pork rinds, and then leaving the rest of the body to rot because you'd rather have steak is immoral.

While there are dolphins who won't eat octopuses because it's dangerous or difficult, I bet there are some who won't because they empathize with them. If the humans in this thread can empathize with an octopus why couldn't a dolphin?

But when does that happen? Wouldn't the butcher or supermarket usually sell most of the meat and the rest of the carcass is used for dog food or whatever?

I suppose there is probably some waste, but I find it hard to believe there are animals left to rot as you describe simply due to economics.

Personally, I think consumption of more than a few ounces of meat per week is unethical, by the same logic. It's not necessary for health. However, most people in my country don't have the food culture necessary to make adequate non-meat-based dishes. We weren't all born in a family where we were taught thrifty cooking techniques. So it's a strange gray area of "unnecessary". One doesn't need to eat more than a couple ounces of meat, but one needs food and if one doesn't know how to cook plants into something that could stand in for meat in a satisfactory way, then they "need" meat.

The internet is there, so anyone could do it though. I think whether it's ethical comes down to how much free time you have and how comfortable you are with cooking. But again, that's my personal view. I wouldn't expect someone else to live by my ethics. I would expect them to have some measure of "need" in their scheme though. If their habit is "I eat as much red meat as I want I don't even think about it", unless they're and abuse victim or something that's probably not an ethically defensible position.

The waste is almost entirely on the consumer side.

The dolphin life span varies between 20-50 years for the various species.

Cooperative hunting, altruism, care for the members of the group, and colective child care are normal.

Innate interest and sense of compassion for other marine mammals in distress, including humans, and a strong protection response in dangerous situations.

They have grandparents. This is particularly remarkable. Old specimens past their reproductive days are treated as expendable and die quickly in 99% of the animal species. Grandma's are instead VID (very important dolphins) in its societies, and live much longer than expected.

Mourning was also reported in some cases.

"The potato says these things by doing them, which is the best of languages. What is consciousness if this is not consciousness? We find it difficult to sympathise with the emotions of a potato; so we do with those of an oyster. Neither of these things makes a noise on being boiled or opened, and noise appeals to us more strongly than anything else, because we make so much about our own sufferings. Since, then, they do not annoy us by any expression of pain we call them emotionless; and so qua mankind they are; but mankind is not everybody.

From Samuel Butler's Erewhon. (The same chapter that inspired the eponymous Butlerian Jihad in Dune, incidentally.) I don't agree with the conclusion here, and I doubt Butler did either, but the whole book is a great read.

[1] http://www.online-literature.com/samuel-butler/erewhon/26/

"Sadhguru: Now, if you eat a mango, this mango becomes a woman in you. If I eat a mango, the same mango becomes a man in me. If a cow eats a mango, the same mango becomes a cow in the cow. Why is this happening? There is a certain information or software in you – whatever you eat it transforms it into a woman. If I eat, it transforms into a man. If a cow eats, that becomes a cow. So every life is happening the way it is happening because of a certain dimension of information or in modern terminology, let’s call it software. There is a certain software, which is an arrangement of information.

Now, the idea is to eat as simple a software as possible. If you eat that kind of life, which is a very simple software, your ability to override that software and make it entirely a part of you is very good. As that software gets complex, more and more complex, your ability to integrate it goes down. So, especially if it’s a creature which has some sense of thought and emotion, if it has emotion, then you should not eat it. This is the understanding. An animal, which has any emotion, displays certain emotions… especially if it displays emotion which is near to human emotion, you should not eat it because it will not integrate itself. That animal nature will start manifesting itself."

- From http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/video/basis-for-beef-ban/

I could eat babies and they would keep me alive. How does one tell if they are able to "integrate" their food without the baby nature "manifesting itself"?

Not the same as me now because currently I'm not eating babies, but it would be the new me.

Even if I never start eating babies, I'm still not the same person a year from now.

"You" is a very fluid concept.

And, this idea is in Western civilization too. Look at the origins of the phrase - "you are what you eat".

But that was third-hand knowledge at best.

Pigs are very smart, but they're also probably _the_ most delicious meat. Its unfortunate.

Cows, I think, most people assume are stupid?