When is something NOT food?

[argentus]

As we learn more about animals, our behavior towards them changes.  A good example would be dogs --in the past, our treatment of them has been brutal.  We've used them in vivisections (stomach-churning stuff), medical experiments, as labor, as first line defenses (think police dogs, war dogs), chained them up outside, and often abandoned them to starve for many reasons.

They were just "things."  Terry Pratchett famously said "Evil is when you treat people as things." -- but this argument could also be applied to animals.  Evil is when you treat an animal as a disposable thing.  When you learn to "read" an animal, you get a much better outcome both for the animal and for you.

So... an article came up about how livestock are not "things that wander around and eat grass" but actually are capable of some self-awareness and complex behaviors.  https://www.science.org/content/article/...E78YRM_5f4

Which raises an interesting question:  we are omnivores.  We do better if we have some meat protein in our diet.  But what's the level of sentience at which we should say "don't eat that critter"/don't farm it for its body (I'm thinking about whales, dolphins, animals raised for their fur)?

I realize everyone has their own preferences (I have sworn off pork (but won't turn down the occasional piece of bacon... so I'm kind of a hypocrite there) and won't eat octopus/calamari.  I eat the occasional bit of beef but prefer chicken or fish or shrimp... or vegetarian.

So what's YOUR take on it?  At what point should we declare that an animal should be removed from our food chain?  Is "it's tasty" a good metric for determining what/who we should eat?





(By the way, on the topic of ethical treatment of animals, do you follow the saga of "Guard Dog", a character in the comic strip, Mutts?  It's heartwarming but a real tear-jerker... and the cartoonist actually raised awareness for folks about the difficulties dogs have when they're treated as things -- chained up and then abandoned when convenient.  (note: there's a very happy ending to the story, but if you're sentimental, grab a hanky first. https://mutts.com/pages/guard-dog)

This is something I have struggled with for a while.    Like you, much as I LOVE calamari, I won't eat it, because I have had experiences which have demonstrated to me the intelligence of squid.   Likewise for octopus.   So, I draw an arbitrary line at higher intelligence. 

However, that's also a BS line, because it is difficult to draw a line of SENTIENCE between octopus and cows.   I don't think cows are very smart.   Cows will group together and allow another cow to crap on its head, and it will WEAR that crap until it dries out and falls off.   This is something I observed many times as a child, which convinced me that cows were dumb as rocks.   BUT......... should they die for that lack of computational awareness?   Not sure.   

I know that various cultures round up dolphins and kill them for meat.   This disgusts me.   I think dolphins are entirely too intelligent to be killed for their meat.   My current culture in the Cayman Islands reveres turtle stew as a traditional dish.   Much of the world is revulsed by the consumption of sea turtle.   

I don't know what the answer is, other than to speculate that should humanity survive it's own violence to the point where we evolve into higher order creatures, I think we will evolve to absorb nutrient directly from solar radiation, much as plants do.   I think that is the best of what evolution can do, but I seriously doubt Homo Sapiens will survive long enough to make those changes.   Not sure we deserve to.