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harold said:
People kill domesticated 动物 for 食物 because that's one reason 动物 were domesticated in the first place. 动物 were domesticated to provide 食物 and to perform work...in that order. As humanity developed better and better agricultural practices - eventually inventing 面包 and other high-carbohydrate foods that made civilization possible - it became possible to have 动物 for companionship. Different countries have different mores at to which 动物 are 更多 acceptable for food. While many English-speaking countries have an aversion to eating domesticated 动物 usually thought of as companion creatures - horses, cats, 狗 - other populations do not make the same distinctions. As a result, many large 食物 动物 - the ones that need significant resources to breed, raise and keep (like sheep, pigs, cows, buffalo and horses, but not cats, 狗 或者 goats) are shipped from every country that can support them to the countries that eat them. We in the US, Canada and the UK find it distasteful. The argument in favor of slaughtering 动物 for 食物 for export follows two precepts:
1) Humans need protein to survive and thrive. We are omnivores, designed to eat both meat and plant matter (as well as fungi).
2) Domesticated 动物 that can do no work must be disposed of, somehow. The argument flows like this: not all 动物 that are born can be pets, especially not 动物 that require huge resources to maintain, such as 马 - not even close to all of them. Only domesticated 动物 which are pets are buried when they die (not even all of them) - there certainly isn't room for burying all the 马 born in the US. So the 马 get sent to the knacker yards when they die, for the fat to be rendered, and the 识骨寻踪 used for gelatin, cosmetics, and other useful items. The meat is lost, as the meat on an animal that dies naturally isn't particularly healthful. So if an animal is going to die, why not slaughter it so that people can benefit from the meat as well (both sellers and consumers)? If that's palatable, then the 问题 becomes: why should the owners wait to slaughter an useless animal (can't be sold as a pet, can't do work) until the animal, 给 the expense and resources needed to sustain the animal until that point?
I should add that there is a corollary argument in countries that actually eat horse meat: that is to say, domesticated animal meat is meat to eat. I myself, while I would have a hard time stomaching horse meat, have eaten alligator, ostrich, elk, bison, rabbit and various others. So for me, at least, it's a double-standard.
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