What I read
The BBC News article "Trump Kim summit: What food was on the diplomatic menu?" (2018) says that although one of the traditional Korean dishes was unfamiliar to many modern Koreans, the menu the Singaporean hosts planned for the historic summit meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was carefully designed to represent all of the cultures involved, whilst also offering the US president choices that he would be familiar with.
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My response
And my title? That was suggested by the information about the English King Henry VIII in the story. When he wasn't busy looking for a new wife, or getting rid of an old wife, Henry liked to eat roast swan, something that I'm sure is not on the English menu today. I don't know whether it's even legal to eat swans in England these days. I don't think that they are endangered, so I guess it might still be legal, but I've never seen a modern menu with swan as one of the dishes. In Australia, on the other hand, we do eat both of the animals on our national coat of arms: kangaroos and emu are both available, especially kangaroo. When I go back for my annual visit, I like to have a kangaroo steak, although I'm not so keen on emu.
It was probably a wise diplomatic decision not to include dog on the menu, since that tasty meat is controversial these days, however popular it might still be in Korea and other Asian countries, including Thailand.
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My question
Should it be illegal to kill and eat swan, kangaroo, elephant, dog or any other animal?
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Reference
- Trump Kim summit: What food was on the diplomatic menu? (2018, June 12). Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44447714
In my opinion, eating non-traditional meats has nothing wrong. It is just a matter of preference.
ReplyDeleteAs I grew up in modern society, I believe that people should have freedom to pursuit their own interests as long as it doesn’t violate other rights. I have positive opinion about this issue, but this doesn’t mean I totally agree with every situation. There are some cases that it should be illegal. For example, if those animals are endangered, or if they could cause some food hazards.
I like your two supporting reasons for keeping some animals off the dinner table. Can you give an example or two of each?
DeleteExamples are helpful support for readers since they make abstract ideas more concrete, showing them working in a specific situation or for a specific case.
So, what is an example of a an animal that should be illegal to eat because endangered? And an example of one that is a food hazard?
I like eating different kinds of food. But in my opinion, I don’t agree with eating wild animals, so I think it should be illegal to eat them. Because the world population is increasing fast, people cut down a lots of trees to grow crops. The number of wild animals has declined year by year, If people eat them, I think maybe some wild animals will disappear quickly. Because hunters will kill lots of delicious animals to earn money.
ReplyDeleteOther reason is if the habit of eating wild animals has become very common. I think some people will want to try different animals. Even though endangered’s. I agree with eating artificially farmed animals. I think they are the same like eating pig or cow. It’s a good choose and the meat has more healthy. I think dog is a special one. Some countries or cities have this culture to eat them. I don’t eat dog, but I accept to someone like this.
Even I'm an animal lover, but I won't reject the fact that human's body need protein from animal's meat. However, we should restrict consumption just only meat, chicken and pork.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I think protein from these few thing are enough to keep us alive. People shouldn't kill animal without necessary. Another reason, other animal such as swan kangaroo or elephant are not the same with pig chicken or cow. They aren't eaten widely and some breed of these animal are rare. Thus, maybe we should use the legal to protect them.
Kangaroos are not rare. There are millions of them in Australia. Most estimates put the numbers at around 40 million, so the few that are killed to turn into delicious steaks are no threat to the existence of these wild animals. I don't know about swans, which might be suffering because our species has destroyed much of their environment.
DeleteWhen you argue that "they aren't eaten widely," so should perhaps be illegal to eat anywhere, you seem to disagree with the popular idea among your classmates here that if something is a cultural habit it should be respected and allowed. Have I understood your idea correctly? Why do you thing being a cultural habit or tradition is not enough to make something legal or deserving of respect by other people?
Although some of critics agree with accepting for the nature f human eating, I have a different opinion for certain species which should not classify in traditional meat such as dog and even swan. Additionally, to illegal for the rare animal is needed for being one protection to reserve those animal also.
ReplyDeleteThank you Noon. I just posted a comment below where I replied to one popular argument from your classmates, the idea that if something is a cultural habit, it should be accepted — you can see from my comment whether I agree or not with this argument.
DeleteBut I'm wondering what your reason is for disagreeing with the eating of, for example, dogs, which are not rare or endangered although traditionally eaten in Thailand and other countries.
In my point of view, I think eating swan, kangaroo, elephant, dog or any other animal not wrong because I believe that the different places cause eating different. In the world,They have many culture and I believe every culture has own reason to eat some animals for example people in Laos always eat dog nolmally because they have dog too much. On the other hand, the most Thai'opinion often think that eating dogs is not ok. It is barbaric.
ReplyDeleteAt last, I think It should be illegal or not to kill and eat swan, kangaroo, elephant, dog or any other animal in accordance with the appropriate each country.
I didn't think of if when I wrote this blog post a few days ago, but reading the comments both for and against, I wondered whether human meat should also be on the list of meats its OK to eat.
ReplyDeleteA few people have suggested that cultures should be respected whatever they are, so if a culture eats humans, that would be OK and we should not interfere to stop them. I'm not sure that I agree with this, but it seems to be a logical conclusion of the argument that if something is culturally accepted by a group, it is as good as any other cultural habit, such as slavery and nudity and pop music.
Finally, I also wonder whether it's true that we need meat to be healthy. I agree that we need protein, but beans and other plants can be combined to give us all the protein that healthy people normally need, as the existence of millions (billions?) of healthy vegetarians shows us. I don't think we normally need to eat meat for health reasons in modern societies.
But I still like my kangaroo steaks and other tasty animal flesh.
And Pim P. seems to disagree above with the popular idea of accepting something because it is a traditional part of a culture.
DeleteI think humans are different types of animals, I respect culture, but if the custom violates ethics, I can’t agree with it. Respecting doesn’t mean that we accept all traditions. But why we eat another animals is normal, I don’t know, maybe meat is so delicious, people can not refuse it, so eat meat is not a ethical issue.
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