I know that animal rights is an important and sensitive issue for many people, so while I appreciate your concern for animal safety I would like you to understand that I do very much care about ethical food options. I was a guest in another country, and the food I was asked to prepare was from a variety of animal sources. I would not have felt comfortable eating an animal that I knew wasn't raised to have the best life it could have had, and I'd like to make it clear that as I said in the notes of that poll, dogs were not raised or kept as pets in that country. They were seen the same way Americans might see squirrels or deer, and were usually considered pest animals. Raising them for meat gave them a much safer and longer life than letting them get sick or run as strays on the street where they often die very young or are hit by cars.

I am an anthropologist- and as an anthropologist I know that different cultures get their food from sources that socially my culture may have been taught to see as taboo. This is true of my culture as well- Americans eat things many other countries think are gross or bad or strange or just plain wrong. Dogs are cute- but we see them as cute because we come from cultures that raise dogs as pets. I know farmers who raise chickens as pets, and eat chicken. A dog is an animal, just like a cow or a frog or a person, and before we developed the technology we have now things ate us for food too. Human beings are animals too, and a part of the food web- and when I was living 4 hours out in the middle of the desert where there were no roads for miles, I ate what food there was to eat.