Animals..friend or food? Perhaps both!

Re: Chinese Daily Photos, Videos & News of 2012!!!

no_name said:

But is there much evidence to suggest that people are eating dog and cat meat because they are poor? I would have thought if anything that dog and cat meat would be more expensive than say pork, and that people are into it for the novelty/craving/special dish factor.

If poor people have to hunt down dogs to feed themselves, then that's another thing.

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Really!? Hunting Panda can get you a dealth penalty in China. There are about 3000 of them left, which is about the same as the number of pupils in my primary school back in Taiwan.

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People did eat cats and dogs in the old days for nourishment, cows and pigs are pretty big animals and requires a lot of food to keep them healthy and growing. Not a lot of farmers could raise them in large numbers effectively like today. This is before the PETA folks start crying their eyes out for their dead pet more than their grandparents death at a funeral...go figure.


Ooops my bad, I meant to say "If only" eating Panda...


Food is food, it will get digested and came out the same way (hopefully it's a solid one).

AssassinsMace said:

You mean the foreign fisherman and how they obtain it so they can make money. The Chinese don't waste which is also the subject of ridicule for eating the parts of animals the critics don't eat. Which is also why the tiny population of the West eats more meat in their diet thus kills more animals for food than the rest of the world combined.

If the Chinese adopted the critics' eating habits, would China be then blamed for the greenhouse gases that are expelled from steer and have been a significant contributor to global warming?

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There could be all sorts of nationalities involved, i dunno, but the premium that price that shark fins command because of demandoften result in the fin being taken only. That is what attracting the criticism

And every country can make laws against it. It's just like child-sex tourism. The Western countries that are home-base for these businesses do nothing about it. So it's pretty hypocritical to say it's up to China especially when a lot of the trades that China is blamed for actually are the fault of Western allied rich countries in the Far East where the money is made.

Re: Chinese Daily Photos, Videos & News of 2012!!!

bladerunner said:

Ummmh By thesame token , theres a fair amount meat eating wildlife that dont. . Look at birds. Reptiles,/Snakes Sharks that feed on Vegetation/plankton and Predator Sharks, their eyes are on the side.

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Their eye sights cross and allow the determination of distance and direction, be it fishes, birds or sharks...

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bladerunner said:

A little off topic , but IMO that kindness is misplaced. Over hear one can be jailed for not putting an animal out of its misery because of some injury or cancer and yet one can face imprisonment for practising euphanasia.

On another note has anyone watched a program called animalpharm where animals are genetically modified for human needs, either for consumption or medical reasons? There was one program where they had cows which carried human DNA so they could be farmed for their blood.

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Let me ask you a question. If one of your friends is in an accident and has lost a lot of blood and is in desperate need of blood, would you choose to save your friend by drawing a couple pints of blood out of the cow or would you prefer to save the cow's a few pints of blood and let your friend go? Bear in mind that a couple pints of blood does not even affect the cow.

Our medical technology is not advanced enough for us to save both. If we want to save human lives, we then have to sacrifice animals. If we love our mice and guinea pigs so much, we then have to endure loss of lives of our friends and family who get sick. We don't have the luxury to "spare" those animals...

Re: Chinese Daily Photos, Videos & News of 2012!!!

paintgun said:

well to make it short, eating animals other people considers or have as pets might get them offended, it's just a normative thing, making it a law would be stupid for some, but like i said the other far end of the opinion is no good as well

the more people in China have cats and dogs for pets, the less will find their meats tasty, perhaps...

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Nope, I would still eat bacon even if I have Vietnamese Potbelly pig as a pet.

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bladerunner said:

Ummmh By thesame token , theres a fair amount meat eating wildlife that dont. . Look at birds. Reptiles,/Snakes Sharks that feed on Vegetation/plankton and Predator Sharks, their eyes are on the side.

Horses and Cows are grazers feeding a few inches off the ground , with their head bent downwards, they would not be able to see if they were being stalked, thats also why their eyes are on the side.

Asians also get condemned for eating sharkfin, not because of the rarity of sharks, but the wasteful manner that its obtained.

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That's why here in Texas we enjoy a good game of cow tipping.

AssassinsMace said:

And every country can make laws against it. It's just like child-sex tourism. The Western countries that are home-base for these businesses do nothing about it. So it's pretty hypocritical to say it's up to China especially when a lot of the trades that China is blamed for actually are the fault of Western allied rich countries in the Far East where the money is made.

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I understand, since 2008, the US and other major fishing countries in the West require Sharks to be offloaded with their fins attached.

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vesicles said:

Let me ask you a question. If one of your friends is in an accident and has lost a lot of blood and is in desperate need of blood, would you choose to save your friend by drawing a couple pints of blood out of the cow or would you prefer to save the cow's a few pints of blood and let your friend go? Bear in mind that a couple pints of blood does not even affect the cow.

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That would be a no brainer, however animal rights groups may choose to differ, by proffering the question "Whats so hard about requiring people to stockpile their own possible requirements?

BY the way I once came acrooss a program talking about this sea thingy(forgot what it was) whose venom or whatever was miles more potent than morphine as a painkiller. There were plans to reproduce that for human use. Do you know. anything about that?

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Equation said:

That's why here in Texas we enjoy a good game of cow tipping.

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youre kiddin me?

Edit? A study led by Margo Lillie, a doctor of zoology at the University of British Columbia, concludes that cow tipping—by a single person—is impossible. Her calculations found that it would take at least two people to apply enough force to push over a cow if the cow does not react and reorient its footing. If the cow does react, it would take at least four people to push it over, according to the results. Lillie notes that, contrary to the nature of the myth, cattle are well aware of their surroundings and are very difficult to sneak up on, due to excellent senses of both smell and hearing

bladerunner said:

That would be a no brainer, however animal rights groups may choose to differ, by proffering the question "Whats so hard about requiring people to stockpile their own possible requirements?

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It's a lot harder to stockpile enough blood if we depend on human only. An average human is about 175 Ibs and he will die if he loses close to 20% of his blood. An average cow is about 1000 Ib. And 15% of a cow's blood is equivalent of close to 15-20 times the blood that can be safely drawn from a human. And having cow's blood a lot more reliable too since it's a lot easier to make sure there is no transmittable diseases in cow's blood. We can keep those cows in a comparably sterile environment and it's impossible to do that with human. Again, I'm thinking as a biochemist, not an animal rights activist. They might think it's inhumane to even keep cows in a sterile environment in the first place. But again, despite the best intentions, we still do not have enough blood for the stockpile. So, instead of trying to figure out how to squeeze a little more blood out of human, why not look for another option?

I actually worked on a completely artificial blood substitute for about a year when I was in graduate school. This would be a form of "blood" that is completely synthesized and contains no animal part at all. It basically has hemoglobin along with other stuff. However, the first generation of such blood substitute causes high blood pressure in patients. We suspected that it was because the synthesized hemoglobin binds to NO (nitric oxide) a lot strongly than normal and caused blood pressure to go up. So we tried to change the structure of the hemoglobin so that its ability to bind with NO gets weaker. however, often times, when we tweaked the hemoglobin structure to weaken its binding to NO, we also weakned the hemoglobin's binding to oxygen, which is the opposite of what we want. So as you can see, this is still a work in progress. Patients still need blood NOW and can't lie on the bench and wait for the next generation blood substitute to come out. And the irony is that, in order to make a better blood substitute and better tweak the hemoglobin structure, we need to understand hemoglobin. To do that, we need blood from some animal. We actually used blood from sperm whales, which apparently have a lot of hemoglobin. We isolate hemoglobin from sperm whales and do our expts.

I agree that it would be the best if we don't have to sacrifice these poor animals, but the reality is we still need them to keep ourselves alive. I say this with all my sincerity because I work with animals everyday. If there is a possibility of not using the animals, we, the biologists/biochemists, would be the first ones to jump on it.

bladerunner said:

BY the way I once came acrooss a program talking about this sea thingy(forgot what it was) whose venom or whatever was miles more potent than morphine as a painkiller. There were plans to reproduce that for human use. Do you know. anything about that?

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I've heard about it, but have no idea what this animal might be.

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youre kiddin me?

Edit? A study led by Margo Lillie, a doctor of zoology at the University of British Columbia, concludes that cow tipping—by a single person—is impossible. Her calculations found that it would take at least two people to apply enough force to push over a cow if the cow does not react and reorient its footing. If the cow does react, it would take at least four people to push it over, according to the results. Lillie notes that, contrary to the nature of the myth, cattle are well aware of their surroundings and are very difficult to sneak up on, due to excellent senses of both smell and hearing[/QUOTE]


LOL...no you don't do it alone! You do it together with group of friends and you do it at dusk or near night time. There are several rules to cow tipping:

1) During day time scout for medium size or smaller cow as it would be easier on their young body as the animal makes attempts to get up (and they will most of the time, if not you help them).

2) Make sure it's a cow NOT A BULL (the one's with horns and balls). I can't stress that enough.

3) When the time comes, your group will sneak up on it from behind, and then turn slowly to face the cow's side of the body (leave enough room for a good running start). Lower your shoulder like a linebacker making a tackle in football (NFL not the soccer one) and count to three...two...one....let her rip! Push with all your might and watch it "MOOOOO" and tumble to the ground.

4) Have a good laugh and then run to safety of the fence. Make sure you're not stepping onto cow mines (manure). The cow will eventually get up on all four looked at you as why you did it and scurry off.

And that's cow tipping, TEXAS STYLE.

Equation said:

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4) Have a good laugh and then run to safety of the fence. Make sure you're not stepping onto cow mines (manure). The cow will eventually get up on all four looked at you as why you did it and scurry off.

And that's cow tipping, TEXAS STYLE.

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You must be a city slicker.When I was young we went to school bare feet. On a cold frosty winters morning puting ones feet in cow poop (cow patties as theyre called here) as one walked to school was the only way of keeping your feet warm.