Vegan

If hot dogs were made of dogs, would you still eat one?  If you’d asked me that question seven years ago (when I still ate meat), I would’ve answered with a firm (though puzzled) ‘no’.  My previous answer fascinates me now because it highlights that our beliefs about what is (and is not) acceptable to eat typically derive from our cultural inheritance, rather than any Biblically informed ethic.  After all, if, as we Christians might initially be tempted to think, it is okay to eat lambs and pigs because humans were given dominion over God’s creation (Genesis 1:26-28), then it will also be okay to eat cats and dogs, for nothing in Genesis (nor any other book in the Bible) suggests that lambs and pigs are for eating while cats and dogs are for cuddling.  Yet most of us find the idea of eating cats and dogs horrific.