The world is full of controversial and sometimes even taboo dishes based on both concept and preparation. Different cultures consider different foods acceptable to eat. My own country, South Korea, also has its fair share of unusual delicacies. Starting from street food like beondegi (steamed silkworms, lots of protein), hangover remedies like seonji-guk (ox-blood soup, very popular with the local vampires), seafood like sannakji (live octopus—be very thorough with your chewing) and naturally, I can’t leave out gaebul (live sea worms. Phallic-shaped, and ironically enough, said to be an aphrodisiac). 

There’s only one thing that all of these dishes have in common: they’re legal to eat. 

Despite what the Kinder Surprise Egg would like you to believe, it’s surprisingly hard to get certain foods banned from a country. Most of the time, the line is drawn when a dish raises safety concerns and risks possible death or it includes animal products from an endangered species. The reason is hardly ever over ethical and moral grounds. 

Recently, the South Korean government announced its legislation to ban dog meat consumption, sparking great controversy in the country. Dog meat farmers would be given a three-year grace period and financial aid in order to phase out the market. A five-year maximum jail sentence and/or a fine of 50 million won ($38,000) has been suggested for offenders. 

There have been previous attempts to ban the practice in the past, often pushed by animal rights activists, especially whenever the Olympics come strolling into town.  Since then, the sentiment has progressively spread due to Korean pop culture being at an all-time high, adding incentive to form a better picture of the country after foreigners expressed their surprise and horror that Koreans do, in fact, eat dog meat.

For those unaware, bosingtang, dog stew, has been a staple dish in Korea for at least a couple of centuries. Although it is a common practice to consume dog meat in Asian countries such as Korea, China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and many more, the stigma surrounding it stemming from the West has cast a negative light on the dish and has been the source of harmful, racist stereotypes. 

I’ve never eaten dog meat. Not out of any moral obligation, but simply because no one in my family actually enjoys bosingtang enough to eat it regularly. You’d be surprised at how few people in Korea do. Only a third of the country’s population has tasted dog meat before, and even fewer plan to in the future. It is a dish mainly enjoyed by the elderly for its supposed health benefits. As the stigma around the food continues to increase and become more taboo, its popularity is steadily declining among the younger generation. 

So, while it is true that dog meat is a traditional meal in my country, the superficial caricature the West has formed of us because of this doesn’t offer the full picture.

In fact, I find it pretty hypocritical to label Asian people as cruel over something as pointless as this. If every vegan has some vendetta or acts holier-than-thou compared to those who choose to consume meat, wouldn’t that get tiresome after a while?

The truth is, the reason so many people have such a strong aversion towards this practice is because dogs are an animal they actually like. This sympathy doesn’t extend to other species, however. By this same logic, it should be considered cruel to eat food like fertilized eggs, seafood where the dish is served still moving, or literally any animal product in existence. Pigs, which are more commonly consumed than dogs, have been shown to be higher in intelligence compared to the latter. So why aren’t more people opposed to eating pork?

After the plan to ban the consumption of dog meat was announced, the Korean Dog Meat Farmers Association went out to the streets in protests, insisting the government has no right to control what the people eat and saying this puts their businesses at risk.

It should be considered that since most of the population of dog meat consumers is reaching retirement age, it’s more likely that the practice would eventually die out without the need for government interference. 

Don’t get me wrong, there are aspects of dog meat that I don’t approve of personally. The biggest is that the conditions of the slaughterhouses dogs are sourced from are abysmal and should be considered animal abuse. Packed into tight cages, diseases and sickness are rampant with little to no hygiene, and the list keeps going on. It is sadly a common belief among farmers that the meat tastes best if the dog is beaten to death. 

But in that case, it doesn’t make sense to ban dog meat completely over simply enforcing stricter health guidelines for these businesses to ensure the dogs suffer as little as possible. Plus, it still leaves the question of what will happen to the dogs from breeding farms and slaughterhouses if this bill goes through. Is three years really long enough of a grace period to deal with over two million dogs? What will happen to those left over?

The issue that often arises with ethical food consumption is that there are always countless factors to consider: Is the food environmentally friendly? How much labor went into producing the food? What kind of animal welfare was implemented? With so much to consider, it gets confusing even before cultural significance or moral oppositions are taken into account. When you try bringing in moral arguments to dinner, in the end, you only end up questioning what’s left to eat. 

There’s a similar situation going on in the US itself in regard to the ethics of hunting. On first inspection, it’s easy to conclude that the sport is inhumane because it involves shooting animals, but rarely are the benefits considered. Hunting is arguably one of the most ethical ways of sourcing meat since the animals in question are not held captive in cages or farms but instead in their native environment. Plus, the kill is quick and often painless. 

Hunting does a good deal to help with overpopulation, and as long as the hunter makes sure to use every part of their kill, very little is wasted. But because we as a society only focus on the killing aspect of the sport, people disapprove and think the whole thing should be gotten rid of entirely. 

Not eating dog meat is a personal choice I’ve made for myself. But I also don’t think it’s my right to take that choice away from other people, much less the government’s right to try and change culture in order to fit the West’s standards. We shouldn’t have to conform and accommodate foreigners’ aversion to our traditional dishes. It doesn’t make sense to consider certain animal products off limits simply because we prefer them over all other animals and then not hold other food to the same standards. 

The critical issue that comes from dog meat is how it’s being sourced. Dogs should not have to suffer unnecessarily just to satisfy taste buds, and proper precautions to hold slaughterhouses and breeding farms accountable should be the government’s focus, especially considering South Korea is going through a crisis of people recklessly adopting dogs from said breeding farms only to abandon them after realizing their new pet is sickly from being raised in horrible conditions. 

It’s for these reasons that dog meat is going out of style in the first place, which means the practice of consuming dog meat would’ve died out anyway, making the ban almost redundant. 

You don’t have to like it, but you don’t have to ruin it for others, either. The only plate you can control what food goes on is yours. Food is so diverse in terms of culture that it’s impossible to try and apply the same standards to every dish. Sometimes, you aren’t going to approve of how certain food is prepared, but like most things, you can’t make every person in the world agree with your opinion, so just keep it to yourself.

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