I think it’s even worse than that-- H/Gs, vs primitive agriculturalists vs every conceivable agriculturalist society up the technological pyramid. That’s why I asked the OP to define “we”.
But you eating them at the same time would have enabled my “Mother and Child Reunion” joke!
I would think conditioning would have a lot to do with it.
I’m a dog lover, and have a dog who is my buddy. I don’t think of him as food, nor any other dog. Same with cats, even though I don’t own a cat, and hate cats, I still know people who have them, and they are THEIR buddies, and I don’t associate that with a food source.
I think it also has to do with the fact that food for the most of us is very plentiful, and we have choices to decide that food A is good and food B is bad. It you we were the Chilean soccer team, we would be looking at each other thinking about which type of Hot Sauce would go good with, say, Wonderwall with a side of Blake. 
To simply: Today we aren’t Hunters and Gatherers and most of us aren’t farmers. We eat what we are familiar with. Chickens, Pigs, Cows, etc. are what we know. Someone says a giraffe? That’s the cute animal in the zoo; I don’t want to eat him. And since we have the luxury of a great food supply, it holds…
I read a recent article that said Japan was having a tuna shortage and raw horsemeat was a similar substitute for use in sushi.
Sushi chefs have been serving raw horse forever. I think it’s called bashasi or something like that. It’s often served with other sashimi.
I defy anyone to come up with an animal that SOMEONE or other in Thailand does not eat. Even elephants get eaten occasionally! (I’ve seen, but refused to sample, elephant jerky. I have, however, eaten water-buffalo jerky; a little tough, but not bad.) Ethnic Thais won’t eat dogs, but there are a lot of Vietnamese Thais who do, as do certain hilltribes, like the Akha.
“Buddhists are vegetarians” my arse!
I’ve got a gammy leg.
Does anybody actually believe that? Hell, even the Dalai Lama isn’t vegetarian.
It was a rugby team, if I’m getting your reference right.
According to my Peruvian fiancée, llama is stringy and tough and thusly not eaten if you have a choice. However, she says that alpaca burgers are heavenly.
I don’t know enough about alpaca farming to guess why they’re not sold at McDonald’s but I’d guess that they don’t lend well to mass scale farming and, at a smaller scale, they’re worth more as a source of wool than as a source of burgers.
Oh, yes, lots. I’ve seen many disappointed Westerners. Even in other threads here, people have voiced surprise about it.
Too late to edit my post again but apparently making alpacas into dinner is illegal these days in Peru. The ladyfriend will be crushed that she won’t be able to eat them next time she visits the family.
Or maybe not. Animals being protected has never stopped the Thais from chowing down on them.
And I guess some eat penguin.
For the sole purpose of being manly or inheriting the traits of the object ingested or becuase it is endangered or the simple fact that no one else would do it … There are plenty of things that WE don’t eat. Thailand included.
Name one.
Who would consider a seal or a penguin foodstuffs? Besides people who had to eat them?
You apparently don’t realise that Taiwan and Korea import tonnes of seal meat from Canada every single year. Eskimos also still eat seal meat with some regularity.
Exposure of humans to penguins was much more limited, but several groups in Australia have considered penguin a foodstuff and I woudl be astounded if Tierra del Feugans didn’t routinely eat penguin. Shearwaters are considered a food delicacy in numerous places, notably New Zealand, and I fail to see any substantial difference between shearwaters and penguins beyond availability.
I’m sensing a true scotsman coming on where we will be told that people somehow “need” to eat these animals, whatever that means. People need to eat some animals, it’s a fact of our biology. Trying to separate out some species as once that somehow need to be eaten is a true Scotsman. To the extent that people ate, and indeed still eat, these animals even when other animal foods were available tells me that they are eaten because they are tasty or convenient, not because they “need” to be eaten.
Ain’t that the truth.
Donkey sandwiches are popular at Beijing street stalls. The Asian edition of Time magazine recently had a review of them (they said they were tasty).
Oooh baby.