Very interesting posts! Anyone who has ever enjoyed the cuteness of a lamb or baby deer, then had a delicious lamb chop or venison steak faces this human dilemna about food versus friend.
I am kind of chicken (no pun intended) about eating unusual foods, animal or vegetable. However, my concept of what is unusual is formed by the society and culture I live in. What I would find offensive or disgusting may well be common place or a delicacy in another place.
I am very familiar with the dietary laws (Jewish and Muslim - now there's an interesting commonality!!) against the eating of pork, yet there are areas of the world where pork and fish are mainstays. And, mostly, we all are familiar with the Hindi thing about cows. The only thing that'll keep me from a tender steak would be advancing arthritis, based on what I personally have learned and believe about the connection.
Everything is eaten, which is one of the links we all have on the planet. Even we become food, eventually, for the worms who tend the soil that produces the grazing grasses for the cows that our descendants will eat.
Many of the religious prohibitions against certain foods and food combinations come from health practices that were probably more easily explained at the time by proclaiming them to be religious taboos.
What I do find offensive is the casual killing of anything for profit and gluttony, rather than need.
In a world with such an unbalanced distribution of population, I am amazed I haven't heard of an area that eats excess humans!! Now there is something that would truly freak out a lot of people; I'm not one of them.
I'm glad I've never been too emotionally involved with a chicken or a turkey or a fish, as I really do enjoy them as a meal. Rrrrrroowr!!!