Why Eating Some (Particular) Animals Isn't OK

Once animals have associated (and bonded) with humans over an extended period of time, the nature of the animal-human relationship is fundamentally changed. The animals come to trust humans, on an instinctual level, and the humans with whom the animals have interacted and developed relationships come to see these creatures not as mere animals, but as individuals.

In such circumstances, sending the animals involved to the slaughterhouse is, simply, cruel, both to the animals and to the humans who have come to regard them as more than mere beasts. It is, perhaps, most akin to slaughtering the family dog or cat, and is increasingly viewed with revulsion by civilized persons, many of whom no longer raise stock animals with the expectation that these creatures will one day be consumed by humans.