WARNING: Graphic images

A QUESTION for my fellow carnivores: where do you draw the line?

We all have limits. Some of us can’t stomach rare steak, feeling nauseous at the sight of pink flesh. Others oppose anything that acutely resembles its live form; fish eyes and duck beaks aren’t quite as appetising as a hearty slab of grilled chicken breast.

Still, others call themselves vegetarians but make an exception for fish and eggs.

I’m an adventurous eater, and while travelling, I’m the first to sample the strangest animal parts and organisms I can find: chicken feet, cow stomach, duck liver, frog legs, scorpion, tarantula.

But I draw the line at dog meat. Puppy flesh, for me, is strictly off the menu.

So when I attended the Yulin dog meat festival as a reporter this year, I was deeply disturbed — a primal reaction embedded in childhood, and my upbringing in a culture that values dogs as furry playmates.

My family owns a gorgeous fox terrier named Arnie, whose photos I obnoxiously force people to feign interest in at any given opportunity. Seeing those bloodstained carcasses piled up on top of each other, I kept thinking God, imagine if this was him.

But while the festival’s cruelty towards dogs is inexcusable, there was one confronting sight in Yulin that made me question my own right to voice moral outrage — and it had nothing to do with slaughtered puppies.

I was investigating one of the town’s biggest meat markets, Dongkou. In a back corner, removed from all the dog carcasses on display, were hundreds of live chickens and roosters stacked up in claustrophobic cages, awaiting their slaughter. Storage conditions we all know are not unique to China, but as a society don’t tend to dwell on.

I’ve been pondering the same question ever since: do consumers of animals and animal products, like myself, have the right to protest dining on dogs?

Vendors at the festival made this same argument in response to the ethical question of animal cruelty. For them, it’s just another meat to trade.

It’s not a clear-cut comparison; experts say most of the dogs are stolen or sold as domestic pets, and unlike cattle in the West, their treatment places the meat well outside China’s state food safety regulations.

But morally, us meat-eaters taking the high ground and crying “Animal cruelty!” without being hypocrites is another issue.

People often argue it’s a question of suffering, but the chickens in those cages weren’t exactly staying at the Sheraton either. Around the world, animals in the same conditions are slaughtered for our consumption — only it never makes mainstream headlines.

The “suffering” argument alone stands on shaky ground. What’s the “acceptable” pain threshold for animal consumption — or is the answer blissful ignorance? If your waiter informed you that tonight’s chicken had suffered more than the chihuahua, would you be more inclined to select the latter? Or perhaps it’s a case of aesthetics; earlier this year, an Australian seafood company pleaded guilty to improperly killing a lobster — where was the public outcry?

The vegan community has been asking questions like this for years. Vegans are often derided in the public sphere, viewed by some as pushy, self-righteous and hypocritical.

But seeing animal cruelty face-to-face for the first time, I admit defeat. We, the outraged carnivores, are the hypocrites.

No, the Yulin dog meat festival didn’t “enlighten” me into becoming a vegan, as inspiring a story as that would be. The reality is, I’m too selfish. The convenience and satisfaction I get from eating meat outweighs my concern for the animals that died for my ability to do so.

That’s a crude admission, but an honest and relatable one; I, like millions of other first-world carnivores, conveniently and selectively push imagery of animal suffering out of my mind, so I can enjoy my morning bacon in peace.

But the festival made me realise the vegans are right. They’re better than those of us who cry foul over cooked canines en route to McDonald’s.

As long as we’re content to eat other animals and animal products, there’s nothing commendable about our mass slacktivist outrage against this festival.

Horrendously cruel as Yulin’s festival is, I can’t ignore the discomfortingly fine line between arguing that eating all meat is wrong, and that eating dog meat is objectively acceptable.

Just some food for thought.

Follow Gavin on Twitter at @GavinDFernando