The Effect of Dogmeat Eating on Sanitation and Food Waste Consumption

The total number of the dogs bred in Korea as of 2007 was 1,917,709, and among them, 77%, 1,476,776 dogs were edible dogs. Dogmeat has been legalized edible as food from Choseon dynasty, Daehan imperial state, Japan-occupied era till the present Korea. Dogs had been included in the article 2, Enforcement Ordinance of Processing and Disposal Rule of Livestock and Its Products until the end of Jan. 1979, but it was crossed out by the Notification No 3,005(Feb. 1 1979 effective) of the Minister of Agriculture and Marine Products, and as a result, the obligation that dogs should be slaughtered at the slaughtering ground was defunct. Thus, the arbitrarily dog slaughtering was empowered. As a matter of fact, the new law was not legalized in order to ban dogs from being slaughtered. The waste amount of slaughtered edible dogs amounts to 7,282 tons annually, and most of its waste from the arbitrarily-slaughtered dog is being illegally dumped without proper management and supervision. Edible dogs defecate 292,509 tons(calculates urine as dung) annually, but it is sanitarily disposed according to the Law of Management and Use of Livestock's Dung and Urine which took effective from Sep. 2009. Annual sales amount of edible dogs comes to 590 billion won on the basis of the shipment at breeding ground, but after passing through various level of marketing, and being processed as Gaesoju, and Boshintang, it forms 4 trillion won market when it reaches customers. The amount of food waste in Korea in 2007 came to 5,274,944 tons, and 633 billion won was spent for its disposal cost. Korean edible dogs of 1,476,776 heads consumed 1,266,705 tons, the 24% of total food waste. Edible dogs are the most effective means to convert food waste into food for man, not entailing the cost of disposal. On the other hand, pet dog culture brought about disposal cost, and the 51,188 dogs were abandoned at 2007, while 7 billion won was spent for the protection, euthanasia of them and the disposal of their dead bodies.

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