I don't approve of MY OWN country's food practices. People view things differently based on how they were raised. I was raised on meat but don't touch it now and neither does my wife or my three grown daughters. Things can change.

And the shirt I'm wearing now is made in India, the pants in Guatemala.

Of course buying things not made in either the USA or China is tough but at least with China there are always certain alternatives.

systematic animal cruelty appearing in some part of their food production. Singling out all Chinese goods in reaction to the eating of dogs or cats is absurd in the same way that singling out all American goods for boycott because some Americans boil lobsters to death would be.

Would this act of animal cruelty in Kerala, India cause you to boycott all Indian-made products?

In India, it is mostly the poor who are "cruel" to animals, as a result of not being able to afford better means. In America and china animal cruelty happens in the most high levels. I don't really judge poor people because if you have a knife and a chicken, and you're really hungry the chicken's going to get it one way or another.

Wealthy chinese make crazy witch’s brew with bear’s glands like it’s going to cure cancer and will eat just about anything. They have a syaing “If it moves, it’s food.” They also believe it tastes better if it died in agony.

In Beijing I saw them literally eating live animals. A group of about 20 wealthy businessmen had a dog tied down to a table with barbed wire, and were literally chopping parts off of it while trying to keep it alive as long as possible. Then throwing them into the deep-fryer. First the legs, then the eyes, then the internal organs and the rest. Being able to torture an animal with a huge smile on your face just shows that there is something fundamentally wrong with that country.

Some Americans think shark cartilage cures cancer, boil lobster alive and throw live chickens into wood chippers.

Not to excuse the way animals are treated in China, but pretty horrific stuff gets visited on animals here too. We just have a strange soft spot for mammals that are "cute" (ie resemble human babies) which Chinese culture generally doesn't share.

They are the real animals.