RE: Whom Do You Think As “Food” Animals & Whom not?
Great question, I love pets and animals in general. I also love to eat meat and pretty much anything tasty for that matter. Some animals taste good, others don't. We tend to eat herbivores and some omnivores. People generally don't eat carnivores as the meat is too lean, they are more difficult to catch or domesticate and they are fewer in number.
We eat animals that are for the most part safe to keep, economical to raise and easy to catch. Raising a cat for food would be extremely expensive, they eat a high protein diet and they produce very little meat, carnivores are often solitary too. Cats have benefits like keeping away pests that would reduce your food supply, so it's better to keep cats around than to eat them. Chickens on the other hand are cheap to raise, they eat seeds, they can be kept together and they grow quickly, chickens make terrible pets and they don't do much good asides from fill a plate.
When you say, chickens make terribe pets, it's your subjective evaluation. Many people these days keep hens and roosters as their pets and they adjust very well with other pets too. People keep hamsters as their pets too, which according to you are pests and to eliminate them we need cats!
Going by your logic of "safe to keep and economical to raise animals", there can be several animals that fit this criteria. If you are looking for the most efficient and economical breed, then humans must be eating only one breed of animals. BTW, rabbits too are prolific breeders and meet all your criteria of animal husbandry. You didn't say anything about it? Would you love to eat a bunny that is kept as a pet?
I find your statements quite contradictory. You love pets and animals in general but you also love their meat and find it tasty! Ain't you killing your love for the sake of meat?
The issue I have with chicks is that they aren't very intelligent and they are quite destructive. You can't really keep one in your house because they are noisy and they would make a mess. Small rodents like hamsters are incapable of loving you and don't really want to be kept as pets, you are essentially jailing them in a cage against their will. Let your hamster out doors for a few hours, it probably won't come back. If you stores grain you wouldn't be too happy if you had a rodent issue, small rodents like rats and mice are pests. Some rats are smart but the rest of them don't want to be pets.
By saying "safe to keep and economical to raise" I was implying there is a reason we don't keep dangerous predictors as pets or for livestock. They could hurt you, they will kill other animals you keep with them and they are expensive to feed because they require meat. If you read up on the domestication of animals you would not be questioning this fact. People do raise the most economical breed possible but tend to diversify a little because the price of meat fluctuates and the cost inputs. Its also not cheap to switch your farm over from a pig farm to a chicken farm. Farming is a serious business, don't think of it as Old MacDonalds farm with smiling animals, farmers are strictly in it for the money (or food.)
My statements aren't contradictory, animals are different, a cat is not a chicken, pig, fish or cow. Just like you wouldn't eat a leaf from most trees, and we don't eat most grass seeds, some we eat, others we don't. Whether it's because of taste, or if the animal makes sense to raise or not. Some animals like dogs and cats are cute, they want to be pets and they are rather intelligent so for the most part we don't eat them. Rabbits although cute, are pretty dumb and they have to be locked up or forcible confined against their will which I am against. Just because it's an animal doesn't mean it's food to me. Some animals are food others aren't. Just like some plants are food and others aren't.