For those of you who don’t know, the Yulin Dog Meat Festival, which took place in Yulin, China, was a week-long celebration of the Summer Solstice in which participants cooked up and consumed large amounts of dog meat — an event that was started only six years ago.

These dogs are not of a wild breed, but rather they are dogs that would be considered pets and a member of the family. Many Americans and even the average Chinese citizen were appalled at this practice.

Words such as “barbaric,” “savage” and “cruel” have been used to describe this event, but the same could very well be said about our own culture’s treatment of animals.

About 15,000 dogs were killed and eaten during the festival, but that number pales in comparison to the 4.6 million turkeys that we killed and ate in 2014 for Thanksgiving. The only difference between the two cultures is that we have designated certain animals, such as cats and dogs, to be more valuable than the ones we eat like cows, chicken and pigs — most of whom are just as or even more intelligent than the cats and dogs.

If we recognize and condemn the Yulin Dog Meat Festival for its cruelty to dogs then we also have to accept the fact that our culture is even more cruel, savage and barbaric to the animals we consume. We as consumers should be aware of where our food comes from, and more importantly how its made no matter how horrible it may be.