Meat in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic?

Ever since Pinkie Pie mentioned hot dog eating contests in Fall Weather Friends the debate over pony diet has raged(well maybe a year or so ago it did) . I thought I'd try to compile all of the evidence and arguments, for and against, the ponies being omnivorous and somewhat over think them. 

First a very brief mention of things brought up by people arguing for the idea that the little ponies eat meat

1. The aforementioned hotdog eating contests(ketchup on the dogs makes them nice and slippery although Pinkie prefers mustard)
2. Pigs being raised at Sweet Apple Acres as seen in during The Show Stoppers
3.  This sandwich seen in  A Bird in the Hoof
4.  Alot of the foods that have appeared in the show are traditionally made with lard from other animal parts

And some of the big points brought up for vegetarian ponies

1. During Over a Barrel Pinkie Pie's You Gotta Share song, specifically says the Ponies are vegetarians
2. Real ponies dont eat meat
3. The entire idea of butcher my little ponies is messed up and completely out of character

Lets explore all of these ideas.

The first thing that stands out, to me, is that Pinkie Pie seems to contradict herself. This seems to be entirely within her character. On one hoof she says they eat hot dogs and on the other that they dont eat meat. This brings up the fact that we have no idea what the hotdogs are made of. Not to mention that we have no idea if 'hotdogs' are even the same thing to the ponies that they are to us. So does that mean that there is no contradiction and we've already managed to wrap things up? Not quite. Just because we dont know what they are made of dosent mean its not meat. Pinkie claims during her song that the ponies diet is 'completely vegetarian' during various other songs she also claims:

• She sings that Fluttershy could "make it if you try" from Dragonshy 
• Her grand galloping gala song during The Ticket Master :
  

  Oh the Grand Galloping Gala is the best place for me

  Oh the Grand Galloping Gala is the best place for me

  Hip hip Hooray

  It's the best place for me

  For Pinkie

  With decorations like streamers and fairy-lights and pinwheels and pinatas and pin-cushions. With goodies like sugar cubes and sugar canes and sundaes and sun-beams and sarsaparilla. And I get to play my favorite-est of favorite fantabulous games like Pin the Tail on the Pony!

  Oh the Grand Galloping Gala is the best place for me

  Oh the Grand Galloping Gala is the best place for me

  'Cause it's the most galarrific superly-terrific gala ever

  In the whole galaxy

  Wheee!



• That Zecora 'is an evil enchantress who does evil dances, and if you look deep in her eyes she'll put you trances' and that she will 'gobble you up in a big tasty stew'

How about the pigs being raised on Sweet Apple Acres? Seems like good hot dog material and a source of lard. Here is what Lauren Faust said, when asked about the pigs on her Deviant art account:

Solved? Hardly. Even if that was the intention, rather then pigs just being there for a gag, it still isnt canon until it happens in the show. Faust has also had plenty of other ideas about the show be shot down. She didnt want trains, she wanted Celestia to be a queen, she didnt want Alicorns outside of Celestia and Luna. The response also avoids the meat question, nowhere does it say they couldnt be used for truffle and lard. Of course the converse is true absence of evidence isnt evidence of absence.

Next.

The sandwich. Again, it may look like meat, but could have been made of anything

Next.

Real ponies dont eat meat? False. A quick youtube search brings us http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnWULM4jpKI skip to the 3 mark. Not only will (some) real equines eat meat when they can get ahold of it, this argument wouldnt have held water anyway, because the ponies on the show, do a hell of alot of things that real ones cant/wont do. This is actually fairly damming for the vegetarian side, because it is the first argument that isnt speculative. Except, for the fact that real world ponies and our little ponies are pretty f'ing different.

Moving on

In the show we see lots of fried foods, baked good, marshmallows, and gelatin. In our human world gelatin is made from animal skin and bones, marshmallows too(not all). Fried food and baked good usually call for lard. This however doesnt mean the ponies do it the same way. Complete speculation.

Next

The idea of ponies being unable to do something as ghastly as slaughtering animals.

If Fluttershy, of all the ponies, is capable of doing that, to happy smiling, waving fish, then I believe that their are ponies willing to work as butchers. This was harder for me swallow earlier in the series, but over time we have seen a very wide variety of pony attitudes and ethics.
Although, maybe those fish died naturally.

Lets go try to bring this home.

At this point the only real facts we have are that Real ponies are willing to eat meat and that Fluttershy will give fish to ferrets. This doesnt prove anything so now we must move farther into the land of speculation

What the food being made of soy? Generically this argument is pretty strong, for all we know the ponies could have magic hot dog tress. However, it brings up 2 criticisms,

1. We never see anything like this in the show. No soy fields no magic chefs. While on the opposite hand, we do see a fair amount of livestock animals. Although I do prefer explaining things via means that we have seen in the show this is still just 'maybe this and maybe that', nothing solid. However:
2. If we are talking about veggie dogs you must ask yourself the following: "Why would the ponies want fake meat products?"

That is almost a slam dunk. If you say they eat soy hotdogs and Applejack's sandwich is tofu then the ponies must like the taste of meat, if they are trying to emulate it. If the ponies like the taste meat, and they are willing to see other animals as a food source (as seen above), then they must certainly be omnivorous.

But wait!
Even if that is true, then even as there are human vegetarians, there would certainly be pony vegetarians. AND perhaps the ponies do like the taste but have some other reason to not eat meat. While a real horse may eat meat if a human offers it, it certainly isnt good for them. AND this whole argument line is based on tofu/soy which is never seen in the show, its just a head cannon vegetarian possibility.

So who knows?
In the end there is no real evidence to solve this. Based on the Fluttershy using fish as meat and lard/gelatin I do lean towards FiM ponies being omnivorous, but I am pretty certain that nothing that definitively proves it, will ever appear in the show. It is also only based on real life, human cooking methods, which have no real barring on the show, and a single screen shot of Fluttershy feeding some animals.


I tried to consider this from every angle, but I also meant to write this out months ago, back during the hiatus between seasons, so there is a good chance that I have forgotten or completely missed some things. If you have an argument or point of logic to interject, or just regular comments or concerns please let me know, Thanks.
Also sorry about the rambling incoherent nature of this, and the horrible grammar(and typos and misspellings, etc). Its somewhat stream of consciousness with little proofreading/editing