How can you eat anything so cute?

The San Diego Zoo saved these adorable monkeys from being sold for meat in Africa (from this National Geographic article):



















How dare anyone want to eat these little guys, right? Look at those big, starving-African-child eyes.

Is it rational for cuteness to affect how we view the eating of a particular animal? Shouldn't intelligence and the nervous system be the distinguishing features? Perhaps monkeys are too advanced to kill, but what about rabbits?

I have never understood why people who eat meat without restriction become shocked and appalled by practices no worse than eating beef--particularly when it comes to rabbit and wearing fur. The cruelty people object to is, perhaps, not on behalf of the animals themselves; the cute thing is an image that represents one's children, and the viewer feels personally harmed by the killing for that reason only.