I Agree on both points. If Things got that desperate Id think most people would believe in the little things that keep them feeling human. Not eating your own family dog may be one of those things.
Well, there's desperate and then there's desperate. There were reports of children disappearing during the Soviet famines of the 1930s and during catholic Siege of Sancerre (1572–1573) in France of the graves of dead being dug up so that the bone marrow from the bones could be consumed.