nytimes.com:
For some diners, belonging to a farm co-op or buying groceries from a greenmarket is no longer enough. Taking concepts like nose-to-tail eating a step further, a new generation of carnivores is learning to butcher, and in some cases, slaughter their own animals think of it as do-it-yourself meat.
Bob Cesca: We Can't Reform Health Care without Reforming Food
Without any real changes in how our food is produced, the health care system will continue to bloat and fall apart. Not unlike the insides of an average American body.
Dr. Andrew Weil: The Moral Ferocity of Eating Animals
If you eat meat from factories you have not absorbed the reality of factory farms. If you truly understood what happens inside these windowless animal jails and abattoirs, you simply would not eat this meat.
Ellen Kanner: Meatless Monday: Compassion By the Book
A friend recently announced she'd rather enjoy animals than eat them. She then passed on homemade roasted organic chicken and happily ate quinoa and broccoli...
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
Hunters have been killing and butchering what they harvest through the last century. I did last year and will again this year. Nothing new about it.
We grow our own pigs, Tamworths which is a dieing breed, but pay an Amish guy to slaughter them.
The chickens and turkey I will do, the pigs are too much work without the tools. Plus he packages the meat, my wife will not eat it if it is not packaged for some reason. The we by our beef from him, which is grows organic.
We buy from a farmer that butchers his own chickens and turkeys. He has to send his beef and pork to a slaughter house. As a matter of fact, I am buying a turkey from him for Thanksgiving. We had one last year and it was majority not breast meat.
Fantastic!!
This is enough to make a person go vegetarian.
Me,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, , I'm a non-practicing vegan.
Disgusting.
Meat is disgusting and this is an awful story.
Must have been planted by the meat industry on this day "Meatless Monday".
Well, check out the New Times Story about this poor woman who got paralyzed and brain damaged from eating a hamburger her mother bought at the supermarket. The cooking did not kill the E.Coli and the poor woman is suffering 2 years later.
I'll never touch hamburger meat again. No turkey burger, no chicken patties....nothing.
I eat a little meat and a lot of fish and lot's of vegetarian dishes.
Read more
I am glad you think that way, though I will still be eating burgers for years to come.
I agree!. Meat is disgusting and so is the killing!
1915 Noble Prize winner Romain Rolland said ...
"To a man whose mind is free there is something even more intolerable in the sufferings of animals than in the sufferings of man. For with the later it is at least admitted that the suffering is evil and that the man who causes it is a criminal. But thousands of animals are uselessly butchered everyday without a shadow of remorse. If any man would refer to it, he would be thought ridiculous. And that is the unpardonable crime".
I have been a vegetarian for some years now and very glad that I am no longer personally responsible for the horrific practices going on in the slaughterhouses.
Someone posted that he will continue to eat meat, and that dying 3 days earlier for it is of no concern. I've got news for this guy. Living your life as a "grave yard" for dead animals will shorten your life far more than 3 days! And even if you do live a long life, studies show that you will probably have to deal with cancer and/or heart problems.
Meat is a staple, particularly in this country, and it seems that even when people are made aware of just how bad this way of life is for them for health reasons, the toll it is taking on our planet and of course the horrific acts perpetrated on the animal itself, most are still unwilling to even try to change their diet! Go figure!
When you raise your own the practices go bye bye. Our animals are free to range, to include the chickens. We treat them with respect though as locovoure who eat meat we also slaughter them. All are dispatched quickly with a bullet to the brain-stem. Not the best route, but way better then the super store farms.
You are still a "walking graveyard" for these dead animals regardless of how you are killing them.
I'm sure you do kill these animals in a way that YOU FEEL is humane, but you're missing MY point. Killing is killing ... dead is dead!
I mean, really, how can you say that you "respect" these animals? Defenseless animals that are dead by your own hand and that you then eat for dinner!
It's a good skill to have, and one that everyone who eats meat should be able to face. Meat doesn't come from plastic wrapped packages, it comes from dead animals. All kids should have to at least visit an abattoir to see where their food actually comes from. It's scary and unpleasant for kids, true, but I bet it's more scary and unpleasant for the cow. (full disclosure: I eat little meat because I'm cheap; yes I've dressed meat; yes I've killed animals; yes I'm mostly vegan now mainly for food safety reasons)
Yes, carnivores (and I am one) need to understand their meat doesn't come from neat packages in the supermarket. It comes from a slaughtered animal.
My kids were raised on a small hobby farm and when they were young they wanted to give names to all the animals. So it was a case of, 'What's the pig's name, dad" "Bacon".
A couple of times I took them to the slaughterhouse we used and let them watch the butchering process (though would not let them watch the slaughter).
Cool.
What bothers me is people who pick up meat in a grocery store so that they can ignore the fact that an animal dies when they eat meat. I want people to face up to the fact that animals die to provide them with meat. If you’re not willing to live with that, you shouldn’t be eating meat. I have a lot of respect for some of these folks and hunters who kill and butcher their own meat, because it illustrates to me they’ve thought about this and they’re comfortable with it. I can’t stand people who would rather stick their head in the sand, i.e. eat meat but detest the killing of animals.
agreed.also,killing and butchering your own is the most humane way to go because you can make sure its not alive when the butchering begins,unlike the traditional slaughterhouse.
not to mention the safety issues for humans associated with mass slaughter in slaughterhouses.
I have a slightly different take on this issue. We are a terribly wasteful society. That wastefulness extends beyond paper, plastic, or glass and into the food we eat. My dad has slaughtered pigs, cattle, and chickens. We are automatically less wasteful when this is the case. The reasons are a little unclear to me. Maybe it's because we have seen the animal alive, maybe because we know the time and effort Dad spent preparing it. Who knows? I just know that, if I buy a pound of ground chuck at Kroger, I'm more apt to cook more than I need and either toss out leftovers without thinking or over-eat because I don't want to waste it.
Not vegan or vegetarian (though I have cut WAYYY back on my consumption of meat - 3 servings or less a week out of concern for the environment), but I still couldn't bring myself to slaughter an animal I raised. I'd like to raise chickens and goats in my backyard for the milk and eggs though!
To all of you vegans and vegaterians out there: I think that's really great that you have made that lifestyle choice, but don't push your morals onto me. I love bacon, steak, hamburgers, chicken, etc. and I don't care if my life ends 3 days earlier than yours because of it.
pigs are smarter than dogs, this is a crime.
Dogs do not taste as good, though if hungry I would eat them too.
Fact: Livestock raising is killing the planet. There is NO WAY that the population currently inhabiting this planet can continue to eat meat on a daily basis without destroying it. The solution is not to learn to kill and butcher one's own meat. That's hardly "back to the land." If anything, it simply encourages humanity's arrogance in its taking of life unnecessarily. A celebration of a twisted sort: "Not only can I kill, but I can butcher, too!"
We don't live in caves any more. Livestock raising and meat-eating is barbaric--and it is quickly becoming lethal to us all.
A modest amount of pasture grazing livestock is sustainable and appropriate in grassland ecosystems, certainly more so than cereal monoculture.
We should consider how various ecosystems used to operate before humanity interrupted their harmonious relationships and employ the land in ways that mimic their natural states.
Much of America used to be grasslands supporting herds of livestock. The animals eat the grass and their waste fertilizes the soil. It's a sustainable ecosystem as long as the population is kept in check by human consumption of the livestock.
Any back to the land solution for American agriculture must involve grazing livestock. A lot of land that's marginal at best for growing vegetable crops without petrochemical soil treatments is perfect for raising livestock.
As a part of a balanced diet with plenty of vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains, lean meat is a fantastic energy-dense food. The practice of eating meat cooked over a fire was one of the key developments that empowered humanity to leave the caves behind.
Who do you propose will have access to this "modest amount"? The well-off?
Better to do away with meat-eating altogether. There are cultures that have been vegetarian for centuries. The idea, so deeply ingrained into our collective cultural psyche, that meat is necessary for health is nothing more than a bald-faced lie, perpetrated--in collusion with the federal government--by the meat and dairy industries. The whole system is a noxious blend of toxins and cruelty of unimaginable dimensions. Time to put a stop to it. And to put a stop to these liberal fantasies about "naturally-raised" meat and "cage-free" hens. Total b.s.
I could never do that. Especially to an animal I've cared for. I'd eat tree bark before I filleted any animal.
I just hope I never get that hungry.
Good skill to learn, if you ever have to do it yourself.
Loading comments…
First Posted: 10-26-09 08:25 AM | Updated: 10-26-09 10:26 AM