Would You Kill What You Eat?
I'm not a vegetarian (although I'd like to be), but if I had to strangle every animal I wanted to eat with my bare hands, I'd probably become one quicker. Walking the supermarket aisles, it's very easy to look at all the neatly packaged meat, date-stamped and lined up in orderly rows, and think of it as, well, packaged meat.
But there is a danger in this abstraction, in keeping the blinders on, and considering what's on the shelf apart from what it goes through to get on that shelf. We're at the end of this food chain, but we are the ones supporting it. Likewise, we alone can change it.
Be Aware of the Food Journey
From cruel conditions, to carbon footprint, to waste of packaging, to harmful chemicals -- there's so much going on with that food on your plate before you see it.
Know What You Are Buying
When I buy something, I tend to stick local, with things that are certified organic by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Organic Program for the simple reason that you know a bit more about what you are buying.
If it's a vegetable, you know it was grown without pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, sewage sludge, genetically modified organisms, or ionizing radiation. With meat, you know you're skipping out on the antibiotics and growth hormones. You also know farms have to use more earth-friendly practices: renewable resources and conservation of soil and water, for example.
When it comes down to it, I don't want to eat a chicken or an egg from a chicken raised in a chicken tower. I don't want to grill up a cow or lamb chained inside to a post for its entire life.
At times it can be more expensive, but I'd rather pay a bit more and know...than shut my eyes and wonder. And I sorta wish that my food wasn't as abstracted...I'd probably eat in a manner more in line with my values if it was.
Do you know where your food comes from? Would you eat as much meat if you had to kill the animals yourself? Comment below!
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Photos from top: Domino/Getty Images; ColorBlind/Getty Images.
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No, I'll readily admit that the only reason I eat meat (besides liking the taste) is that I am able to blithely ignore where it comes from. If I had to kill it, I'd go vegan overnight. Even with a grocery intermediary, I don't want to subsidize cruelty.
But how to identify it? Is the only way to avoid cruel conditions to go "organic?" Do we have to assume that anything that doesn't state the conditions is suspect?
If there was an easy way to determine, I'll be the movement would have more adherents.
I'm vegan and its the best choice I've ever made. Don't think you can do it, think again. Nowadays its easy... especially if you live in a city, then there's no excuse. The fact is we don't need to kill animals in order to be healthy. In fact, abstaining from animal products, your health is likely to improve. To kill an animal to survive is one thing but most of live in cities and shop at a supermarket. To kill an animal just because you like the taste is unnecessary. Factor in the fact that animal agriculture is the number one cause of global warming and that we slaughter 10 billion animals a year in the US and the choice is clear. Go vegan.
Fishing is relaxing and everyone should get out on a lake and kill some fish! Its fun! Hook those bastards good! Watch em bleed real bad!!! Then cut off their heads! HA! bake them on the grill in foil! HA!
While your at it, be sure to take a stick and beat the hell out of your tofu and rice before you cook it.
I have been exploring raw "live" foods for the past couple of weeks. After reading a book, doing extensive online research and speaking with a close friends, vegetarianism is definitely the way to go. The only reason I'd kill an animal for food would be under the most serious of circumstances, one being the reduction of vegetation (which would probably render any animal extinct, so the food sources would already be scarce).
We eat meat because we are conditioned to think it is good for us and subsequently have acquired a taste for it. After 37 years of conditioning I know it will be a challenge, but I'm up to it. I haven't eaten red meat in 3 weeks and I have all but eliminated chicken and fish from my diet as well. I feel better and have more energy and sleep more soundly at night as a consequence.
If I had to kill??? I would only reduce my intake of meat in the summer out of lazyness. Who wants to gut a cow in 100 degree weather?
By the way I highly recomend rasing and killing your own meat. It tastes so much better. Try whole milk straight from the cow while you are at it.
I understand that there are a lot of people who don't feel they should or want to give up meat. I am a vegetarian, my husband is not, and we respect each others choice.
However unless your a sadist, I think most people would choose to eat an animal that had breathed in fresh air, and eaten decent food then one that had been subjugated to living in it's own filth, kept alive with antibiotics and hormones. As goes the laws of nature, one evil thing usually begets another. Our current mainstream factory farming system has 3 major failings which must be corrected. A) A Total Lack of Basic Humanity Toward Other Animals Via Cruelty and Neglect B) Massive Pollution Output (see pig farms especially) C) Adverse Effects to Human Health Derived from Sick and Over Medicated Animals, and Air and Water Pollution.
In California there will be a ballot measure in November which will phase out and ban strictly the cruelest practices in factory farming which include: Battery Cages for Chickens, Gestation Crates for Pigs, and Veal Crates. The measure humbly states that a farm animal must have enough space to stretch their limbs and turn around. Please spread the word and vote YES!
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I think you were going easy on us! No hyperlink on "cruel conditions"? C'mon!!
I am a proud 2-week old vegetarian. It has not been easy. I am 5-10, 210 pounds, football player build, and I have endured hours of hazing by my friends and family.
I don't understand the conflict in my head, because I'm pretty resolved about removing flesh from my diet. What finally made me remove flesh was watching a movie called, "King Corn". One of the main ideas was that the beef we eat today is such a cheap victory. We keep the cows alive for 5-months on a corn-fed diet [beyond 5 months they die, because cows cannot naturally digest a corn diet for 6 months], in small pens, where they literally become obese before slaughter.
I've really enjoyed my vegetarian diet, though. I am off the salt-sweet pendulum. There really are tons of vegetable food choices out there that are really good. And I HAVE to get rid of this Goodyear that's been hanging around my stomach for most of my adult life.
If anything, my ego is boosted, knowing I can abstain from meat. It was a vicious cycle of meat for every meal, with a diet coke to wash it down.
Hungry pigs have been known to trample and eat their farmers. I figure the opposite is fair enough.... at least they're dead; the vegetables I eat are not.
"Don't bother with organic, organic is Big Business," my uncle, who works to get that organic food to the shelves
Simple answer: no, I wouldn't. I would go vegetarian before I kill an animal. I know that sounds stupid but I have absolutely no illusions about myself. I eat it when it is dead. I let other people do the killing for me but I would not kill myself.
Doesn't sound stupid to me.
I don't understand how somebody can know all the facts about meat and still eat it. It seems to me that insisting upon eating it is the height of egotism. It is damaging to the planet, your health, and obviously animals. Your soul will feel right once you give up meat and the exploitation of animals and the planet.
The problem with the argument is that we are not vegetarians. Homo Sapiens Sapiens eats meat and not just since we found out about cows. That does not mean we couldn't go completely vegetarian. Indeed we could and I applaud those who do. But I have no illusions. Most of us simply won't.
And as such the long term effect of a vegetarian diet aren't really known. There are issues but to what extent?
everything i eat has been killed or is about to be transforme
My kids have argued it is inhumane to kill a broccoli plant and out of principle will not eat broccoli.
Have you told them that there are starving children in ________ (fill in your favorite 3rd world country)?
Now that there is FedEx international overnight it can arrive before it goes bad. My daughter actually told me this.
Did you tell them that "Broccoli hate Freedom?"
Would I kill an animal in order to sustain myself?
Short answer: Yes.
I know how to humanely and quickly kill a rabbit by breaking its neck, skin it, cut it up for stew or roasting, and process the skin to make clothing or other useful articles.
I was taught by my maternal grandmother how to wring a chicken's neck and plunge it in scalding water to make the feathers easy to remove. She made a wonderful chicken soup.
I know how to hang a deer, skin it, and process the venison.
These are things not everyone knows how to or has the opportunity to do, but should.
The more appropriate question might be....Do we respect the lives of the animals who have died that we might live? I do.
I eat a "paleo" style diet after many years of trying to be a vegan/vegetarian and suffering poor health as a result. I am what I am and am not ashamed that my particular constitution benefits from an omnivorous diet coming from as organic and natural sources as possible.
The hawk or wolf doesn't hate its prey...nei
What we should probably focus on is the elimination of the inhumane practices of the corporate factory farms and encourage local organic farming and animal husbandry.
I agree about the inhumane part in animal treatment. But that is an excess and should be regulated out of existence. In comparison to many animals experienced humans can kill "their prey" fast and in a relatively painless way. Most predators in nature are having a hard time killing and the prey suffers greatly before it is finally dead. Almost every time I have seen a predator kill in the wild I was very distressed about how slow and painful the death was.
I always appreciate articles like this that try to make food less abstracted--and I think people really are trying to make more of an effort to find out where their food is coming from and exactly how it gets there. It's really sad when even adults (and supposedly well-educated adults at that) do not even know where butter comes from, and that it is--in fact--a dairy product--AND that you can, indeed, make it yourself at home from heavy whipping cream.
You must beware of relying too much on the USDA certified organic labels, though. This does not necessarily mean that the animals were treated humanely. In fact, many egg brands that are certified organic are still getting their eggs from battery set-ups.
As for your main question, if I were responsible for killing my own animals, I would eat far less meat than I do now. Hypocritical, yes, but there it is.
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