From here on out I’m only taking of my sweatshirt by sliding it down over my hips.
Recently Mark Zuckerberg (creator of Facebook for any of you that aren’t geeks or Justin Timberlake fans – although there is a surprising overlap between the two groups. Venn diagram anyone??) announced that he will henceforth only eat meat that he has killed by his own hand. Each year he takes on a new personal challenge (last year he learned Chinese… I know, it boggles) and this year he says,
“My personal challenge is around being thankful for the food I have to eat. I think many people forget that a living being has to die for you to eat meat, so my goal revolves around not letting myself forget that and being thankful for what I have. This year I’ve basically become a vegetarian since the only meat I’m eating is from animals I’ve killed myself. So far, this has been a good experience. I’m eating a lot healthier foods and I’ve learned a lot about sustainable farming and raising of animals. I started thinking about this last year when I had a pig roast at my house. A bunch of people told me that even though they loved eating pork, they really didn’t want to think about the fact that the pig used to be alive. That just seemed irresponsible to me. I don’t have an issue with anything people choose to eat, but I do think they should take responsibility and be thankful for what they eat rather than trying to ignore where it came from.”
Zuckerberg also makes it a point to eat all parts of the animal including the organs and even used chicken feet to make stock.
Have you ever killed an animal that you then ate? Other than a few fish as a kid, I haven’t. Honestly I don’t know if I could. I remember my dad deciding one day that he wanted to hunt a deer, kill it, skin it and butcher it (my dad’s big on survival skills). He was successful – a fact I discovered when I came face to face with the dead animal hanging by its feet under our deck as I tried to sneak in past curfew late one night (saying I screamed like a girl does not do justice to that scream. or girls.) – and it took us an entire year to eat all that venison which he insisted we do because it would be inhumane to kill an animal for sport and not nutrition. This is the house I grew up in.
You know who has killed a cow? Gym Buddy Krista. And not with her car, either. (I’m telling you, this girl has got stories. And they come out at the most random times in the gym.) As a practicing Muslim, she can only eat “halal” meat which means it must be slaughtered in a particular way with specific prayers. “Ḏabīḥah (ذَبِيْحَة) is the prescribed method of slaughtering all animals excluding fish and most sea-life per Islamic law. This method of slaughtering animals consists of using a well sharpened knife to make a swift, deep incision that cuts the front of the throat, the carotid artery, wind pipe and jugular veins but leaves the spinal cord intact.” You catch all that? Big knife, throat slitting, lots of blood – and she’s done it. When I looked like I might faint she told me to stop being such a baby. And I think she’s right. While it sounds awful, I think that it is a powerful way to connect people with what they are eating. Most of us who eat meat like to pretend it magically appears on store shelves in shrink-wrapped irradiated (there’s another issue for another day) packages. But every time we have “Beef, it’s what’s for dinner!” or “Pork, the other white meat!” or even “Chicken, we don’t need no slogan ’cause we make tasty nuggets!” we are, in effect, causing the death of another living being.
I take that very seriously. Even after examining all the health issues and research, this still weighs heavily on me. I know some of you are going to think I’m nutty (not that you need another reason) but for me when I decided to eat meat again, I also decided to stay as connected to the animal as possible. I’m not going to go slaughter my own cow – Krista, I’m getting pale again – but I can say a prayer of thanksgiving both to the animal who gave up its life for me and to the God who made it (the same God who notes the fall of every sparrow is surely going to miss something as obnoxiously flatulent as a cow). It also means that I sought out a farmer who cares about his animals and raises them in ways where they thrive, even if I have to pay more for it and drive home with a minivan stuffed full of bloody cardboard boxes like the dumbest serial killer ever. (Although price wise I’ve found it pretty economical when I buy 1/4 of a cow at a time.) Bob – yes he is Farmer Bob and I adore him – probably thinks I’m unbalanced but I always ask him how the cow was doing, what it weighed, if it was happy and if it had a name. (For the record, he does not name his cattle.)
Hippy-dippy feelings aside, a lot of people are very concerned about the economic and environmental impact of raising animals for food and rightly so. Animals, but beef especially, are very inefficient food sources and therefore take a lot of natural resources like water and grain that could be used to help a huge number of hungry and thirsty people. In a world where millions, including 15 million children, die of starvation every year it seems we should be focusing more of our attentions on how to best raise enough food and the most efficient ways to get it to where it needs to be. (Often, sadly, the issue isn’t so much a shortage of food but an issue of politics and logistics that keeps the available food out of needy mouths.) The environmental cost is also large. Pasturing cows is awesome as I pointed out yesterday but just like conventionally raised cattle, they take up a lot of land, contaminate water sources and – I swear I’m not making this up – cow farts (methane) account for 18% of global warming. In addition we accrue environmental costs in the methods we use to farm animals, butcher them and transport them not to mention the antibiotic resistances that we’ve introduced by injecting our food sources with antibiotics.
My Conclusion
These reasons are exactly why I will never ever tell someone they “should” or “need to” eat meat. The larger ethical questions of whether it is humane to eat meat and whether it is acceptable to do that kind of damage to the environment will have to be answered by each person in their own way but for me I need to eat some meat. And I will do it in the kindest, cleanest way that I can. It’s an uneasy compromise.
Have you ever killed an animal? Do moral/ethical concerns change the way you eat?
And just in case you don’t think fish are cute enough to warrant existential angst, check out this adorable vid of a toddler catching his first fish. (He names the fishy “Free” because he’s “beautiful” and then asks his dad “Does it like me?” The father wisely does not answer, “Well you put a hook through his mouth and are now suffocating him with air so he probably hates your guts right now.” because that would not have been adorable.)
Big post, big topic. Most of my life I’ve been vegetarian or vegan, and the times I am not, I was a fish/chicken only person. I gave up red meat at age 7 and have never looked back. I dont judge anyone for their path; it’s just not mine. Based on both health and ethical implications.
Glad it’s your inbox, not mine, that will no doubt receive TONS of comments on this post. Great food for thought!
My Mister has been hunting for years, so we don’t buy beef. I stopped buying the bags of costco frozen chicken breasts after watching Food Inc. and Fresh.
We’ve had chickens for eggs for several years now, and my Mister has had to kill a few that turned out to be roosters. I thought I ought to help him, but I couldn’t do it. Just watching him kill the bird was upsetting to me. Part of me wonders if I should be eating it if I can’t even watch it being killed, but I’ve decided it’s okay that I can’t do the killing, because he can, and I can take care of them when they’re alive and make sure they have happy lives.
Next weekend we’re (well, my Mister) is going to kill 20 something chickens that we’ve been raising as meat birds. I’m hoping to put some whole into the freezer, and can some.
I know it’s not financial possible for everyone to buy or raise their own “happy” meat, but it’s become something I feel strongly about for my family, and feel good that we can do it.
I love the way you your Mister work things! In an ideal world I’d like to do the same (did I just admit to wanting to be a farmer? Yes, yes I did.) but our city won’t even allow us to have chickens in our backyard:(
Oh- also, I read a book called City Farm, The Education of an Urban Farmer, by Novella Carpenter. She talks about butchering rabbits, and calls it “taking off their bunny pajamas”.
(Meat rabbits will be our next major project, though it might have to wait until next year…)
I’ve read that book! Really enjoyed it!! I’m excited to see how your newest venture goes!
We went and heard Novella Carpenter speak in Salt Lake awhile back too. She’s fun and quirky.
My entire eating (and life) philosophy is based on my concern about the lack of sustainability in society, particularly when it comes to oil and the derivatives of oil. It is a huge concern in my daily life. Possibly an unjustified concern, but it’s usually kicking around somewhere in my thoughts.
My daily lifestyle is based on limiting my consumption of non-renewable goods/resources. For me, this means local, vegetarian and as unprocessed as possible- in addition to general awareness of my consumption of plastics in packaging, and whatnot. I spent an entire afternoon last summer trying to figure out whether I was better off buying milk from a) ~500km away, in a reusable glass bottle (you return it, they sanitize it, and refill it with more milk), or b) ~75km away in a plastic bottle. After a long consideration (and several phone calls to the farms), I decided glass bottle was better. This worry filled at least 3-5hrs of my life. I’m sure the powers that be at google find my search history to be hilarious, and extremely neurotic.
Regarding meat, the environmental cost of raising animals is one of the reasons I don’t eat meat. The other main reason is the abhorrent practices of the conventional meat farming industry. CAFOs are terrifying, and once I realized their prevalence, I just could no longer stomach conventional meat. Being vegetarian is the best way for me to stand by two major tenets of my life – promotion of a sustainable society and humane treatment of all.
I will also say that I have absolutely no problem with other people eating meat (conventional or otherwise), because I really don’t think it’s my place to foist my beliefs upon others. Ever. As long as I follow my conscience, I’m happy- and I think others should follow their own consciences too. That’s my philosophy for everything though- you can do what’s best for you, as long as I can do what’s best for me. But, I do very much enjoy reading what others have to say- sometimes it’s very persuasive, and other opinions often help me flesh out my own and clarify my own beliefs.
The child with the fish is so adorable. I love how children are so in awe of the littlest things. And ‘free’ is a super cute name. I will be getting a fish for my desk at work, ‘free’ is totally in the running for names now. It’s certainly better than any of the dorky law names I would have come up with on my own.
I was a vegetarian for about a decade due to my horror at factory farming (living in Arkansas and hearing stories from former Tyson employees kicked off that phase in my life — I have never had a problem with humanely raised and quickly slaughtered animals) and when I started eating some meat again, I tried to get it exclusively from small local farms. I’m not really all that comfortable with that, so I may go back to being vegetarian. The weird thing is, I lived in Morocco for two years and had no problem with seeing carcasses hanging on hooks at the market, or live chickens for sale (and not to be pets), or even with the festival where every family who could afford one slaughters their own sheep. But factory farming is so horrible it’s hard to justify supporting it even a little. Not to mention the ghastly stench of confinement hog farms stinking up the countryside here in Illinois. I would never judge a person for his/her own choices but I do judge the horrible and exploitative system of farming that we have now.
P.S., I have never killed an animal and I don’t think I could. But when I was a vegetarian I used to have a coworker who would heckle me in the break room every day for not eating meat. One day she kept at it, “What if you were starving? What if you were on a desert island? Would you eat meat then?” Finally I said, “Penny, if I was starving on a desert island I would eat YOU.” That shut her up for a while!
Brilliant ! That’s great 🙂 I needed that laugh thank you !
I have wanted to doa post like this for a long time, and thanks so much for doing it. I can’t wait to read the comments you get.
For me, I eat meat because I feel better, health-wise when i do. But I go in stages. For weeks I’ll eat a lot, and then I won’t eat any for weeks again. I think it is my body’s way of regulating, thought hat might be all in my head. The “uneasy compromise” fits my ideals perfectly. I wish I could not eat it, for ethical and mostly environmental reasons, but until the day I don’t need or crave the protein, I will have to live with my decision to eat the most sustainable and humanely raised meat. I know some will argue that is an oxymoron, but I disagree.
I have also read several articles (and even had a debate in my environmental science class) about whether vegetarianism really is better for the environment. Given water and pesticide problems in various parts of the world, it is sometimes better for the land to graze cattle that attempt to grow produce for human consumption.
It enough to make your head spin.
That’s really interesting re: cattle grazing. Do you have any titles to the articles? Most of the land around where I live is not arable, but beef is big industry here, so….I’m curious to read the articles.
M.Lindsay – here’s the article that Katie mentioned http://www.slate.com/id/2176420/
The book “The Vegetarian Myth” also discuses this issue.
You’re right about the marginal lands bit, Katie. But what really gets my head spinning is to then think about where it (raising animals for food) should be done for environmental reasons versus where it IS being done. I live in Australia, and I do think there are a lot of places here where cattle is a much better option than crops (hello, nutrient poor soil!), but I think there’s a big disconnect between where animal agriculture is optimal and where it is simply providing the food that people want.
I think you should do a post on this too, Katie! I would love to hear a fellow scientist (and one who is more qualified than me!) write a post on this.
have I personally killed anything; beyond fish no.but as a child I lived on a mini farm and we raised chickens, turkeys, pigs, and usually a cow or two. My father would butcher the poultry and I would help pluck and clean it. Our larger animals were slaughtered by a mobile unit and yes one time I did watch it be done. I know many people would not understand this lifestyle but it was norrmal for me. Our animals enjoyed a good life while with us and when the time came sustained us. Just as our vegetable garden did. I do not have the capaciy to raise my own animals now but I purchase my eggs from a neighbor that has chickens and buy 1/2 a beef once a year from a local farmer, in addition my husband hunts and this year we were blessed with fresh venision. I realize I am lucky to have these resources available. I actuallly did go for nearly 3 months earlier this year eating virtually no meat because we had run out of our grass-fed beef and I did not want to buy meat and support factory farms .
I’ve been vegetarian or vegan for most of my life. Eating meat always seemed odd to me, so it’s no surprise that I gave it up and never looked back.
I believe that this is a seriously complex issue, and while there’s a big part of me that wishes people would at least eat more reasonable amounts of meat – and go veg, if they can do it and thrive – there’s also a part of me that is way too realistic to think we’ll even get that far. I am an environmental scientist who works a lot on behavioural change issues, and I know all too well that people won’t give up much to protect the earth (“I buy organic shampoo!” or “I re-use plastic baggies!” are the sorts of things that people will easily do, but consuming MUCH less stuff – food and other goods – is much less common). With that said, I think the vegetarian line that “there’s no such thing as a meat-eating environmentalist” is bullocks. Complete bullocks. (Can I say that on a Mormon’s blog?) And when someone says the old vegan favourite, “A vegan driving a hummer has a smaller carbon footprint than an omnivore on a bicycle” I want to scream. The issue is so very complex, and whether or not we eat animals is only one small piece of the puzzle. In my perfect world, people would not think they could become vegetarian or vegan and have done their bit…because they have only done one bit.
For a good discussion on the environmental impacts of meat (but not the morality from an animal rights standpoint, I highly recommend the book Meat: A benign extravagance. The book has many flaws – which I am even happy to point out if you ever read it, because I’m just that crazy – but it provides a very different dialogue than the one that’s dominating at the moment.
Religious/ethical veg. I don’t begrudge anyone eating meat, but I begrudge anyone who cannot look at the actual slaughter. I always figured if you can’t kill your own food, you don’t have the right to eat it. I can’t, and I won’t. The only people who’ve ever tried to make me feel bad about being veg are the very people who can’t look at blood. (Meanwhile carnivores LOVE me…more for them! And I LOVE them…Does this taste like the waitress lied about it being veg…)
I wish this debate didn’t have to exist at all. I wish animal welfare wasn’t only up to the do-gooders/proactive people. If the animals were simply treated correctly to begin with, then the only debate would be if it’s healthy or not, not whether or not it was ethical.
Random: every time this issue is brought up, I always wonder: what if we weren’t on the top of the food chain…would I prefer to be raised & harvested, or free but hunted? *shudders*
As I said yesterday I don’t eat red meat or chicken because of taste/texture issues but I did manage to watch 1/2 of Jamie Olivers special on Chicken farming. If I still ate chicken I wouldn’t have after that. I’ve now banned myself from those shows, far too upsetting.
When I was in high school (I think the equiv in the US is middle school – that’s the one before high school ?) we had to raise a baby chick from the egg. We had to plot it’s stats from egg, through hatching, being the most adorable little balls of fluff right up until it was a fully grown chook (Australian for chicken).
We then had to cut its head off, pluck it and we could take it home to eat. I was absolutely traumatized ! I refused to kill it, pluck it or eat it. I couldn’t kill and eat something I’d named and raised. I remember Dad had to come into the school and pick it up because I refused to touch it. He was not a happy camper ! I also think I failed the class – hasn’t held me back any 🙂
I came from a hunting family and hated it. So I married a guy who also did not like hunting. That was an important value for me for marriage. I would much rather have my “tween” son kill fake aliens and soldiers on a video game than be like his “tween” cousins who are allowed to kill small animals with guns. I never speak of it (at least not too much), but I find that to be bad parenting, especially for children so young.
I have gravitated toward a diet with a little meat a couple of days a week. Mostly, though, I eat a lot of cottage cheese, hard boiled eggs, and tuna. My daughter, who is vegetarian, eventually got me eating less meat.
🙂 Marion
Very interesting topic! I am Not into Animal killing of any kind. But I am into good food to start with and what’s more I love seafood. A balanced diet is essential to a strong immune system because your immune system depends on getting many vitamins and minerals to be able to function properly.
Most people have a total disconnect with the way all foods are prepared, whether it be a genuine cow-burger, a highly processed soy-burger, or a mixed green salad. I’m convinced that if more people prepared food from scratch, the percentage of eating disorders would plummet.
I’d love to have the resources to raise and kill my own animals.
I totally agree with the disconnect. I’m definitely guilty of that myself. On the other hand I’d be leery of connecting that to eating disorders. I know personally my eating disorder had nothing to do with where food came from or how it was prepared and had everything to do with something in my body gone wrong, like cancer.
I’d think I’d describe myself as an enthusiastic meat-eater! I’ve been fairly picky about the quality of meat I buy for quite a while now… I don’t remember the last time I bought non-free range chicken/eggs and have balked when my boyfriend’s picked up caged ones without thinking (he’s learnt now!). I think being aware of where meat comes from has definitely become a bigger and bigger issue over here in the UK in recent years. There’s a whole foodie culture that has blown up, and with it an interest in where your food comes from. Though having said that I think it’s very linked to income (and class) as unfortunately, it costs to care! And as much as I’d like to buy all my meat from the local farmer’s markets and organic butchers (being in London I’m fairly spoilt for choice), I have to admit that more often I end up simply buy from the supermarkets with an eye out for labels and any info they can provide. My one issue is that aside from chicken, other types of meat labels generally don’t inform you all that well, or even mislead. However I think this is also changing, as a few months back I found out about the Freedom Foods label (no connection to the Fries!) which has been introduced in the UK to provide peace of mind that the supplier is adhering to RSPCA standards for a whole range of meat and fish products. http://www.rspca.org.uk/freedomfood/ – is there anything similar to this in the US?
The other problem with being food-aware is once you step into a restaurant you’re pretty much at the whim of whatever the chef buys in. We have one great local Japanese restaurant that mentions all their produce sources on their website, but it’s a rarity! Though of course you could go the Portlandia route and quiz your waitress right down to the name of the chicken in your meal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2LBICPEK6w
Just a quick note….cows SHOULD be eating grass; not grains(as you mentioned in the article about taking grains from humans who are starving to feed cattle). If we fed cattle properly we wouldn’t be taking food from humans to feed cattle(though I personally don’t eat grains myself I don’t judge others for doing so).
Don’t remember which blog it was(I think maybe Dr. Eades but I can’t be sure) but I read/watched an article about how cows were used to rehabilitate land that had gone to waste from over-farming. Between their grazing and their poop(fertilizer) this poverty stricken area was able to have meat and fertile land once again.
I once accidentally killed my goldfish but that was way before sushi was en vogue in the suburbs. so we flushed him rather than drape him over sticky rice.
I give your gym buddy major kudos -she walks the walk.
Kill what I eat? This probably doesn’t count, but once there was a dead roach in my can of green beans. And yesss, it was already in the can when I opened it. But I was so FREAKING broke (I hated my early 20’s) that I just plucked the dead roach out and ate the beans anyway. OH my gosh, I can’t believe I’m telling you this wretched story (unless I have already?). Anyway, it freaks me out those natures shows where they show those big beach roaches. Do people kill those and eat them? Now see, I somehow made my personal roach store relevant. Tied it all together like that.
I am a meat eater, married to a hunter. No, I don’t kill my own, but I do butcher it. I agree we need to “own up” to our carnivorous nature. To all the people that think it is unethical, do they think bambi is out there living an idyllic life till we pop him off? Of course I am against factory farming and many other modern husbandry practices, but I am also against organic farming if it means not worming your animals. Do you know what bugs do to animals? Talk about gross out. Is a quick bullet less humane than being eaten alive from the inside? If well taken care of, our farm animals live a far better life than any wild animal. Wild animals do not die of old age. Period. Whether we kill them or something else does, they all die. Lets just give them a great life before they go, and enjoy them afterwards. Clean up the unethical practices and lets get on with it.
Phew this is a tough topic. For the most part I do not eat red meat at all. I barely ever cook with it. I eat way too much chicken. I’m trying to cut that down. I would love to cook more vegetarian meals but I dislike processed meat substitutes and my fiance hates beans (which can also be used to replace meat). It’s tough. I’m trying to find my own way through this. I am definitely conscious of the meat I’m buying. I don’t want to buy antibiotic and hormone induced meat.
That video is so adorable! I love how kids are so excited about the smallest things!
No, it is not inhumane! it is quite common in the animal world to eat meat. It is inhumane the way we raise animals and slaughter them. The evolved choice, and it is a choice, is to not eat or minimal;y eat meat. IMHO.
I just posted yesterday about my month of vegetarianism in May, which I did as a way to honor and respect the earth. I tried to make it clear in the post, however, that going meat-free is certainly not the only way to respect our earth, and each person needs to decide what’s best for them personally. Going without meat was a great experience for me and I do think I’m going to focus on eating fewer meat-based meals going forward, but just like I occasionally don’t recycle and sometimes yell at my husband, there will be times I do eat it!
What an adorable video! That child is presh!!
As far as killing animals…well I’ve killed many a squirrel in my day with the ol’ honda…but never have I EVER eaten them! I’m pretty sure if I followed the “I will only eat what I kill’ rule, then I would be finally going full on veggie…I can see a human get an arm cut off in a horror movie but the time I saw a cow get cut in half in a documentary, I puked my guts out and cried for an hour….what can I say…I’m a softie for the animals…
My problem, majoritively, is with factory farming. Animals do have to die for us to be able to eat, even if we all ate a vegan diet — mice will get trapped when we’re harvesting and processing grain, etc. But I have a MAJOR problem with the factory farms that think it’s okay to strip a cow of being a cow, to torture chickens, to abuse pigs, to force fish to swim in their own fecal matter and literally almost no water. That’s wrong. I don’t think anyone can argue with the fact that it’s wrong.
I would be FINE with eating a cow that actually had a happy life (and those Happy Cows Come from California commercials should be banned and the company be sued, if you’re interested in my opinion on that rubbish). Yes, it died, but at least it was happy (or, if we can’t say happy, then not tortured) while it lived. But I can’t find humanely raised meat around here, so I eat only the animal products that I absolutely must (because my goal is bodybuilding & gaining muscle): eggs and fish, wild-caught when I can.
FANTASTIC post Charlotte and we are, indeed, twins. I feel the same way about meat as you…or mostly. This year we started buying from a local farmer and I feel it’s worth it to pay a LITTLE (even in CA I find it very economical) more than I would at the store knowing the cow was raised and killed humanely. That said, once in a a while I will go to McD’s or Taco Bell and eat the worst possible kind of meat (although at McD’s I have a thing for the Filet-o-Fish) and I don’t make apologies for it. I’m not perfect but I try my hardest to do my best 97% of the time.
For fish I’m lucky b/c one of my clients is married to a fisherman so she gives me fish right off the boat (they are substainably certified…whatever that means) Chicken is not so easy b/c to buy pasture raised chicken is expensive for what you get, IMO. I get mine from bulk from a co-op called Azure Standard. While I haven’t been to the farm myself I choose to trust Azure Standards policies.
You talked about meat but do you feel the same way about dairy b/c most dairies are also inhumane? Myself, I have a harder time with this…I do buy mostly organic dairy and raw milk from a great farm (organic pastures). However, we can’t afford all organic raw cheeses or butter. Those things alone would be 50% of our budget which is already too HIGH.
You know what even more important to me than the animals wellbeing? Sending the government a message. I CANNOT stand when the government tries to tell me what I can eat. Every time I hear a story of government officials ransacking a small local farm b/c Big Food feels threatened my blood boils. What a waste of resources and infringement on rights. I could go on…
…anyway thank you for writing about this. It’s so complicated but yet so important and you write about it in a way that is thought provoking and diplomatic. I’m so happy we have this in common as we do our love for vintage clothes and killer workouts. <3 you!
PS While I don't care to kill an animal myself I do want to take my boys to see our next steer butchered this summer. A girl I know went and watched and found it to be an important lesson for her kids. I want my kids to understand that meat just doesn't magically appear on our plates as well.
what in the rabbit sweatshirt. WTF indeed.
I wouldn’t say I don’t eat meat for health or humanitarian reasons (having been raised that way it’s just how I like to eat) but as a huge animal lover I completely agree with having respect for the animals you eat and knowing where they come from. The infrequent times I eat fish I try to do that. But I could never kill my own. I’m the girl who feeds all the stray cats in the neighborhood and then cries when they come to eat because they don’t have homes.
When I was in Mongolia I saw some sheep being slaughtered and it was one of the most horrific experiences for me. I would never try to tell people they shouldn’t eat meat but I do think everyone should see that. It was eye-opening.
I have yes. A few times, but only to put it out of its misery after hitting it with my car. Killed a little of my vegetarian soul each time.
Also? I’m never wearing a sweatshirt again.
Great post, Charlotte. As I believe I mentioned before, I’m meat eater (my burger last night was delicious!), but I have seen animals slaughtered and can deal with it. Of course, I wish big factory farming did things differently. However, the budget dictates what I eat often, so it is what it is.
I took Animal Sciences in college and had to measure the back fat on a pig carcass hanging in a meat locker. Most of the girls in the class were nauseous and over half left the locker to throw up and/or cry. Hopefully they’re not meat eaters….As for me, I’ve watched the the food processing shows everyone is horrified about and can and do still eat meat. Maybe I just have a strong stomach?
I grew up around relatives that hunt, but eat the meat. I’m not opposed to it, but I don’t think I could do the killing myself…mostly because I don’t want to clean the carcasses. I’m lazy like that.
Good on you. We all need to put so much more effort into ethical eating.
Bravo!
The thought of eating any animal or there by-products is horrible to me. We don’t need meat/dairy/eggs to live. I feel better knowing that I am living my life in a way that doesn’t cause a lot of suffering to others. I did however eat animals as a child, I guess one gets indoctrinated by one’s culture and it seems “normal” but as I got older I made the decision that I didn’t want others to die at my hands.
Sorry bad English….. “their by-products…”.
Through my life, I’ve been a typical eat-whatever omnivore, vegan, vegetarian, and pescatarian (I generally don’t care for all the titles, but it works here to convey the idea). The reasons for all of the final three choices have ranged over time from environmental to humane to pure animal loving. I’ve settled on the latter–eating dairy, eggs, and seafood but not other animal meat–primarily because of the “kill factor.” When I was trying to settle on how I wanted my diet to look and what I felt comfortable with, at the end of the day I asked myself: what would be be comfortable providing for myself? [Note: not “what would I ACTUALLY provide for myself, but what would I be ok with if it were necessary to supply my own food directly.] I realized that I was ok with fishing–I’ve since been fishing, eaten the fish I caught, and am morally/ethically ok with that process. But I would not be ok with killing other animals for food…so I don’t eat them.
But for me, it’s NOT a judgment that killing animals for food is itself immoral or unethical. It’s an entirely personal judgment about what actions I am comfortable performing. It’s a way for me to get beyond the disconnect between the food I eat and where it comes from. As many other have noted, so many people seem squeamish about the source of their food–I remember watching a movie on the fishing industry in college and listening to classmates around the room expressing their disgust at having to watch fish being processed on factory boats and how we shouldn’t have had to see it and how they should have been warned, and I kept thinking, “I KNOW you all eat fish…THIS is where it comes from…if you’re that uncomfortable with it, well, should you keep eating it?” That thought process shaped my evolution from vegan to veg to now eating seafood, but stopping short of eating meat (much to the dismay of my bacon-loving husband).
I believe decisions about what we eat are both social and deeply personal, but it would be great for people to be more connected to the processes that go into producing all kinds of food.
I’ve thought the same thing. It seems kind of sadistic and evil that we raise all these animals on farm specifically to be killed when they are properly fattened, but the way I think about it is that we need to eat meat to be healthy so it is either farm raised or we hunt for it.
Have I killed something? yep. I have. When I was 6 my best friend owned a chicken farm. It was my birthday and his mom said to go pick a chicken. I did. My best friend and I took the live chicken to my house. I got a butcher knife. He held the chicken and I sawed it’s head off. Yes, headless chickens do run around for quite a while – weird. I didn’t think a thing about it other than “fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy” LOL… As an adult whose come to believe that meat comes bloodless in a nice package at the store???? I don’t think I could do it now… but it’s just what you’re used to I suppose. I used to pet one of the cows at my friends house named Bossy… one night I went over and didn’t see Bossy. Half way through dinner I asked about my big brown eyed furry pet and my friend got big eyes, looked around the table and said “uhhhhh well.. uhhhhh… you’re eating her”. I will NEVAH forget that feeling.. and neither will my friend because I burst into tears at the table. Not sure why my dinner having a name made a difference but it did… I just can’t think about it or it weirds me out. However, faced with hunger – I’m sure I’d get over the feeling…
I grew up eating very little meat (my mother was a vegetarian for a long time, my father just never really loved meat), and since I never really liked the taste of it anyway, I end up eating meat about 3-4 times a month. That being said: I make sure I somewhat-regularly eat eggs / almonds / bananas / salads to feel that I’m making up for it in the nutrition / health department. In terms of killing what you eat: I think this would cause me to be a vegetarian for life! I always overcook my eggs to make sure that I’m not thinking about the baby-chick-factor as I eat it, so I can barely imagine actually slaughtering a cow. I know that for me, personally, thinking too long and hard about the fact that this was a living animal would cause me to stop eating altogether, and for my personal health I do believe that some ‘meat’ products are necessary. That being said: I don’t eat pork and really limit the red meat to max 2x per month…. Very simply the facts are that I don’t think its necessarily humane…But a lot of things in life you can’t simply do by ‘ideology’, you have to be practical and flexible to reality.
Intelligence and smipilicty – easy to understand how you think.