I have written before about my conflicted thoughts on eating animals. I feel ethically torn because if I look at nature, the cold facts are that animals eat other animals. Cheetahs stalk antelope, sharks chomp on surfers, and spiders wrap flies in a web of death before swallowing them whole. No big deal, right? Except. Animals are animals and I don’t think we are wise to just do what they do. Rabbits hump anything that moves. If Steve did that, I’d kick him to the curb. Our behavior is to be somewhat more elevated than that of animals, right?
But, if I were starving in the wilderness, I would totally kill a squirrel, roast it over a fire and gnaw every morsel of meat off its bones to survive. I view that as an extreme situation, where the natural order of nature would take over. But in our every day, we’re not starving in the woods; we are perched at our desk, mowing down on a double cheeseburger with extra bacon. Kind of gross, right?
My husband and I recently watched a documentary on the National Film Board (nfb.com) called “Animals” and it’s all about a husband and wife who decided that, for one year, if they were going to eat meat, they were going to raise and then kill it themselves. It chronicled their inner struggle with the concept and in the end, they ended up still carrying on as meat-eaters but they left the slaughtering to someone else. They couldn’t do it. But they still wanted to eat burgers.
Unless I were ravenous in the wild, I honestly don’t think I could kill another animal, rip out its innards, strip off its hide and toss it on the BBQ. So I guess that means I should just fully commit to becoming a vegetarian?
My husband took up hunting a couple years ago, mainly as a means to gain the skills to feed his family should the apocalypse hit, and also the lure of FREE MEAT is rather strong in his mind. That being said, he takes no delight whatsoever in the actual killing of the animal. He feels the same sense of duty I do in that if you’re going to eat meat, you had better be able to see the process through from start to finish. He butchers it himself and fills our freezer with fresh game. I am not a huge fan of the taste of the meat, but from a moral perspective I would much rather have true, free-range deer than factory-farmed cow any day.
Do you give much thought to the animals you eat?
My sister became a vegetarian for exactly the reason you describe – she didn’t think she could catch and kill something to eat it, so she felt wrong about eating something someone else had killed. I can respect that point of view but I don’t subscribe to it myself. Someone is raising animals for this purpose (the same as they are growing grains and vegetables) and I am grateful for their work. I am actually less uncomfortable with eating farmed meat than hunted meat as I feel the wild animals are not there for that purpose (in our society, anymore). However, I understand people’s aversions and respect everyone’s rights to choose what they do and do not eat.
I do. I try to have a “thankful” thought in my head before I eat, and I respect that it came from somewhere, but I don’t want to have to kill it to eat it. I know chicken and cows don’t come from under shiny plastic in supermarkets – and everything had a face and a parent once. I just try really hard not to waste any food – that makes me more upset than the meat itself.
My husband is also a hunter and I am grateful for the almost free meat that we receive through that. We also raise our own chickens and turkeys and butcher them ourselves. It is not an easy or thoughtless task but I am so beyond happy to have my own chicken in the freezer and know what has gone into raising them. It’s tiring and messy and totally worth it. I believe God gave us the animals on this earth, same as the plants in our gardens, etc. to thrive and feed our families. That being said it is not a task for everyone, and I don’t know if that means that those who can’t should not eat meat but I do believe that the knowledge of how it’s done gains a respect for the food God has provided.
After the recent XL foods recall I am leaning more and more towards wild meat. I happened to come pick up some apples the day Steve got his deer and shockingly I didn’t even bat an eye at the sight of said deer carcasses in your garage, in fact I was a little jealous that my husband has yet to bag his tag for the year ha ha ha. I think that we all need to spend a little more time thinking about where exactly our food comes from. Thanks for the post Amanda!
My brother had a t-shirt once that read:
“If we aren’t supposed to eat animals,
why are they made out of meat?”
We are omnivores. We should eat meat. Why do vegans/vegetarians need to supplement with B12? Because it is only available in animal products.
I am with you on the taste though. Not my favorite either but that is where GRAVY comes in. 🙂