Kill your own meat. Can you?
Submitted by Robert Douglass on Tue, 09/23/2008 - 10:24.
Tagged: meat
• vegetarian
Excellent article by a woman who decides to witness the slaughter of her meals.
Was this what it was like to kill your dinner? Why didn't these taste good? And why did I feel like Lady Macbeth as I spent the night trying to wash this damn crab smell off my hands?
In the end, the crabs would be the only thing I actually killed. And they were the thing I felt worst about.
My summer of slaughters left me with mixed feelings. But not the feelings I'd imagined.
I thought I might emerge from it with a greater sense of entitlement and accomplishment. Like if you can face the realities of meat, you're allowed to eat it. But I felt no sense of entitlement. I felt more hesitance, a deeper reverence and a new conscientiousness.
![Richard Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier [Highlights] cover image](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41XRK7SFF2L._SL160_.jpg "Richard Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier [Highlights]")
.thumbnail.JPG "Brixen/Bressanone 2005")
Killing
You know, I grew up harvesting my own food, whether it be green beans and corn from the garden, or deer and cow from our fields and can honestly say that if you've never dressed down an animal because you're family hadn't enough money to buy all of their food, you truely don't appreciate the hard work it takes, nor the stark reality of ending a life to continue your own. Though, growing up with it, it really is not so stark, and it wasn't until joining the rest of society and knowing people who did not grow up that way, that I realized it even was a jarring experience for so many people. I for one would encourage anyone who likes a good steak or hamburger to hunt at least once in their life and know what it's like to truely end a life in order to enjoy that kind of meal.
Thank you
Great testimonial. We raised chickens when I was growing up, and I was involved with the slaughtering. We started out doing it on our own, and later taking them to a processing facility. I remember driving there once holding a hen on my lap.
I ended up not enjoying chicken meat or eggs for several years. It changes your outlook. Not everyone will come to the same decisions or conclusions, but it changes how you look at the packet of meat on the counter.
-Rob
Takes it to an extreme
We've taken our kids to the farm where our meat comes from -- but we have not witnessed the slaughter. We did discuss that we buy our meat from the farm we were visiting, and she understands that the meat comes from the animals.
We most wanted her to understand "where the meat comes from" and that it's not just something that magically appears when we pick up. I'm not sure that she has her head around the fact that the animals die for us to get the meat -- and I don't think she needs to yet.
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