Loving What You Eat, Eating What You Love

I had a comment about the whole Emu thing. How could I kill a really cool, cute bird that I adore? I mean, it seems strange to modern sensibilities to remark about the taste of an animal you deem cuddly or hilarious. How can you eat what you come to love?

Great question!

And its something that I’ve thought a lot about. I’ve heard and read all the arguments for vegetarianism, in its many forms, for example. Humans tend to crave, and have been adapted to, eat a varied diet that often includes meat and/or fish. But on the heart-felt and spiritual level, how can one look into the eyes of an animal they’ve lived with– and then slit its throat, bleed it out, and process the flesh for meat?

Full confession: I myself am not capable of this personally. I can witness it in person and not flinch, but have yet to take a stab at it myself, as it were… I hope to one day be able to, however, if only because it seems right that if one is going to eat meat, they should occasionally participate in the full process and appreciate what that means! Death for sustenance is a big deal. We take it for granted when we buy it all packaged from a store.

There I agree with those who say there is something wrong about this. I have heard many urbanite idealists proclaim that if we lived with our meat animals, we wouldn’t be able to so easily kill and eat them.

Um… HUH!?

Humans have been living with the animals they kill for thousands of years. Knowing your steer or rooster ahead of time doesn’t mean you won’t be able to do them in when the time comes.

People removed from meat production often try to imagine what it is like and miss the mark. I’m sure some people would rather turn to plant matter entirely than eat an animal they raised themselves. That’s okay!

However, here are some realities of raising meat animals:

~ Males are pretty much useless and often jackasses that drive you crazy. They are more likely to be aggressive and pick on and injure other birds who ARE productive (read: calmer males or females who lay eggs or give milk) and the protective part of you who sees these little jerks abusing other animals soon relishes the idea of eating them! After they’re dispatched, the entire animal group you removed them from calms down and settles in and are happy once again. You see this, over and over, and you realize some animals being killed and eaten is a good thing!

Meanwhile, the few precious male animals that do their job protecting the flock or herd, who do NOT pick on the rest, and have a great personality, get along with humans, and look pretty– quickly become like pets. They get named and live a great life with their own private harem. Harmony is created with the flock or herd and all is well with the world– at least until the next round of males hits the skids!

~ Population limits exist on farms, too. (Or they SHOULD!) More animals means more mess, more feed, more damage to vegetation– with ‘free range’ animals, you have to let them be who they are and pick and claw and stamp at the ground, etc. Older females are less productive than young ones, so you raise replacements. That means that, over time, you’ll soon run out of room and then what? Can you justify spending a lot of feed on hens who won’t give eggs in return? Not really. Not when you’re on a budget and only have so much space. To keep the flock or herd happy, and the farm land sustainable, you need to cull the aged and infirm regularly. Again, not doing so results in more misery for the herd or flock, not just the aesthetics of the farm or homestead.

~ When you slaughter your own livestock, you can be assured it is done quickly and humanely. Most chicken people who eat their own chickens know that you can dangle a chicken by its feet and swing it back and forth a few times, and it will pass out painlessly. Another method is to tuck their head under a wing while you carry them to the culling shed or area. Again, they pass out quickly. Then a sharp knife to the neck and they bleed out (best for good meat) quietly and quickly and its over. Chopping the head off– contrary to what you see in the media, is a messy way to do it for people, and scary for the birds. Done well, killing a meat bird is a quiet affair. And most of us who raise our own chickens prefer to bring the death gently. There is no guarantee of this when you buy from others, unless you know them personally and have seen their methods are the same.

(I confess, I’m not sure how we’d do this with emus, as they are large. Cat knows more about it than I do at this point. However, the emu people we met love their birds and insist upon only the most humane method, as does Cat, so I’m assured there is a similar technique.)

~ Eating meat you’ve raised yourself gives a whole new appreciation for life and death and the cycle of things. You feel, it is hard to describe, but– honored to eat the flesh of an animal you’ve known personally. It isn’t mindless chewing. You realize fundamentally that you are a part of a pact with living, breathing creatures who share your life. You give them a good life and a painless death, and they give you their body to sustain you. Eating meat is no longer impersonal, but spiritual. We all have to kill to live– whether others do it for us or not. Plants die, animals die. We’re killers.

But we don’t have to be monsters.

And I think that’s the major point here. I don’t feel like a monster when I eat Betsy the leghorn chicken I raised from egghood. I feel like I am very fortunate and privileged. I know my privilege for what it is– to be the longer-lived human who gets to eat this bird. And I am appreciative of what these animals give up for me to be healthy and have such wonderful meals.

We don’t raise all our meat. Just some of it. All our eggs come from our own chickens though. We mean to supplement our diet and have it as a back up for an uncertain world and then hope for the best. But killing even a beloved chicken is not like killing a dog or cat (for one, they are predators like us, not prey.) Even if it starts out that way, time and observation soon shift one’s feelings.

So– I’m not worried about feeling bad if I eat emus I raise. I’m sure we’ll have our precious couples (emus mate one on one, they don’t do harems like chickens) that we name and love who evade becoming meat until they become old, and that’s okay! And we’ll have others who aren’t as charming, as gentle, and as interesting that get tagged for slaughter or sale, and that’s okay too.