Own Your Carnivorism or
IF YOU CAN'T KILL AN ANIMAL YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS EATING MEAT
It seems these days we have evolved into a species that isn't very receptive to Nature's Commandments.
And even though they roar through the wind, rushing with an ache into our ears we turn up our collars, pull down our caps and snuggle up safe with our protective, pathetic logic.
Yes, you might well crave meat. Strongly. Likely you do sense your body's call for specific nutrients. BUT if you can't stomach the reality of killing, skinning chopping, guts, blood and stench, then you don't deserve the privilege of filling your stomach with flesh.
Giving birth isn't a simple undertaking, and killing also requires its payment, and that is not made in the form of a fast food or sterile supermarket solution. A solution that perpetuates gluttony and cowardliness. All too easy, many eat fleshy meals three times a day topped up by fast food meaty munchies after a night out.
Yet often these same people would grimace or cry at the thought of killing an animal. They would even consider you cruel if you told them you killed your own meat.
Many people will react with shock and horror at the notion of killing an animal that you own and interact with.
"Oh, I couldn't do that," they say.
Which translates as, "I'd rather eat meat out of a plastic package from a factory farmed animal who has suffered, but that's OK because out of sight, out of mind, I can emotionally deal with that, but God how can you kill that animal, you must be very calloused."
And this comment: The wild is a rough and tough place where animals die brutal deaths.
Sorry, this is no excuse for incarcerating animals in dismal factories, torturing them and then sending them to their death. And it's not even a nice try for an excuse. It's just arrogant bull shit.
Yes, animals in the wild sometimes suffer, but it isn't guaranteed. They have a chance to escape a predator and often do. We all have seen wildlife footage of lions outrun by gazelles. And even if death by sharp and tearing teeth were unavoidable, who are we to take animals out of their natural habitat and subject them to suffering.
Now I hear you say. But what about happy farms as opposed to the brutality of factory farming? On a farm we humans protect them from the big, bad wild. Are they not better off with us?
Again this arrogance.
Yeah, we protect them until, without fail, they are shipped to a slaughter house sensing and smelling their demise. Is there really such a thing as a "humane" slaughter?
Removed from their natural habitat, farm animals lose their natural ways. Reliant on us their sole reason for existence is to be a food source.
But being hunted is not an easy death, I have been told.
In their rightful habitat with their senses vibrant and intact animals have a chance to escape. And a human had to work for his or her meat, take a risk, take on the killing karma if you like. Humans do love to pass on that duty of death to others.
Death transformed as sustenance requires the risk of a hunt. Your prey might evade you, in fact it might injure or kill you. As said, giving birth is a risky, painful business, taking a life to sustain your own should be as well. Dues must be paid, is my answer.
Think about it. Taking a life for your own life. How can that be made simple.
If I were a non-human animal, I'd rather be free living with my tribe and taking my chances then trapped in a hellish factory with an inescapable fate to be on the plate.
People think I am being naive by not understanding that the world, the wild, is a cruel place. I have had this implied to me with patronizing smiles. But I think eating meat yet refusing to either take part in the production or worse disconnecting to the cruelty of farming is naive and frankly insane.
What are we teaching our kids? Some bizarre mixed message of be thoughtful, be nice. Play with stuffed animals, watch peppa pig, own a fish, dog, rabbit, hamster, treat them well, but here have a plate of chicken nuggets. As a human it is your right.
How does one put value on life? Intelligence? As far as I understand pigs are more intelligent than dogs. I don't think anyone in the US, Europe, Australia or New Zealand eats dogs or would get away with it if they wanted to. But a pig, not a bother.
I have had people look at me as if I am cruel because I promote killing your own animal. At this stage in human existence we have too many people for us all to be hunting. But take part somehow. Own your meat eating.
I very rarely eat meat. And I mean maybe once a year. But I have carved up a pig on my kitchen table. I have gutted a load of chickens while I was pregnant and I have accidentally cracked open an egg carrying a partially developed chick. I get the reality of animal products. (I don't drink milk and only occasionally eat eggs and cheese.)
No one needs to feel guilty about craving meat or defend it with brazen retorts, just question why you can't kill. Paradoxically, the more you toughen up by taking part in the reality of meat, the more compassionate you likely will become. The truth will lead to respect.
We need to modify our meat eating habits. There are just too many of us on this planet to ethically sustain it. Minimize your intake, take part in the process. One way to bring about change is to stop buying factory farmed, plastic wrapped meat products. You won't starve if you eat less meat. YOU WON'T.
I do know lovely people who agree with me.
In theory.
Nodding and expressing amazement at how awful it all is, the next minute they go to the fridge. grab a plastic package and start slicing chicken breast.
Humans are so adept at swimming in da nile.
P.S. When each of my sons turned 13, supervised by their dad, they had to kill, then pluck and gut their own chickens.
An initiation for boys. A reality check for meat eaters. Admittedly a feeble gesture in both those directions, but it was something, and it earned them a right to eat meat. It won't suffice them a lifetime, but they have experienced the truth of where their food comes from more acutely than probably a lot of other kids.