Eating Meat
| July 21, 2010 | Posted by Issa under Animals |
I have said for a long time that if I couldn’t kill an animal for food, then I would want to become a vegetarian. I’ve never said that I had to kill an animal, or that everyone should. I never actively sought out the experience of doing so. But, I said that if the opportunity arose and I couldn’t do it, I wouldn’t want to eat meat anymore.
I think specialization in our culture has been taken to an extreme end, and that relates to this. I worry that most of us are completely removed from the process of making meat, and I wonder if that’s good for us. The opposite end from specialization – where each person must do everything for themselves – is also extreme and not right for our species. I’ve never thought that everyone should kill all their own meat. But we have the ability to not think of meat as animals at all, and I think that plays into the cruel ways animals are allowed to be treated in order to become our food. I’ve always wanted to be closer to that process and to learn how I felt about it and to see how that would affect my thoughts on eating meat.
As I moved towards and into homesteading, my focus shifted somewhat from just the moment of killing. That moment was still important, and if I can, I still want to go through the process of actually doing the killing of an animal I plan to eat. However, I began to focus more on the life of the animal and my relationship to it, rather than on the specific method and moment of death. Rather than asking, “Could I kill an animal for food?” I began to ask, “Can I love an animal and then eat it?”
Having Yorkie and Hampie these past few months has meant that I’m thinking about all of these things in reality, rather than as abstract thoughts. I loved two pigs. I named them. I spent time with them every day. I knew the differences between them. I cataloged their likes and dislikes and took joy at each new thing, like the first time Hampie really let me pet her. I noticed changes in their appearance. I debated very carefully whether to give them medication. I laughed when they frolicked and I tried to do things that would make them happier. In one sense, they were pets.
In another sense, they were meant for meat. When I first got them, I briefly wondered if I would be able to see them as meat. They were cute little pigs, terrified of the world, huddled together in their barn, and I wanted to comfort them and feared I would always see them as adorable little pets. When they got to be about 75 pounds, that started to change for me a little bit. They began to take on some physical characteristics that I associated with food and some characteristics I associated with wild animals. These details are hard to explain, but there was a definite shift. Their stomache, back, and butt areas looked like growing meat to me. Their faces looked meaner. This is also around the time that I had to start considering my physical safety. Both of them tried to nibble me at one point, and I had to change my behavior around feeding time. I had to wear shoes around them and watch my step, because being stepped on by them was painful.
Don’t get me wrong – I didn’t stop seeing them as beings I wanted to nurture and care for. I never stopped enjoying my time with them and never stopped the activities that gave us both joy, like hosing them down with mist or scratching them on their favorite places. But the worry that I would forever see them as pets subsided. They weren’t like dogs, for example. They weren’t companions. They were loved and treasured farm animals who would become meat, and that seemed right.
As the day of their slaughter has approached, I’ve been visualizing Yorkie and Hampie being dead and visualizing eating their meat. And I’ve been having some feelings about that – feelings that have been very, very hard to name. I struggled and worried over these feelings, trying to find their shape and character. Was it guilt? Was it revulsion? I considered that maybe I was getting to this point and couldn’t do it. Maybe I would now have Yorkie and Hampie as pet pigs for many years to come. But that didn’t seem right. On the far side of the visualization, it felt right to imagine eating their meat. On this side of the visualization, I wasn’t heartbroken that soon they would be gone. But, in the middle, around the idea of them becoming dead, there sat a great, unnamed feeling.
In my mind, I rifled through so many names for feelings – sadness, guilt, trepidation, curiosity, compassion, fright, wariness, repulsion, numbness, shame, excitement – trying them on for size and discarding them all. Finally, yesterday morning, an hour before it was time to drive the pigs to the processor, I realized that I was never going to name this feeling with a single word. Instead, I would say this: I was sensing the presence of a moment and an experience that is very, very important.
It reminded me of the cusp moments in the book Stranger in a Strange Land – a decision must be made, for which responsibility cannot be shared, that one way or another I will carry with me forever.
I never really doubted my decision. It always felt like the right one. This new realization, though, was knowing that this was a very important decision to be in the presence of, to be connected to, to face head on, to know.
My mind began reeling from the idea of eating meat without experiencing this cusp. How could I eat the meat of an animal without knowing this moment? On one side of this moment is a living being and on the other side of it is food on my table and in the middle of the moment stands my decision and my decision alone.
The entire process is caused by and connected through that moment. How can I possibly look away? In some ways, these pigs (as domesticated farm animals) existed because I wanted their meat. The opposite is also true, of course – their meat will exist because they lived as animals. In between those two halves of reality stands me and my decision. It is my rightful place to stand there.
The moment of deciding to end an animal’s life for meat is one that I am both possessive of and answerable to. I don’t know how I will feel in the future, because this is a vast topic, but at the moment, I have no desire to eat any meat where I am not intimately involved in the process and make the pivotal decision.
If the animal wasn’t raised on my land, nurtured by my hand, and the moment of death chosen by me, I will not eat its meat.
Tags: Death, Food, Meat, Pigs, Slaughter
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I really appreciate the way you express yourself. I’ve watched the pig saga, utterly fascinated, and I was somehow glad to feel a pang of sadness when they were killed. I feel involved, and all I’ve done is sit here and watch. I admire your willingness to embrace reality in a world in which reality is all too easy to avoid.
Thanks, Allison.
I understand the story and I respect your emotions surrounding the situation. I’m not sure I understand the bridge between raising your own meat and not eating the meat someone else raised. I can see the bridge between your experience and not eating commercial meat but why not meat that a private farmer raised? There are plenty of dirty hippies out there willing to do what you did and then sell the meat.
I loved reading this. I think it’s a wonderful decision, in spirit, but sounds really complicated in practice:) I’m curious how you’ll handle going out to eat or eating at friend’s homes. Just be a vegetarian then?
Excellent post on the reality of meat in our diets. So many people float through life thinking that meat is nothing more than a processed foodstuff put on store shelves by a big company. Having participated in choosing a live chicken and preparing it through the end, I can understand some parts of your process.
It’s an awesome decision to choose to be personally responsible for any meat that you may eat. Best of luck to you in holding to that.
@Robert Yeah, I’m not sure I could explain it anymore, and maybe I’ll feel differently once I’m further from the experience or once I’ve done it more times. Part of it is related to the serious disconnection from the entire process of making meat and from animals in general that we usually have in this culture. If I lived in a culture that honored the lives of the animals we ate (and other animals) in a variety of everyday, comprehensive, intimate ways, it would matter much, much less who exactly was responsible for the death of the animal. I don’t, though, and at the moment, this awareness of the importance of that responsibility seems really fragile to me. Even if I were to choose meat from a person I believed to be treating the animals well, I would still have no connection with the actual animal and no connection with the transition from animal to meat. Right now, I am unwilling to be removed from that process even a little bit.
@Sarah Yes, I just won’t eat meat in most situations. For now, I’ll be a vegetarian away from home, and at home the only meat I’ll have is pork, until we kill and eat the chickens a couple of years from now.
@Wolf Thank you.
It’s all really interesting. Thank you for sharing. :)
This is VERY well written. Thank you for sharing this experience! I really enjoyed meeting Hampie and Yorkie – and petting their tummy’s and watching them play in the mud. I am so glad you showed me that this is not as complicated a process but still filled with meaning and reverence as well as filling a freezer with meat you can relate to. I really like the mention of the Cusp Moment from Stranger- that is an excellent analogy.
I have a very close connection to my food, where it comes from means a lot to me. I have reverence for my purple tomatoes and my CSA’s corn and the fruit and herbs i find in foraging. It feels good and wholesome to eat it. I would love to carry this over to my meat. So thank you and Josh for the inspiration! and Thank you Hampie and Yorkie for the memories and meat. :)
@Tricia Thanks! I’m glad you got to meet them, and you’ll have to come over to try the meat, too! And if you ever want to try raising pigs yourself, I’ve learned quite a bit in the last year.
Fascinating. I agree with you on one level — people are too far removed from the process, and I do believe that does contribute to the cruelty. But I think those closest to the process are fundamentally the cruel ones. Sin of omission vs. sin of commission, I guess. As for the circumstances under which I’d ever eat meat — I’m the exact opposite of you. I could *never* raise an animal AS meat. That is the ultimate cruelty to me, like raising a child for prostitution. Your talk about the ‘moment of death’ reminds of those movies where the villain talks about the moment of rape or death or whatever else HE is in control of that the victim is not. It sends shudders down my spine. The planning is the creepy part. The pre-meditation.
I have not eaten meat in 19 years, but I believe I would under ONE circumstance, and that is if I had to (ie, starvation was imminent, etc.) and then, and only then, I would want it to be a wild animal whose death was quick and swift and it all fell into the natural order of things, ie, eat or be eaten. I still can’t picture myself doing it, but maybe fishing or something I could *possibly* comprehend. I would like to know that their life was their own, though, until such time as they died suddenly. If I suddenly was murdered one day and wound up as some beast’s dinner, that would be the natural order of things. For me to be kept in a pen by someone who was carefully and purposefully planning my death… well yeah. Ugh.
I appreciate your insights, though. Love reading your blog, just wholeheartedly disagree with you on this one.
@Jo I can’t really dispute anything you said here. Joshua and I have talked about some of ideas you raise, and the potentially creepy aspect of the animal thinking you love it while all the while you’re moving towards its death, compared to the fundamentally honest relationship in hunting and killing a wild animal where at no time are you OR the animal in doubt about what’s happening. I’ve been conflicted and concerned about all the aspects of meat eating for a long time, and I still am, which is why I said my decision right now may change. I just know at this point that I don’t want to avoid the center of responsibility. I don’t want to look away or put it out of my mind.
Jo, I have started to write a response to you numerous times, and every time, it hasn’t felt right, and what it comes down to, I think, is that you don’t think that eating meat is moral/ethical, and I do. We just disagree on this fundamental point. And as long as that is true, any response I might have to the specific things you said in your comment, such as raising animals for meat is like raising a child for prostitution, or killing an animal is akin to a human serial killer having absolute power over his/her victim in the moment of death… any response I might make to those comments is missing the point. I just sum up your post as, “I don’t think eating meat is moral,” and I say, “Well, with all due respect, I disagree,” and then I don’t see how we’ve much more to say than that. Which is a shame, because I love discussing controversial issues with people who can talk intelligently and respectfully, which you seem to be, but there you go.
@Jo: I’ll say one more thing, and that’s if I’m ever to come to agree with you, it’ll be through experiencing first-hand the process of creating meat for human consumption. If eating meat is immoral, it’s only because the industrial food production system allows people to consume meat without experiencing the process of creating it, that people can continue to participate in the immoral action. When I got to know Yorkie and Hampie, I found myself unable to continue to buy factory-produced meats. Falling in love with those pigs made me realize that no pig deserved to be treated the way they are in industrial meat operations. At the end of their lives, I was still able to kill and eat them, and I’m not a murderous psychopath, which is, fundamentally, why I disagree with your premise that eating meat is immoral. If eating meat is immoral, and I loved an animal, then killed it and ate it, then I must be sick and immoral. But I don’t feel sick and immoral, so I must conclude that my actions are moral. Maybe someday, I’ll come to conclude that I was wrong this whole time, but I’m not there yet.
I love discussing controversial issues too. I agree… my visceral reaction to meat eating kind of eliminates me from a lot of conversation that could be had. I can have healthy debate on a variety of subjects, but cruelty to animals (or my perception of cruelty to animals) is often where the conversation ends with me because I feel such… ‘spiritual pain’, it actually hurts.
I will say this though: I don’t specifically think “eating meat is immoral”. I did say that under very specific circumstances, I could possibly eat meat. And I have never judged meat eaters, and further to that, I buy meat to feed to my cats. What I think is immoral is raising animals as food, or, alternately, animals being raised as food. Interestingly, this is exactly where we differ in our opinions on the subject. Maybe it has to do with my strong views on ‘bodily autonomy’ or control issues or who gets to decide who lives and dies and under what circumstances. But more importantly, the quality of life WHILE alive. And I can see that your pigs did have a better life under your care than if they were factory farmed — absolutely. Factory farming makes me feel physically ill. The Pollyanna in me believes they would have a better life still if they were allowed to… roam free, or whatever wild boars to. LOL And yes, I get that I’m being unrealistic in my thinking… but it is how I think when it comes to confined animals.
And yet STILL I buy cat food, that is most certainly the remnants of factory farmed meat. So I’m essentially a hypocrite. Most of western civilization is hypocritical in some regard, and I do my best to live the LEAST hypocritically as I can. I minimize my impact on the planet the best I can.
I used to live in the Canadian Arctic where I watched Inuit hunters bring home a caribou and use every part of it. Jewelry was carved from the bones, clothing was made from the hide. It disgusted me, yes, but I respected their culture and their hunter-gatherer lifestyle, and I do understand that in the arctic, you CANNOT grow vegetables, and it’s a meat-eating culture. That was where I first grew to accept the concept at all. Before that, there was no reasoning with me whatsoever. LOL I remained a strict vegetarian while I lived up there, because my reasoning at the time (and still is) that so long as I don’t HAVE to eat meat, I will not. There were grocery stores in my town. I had options.
RE: your last line in your second post that if you don’t feel sick or immoral, then you must not be… I just will remind you that serial killers and rapists and so forth… don’t feel what they are doing is wrong either. So it’s a flawed method of deducing what is moral and what is not (feelings). For a further look at ‘absolute morality’ google the TED speech delivered by Sam Harris. Fascinating.
Also, on an unrelated topic, check “KING CORN” — it’s a powerful documentary viewable in streaming video online about factory farmed corn. Unreal. http://www.livevideo.com/video/Drachnid/7ED1177127A54A15B0FB0A93106DEDE1/king-corn-1-4.aspx
I will say this though: I don’t specifically think “eating meat is immoral”
I apologize for mis-characterizing you.
I can have healthy debate on a variety of subjects, but cruelty to animals (or my perception of cruelty to animals) is often where the conversation ends with me
I pretty much totally agree, and I can see that there’s a spectrum of behavior where you, I, a factory farmer, and the Average American might all say, “cruelty to animals is wrong,” and still accept a wide variety of behaviors that others might think are totally unacceptable or totally acceptable. Which is not to negate the whole conversation by invoking moral relativism, just to point out that it’s interesting that we all say, “cruelty to animals is wrong,” and mean it, and mean something totally different.
Maybe it has to do with my strong views on ‘bodily autonomy’ or control issues or who gets to decide who lives and dies and under what circumstances.
I have strong opinions about bodily autonomy, and extend them to animals, mostly. I say “usually” because one exception to absolute bodily autonomy, for me, is when non-physical communication is impossible, and that’s often the case with animals. But I don’t extend the concept of bodily autonomy to acts like closing the door f my chicken coop at night, for example. The chickens would rather leave at daybreak, but I’m not up at daybreak, and leaving the door open all night would leave them vulnerable to predators. Physical coercion is inherent to the act of raising domesticated animals, which, I think is your main objection, but, based on my experience raising animals (and I’m talking pets, which I’ve had since I was a kid, as well as livestock, which is relatively new), I don’t think that the level of physical coercion that’s present in that relationship is harmful to the animal or myself. So, now I’ve switched the topic a bit, because I’m talking about physical coercion whereas before we were talking about killing, but the basic question of the violation of bodily autonomy seems the same to me.
The Pollyanna in me believes they would have a better life still if they were allowed to… roam free, or whatever wild boars to. LOL And yes, I get that I’m being unrealistic in my thinking… but it is how I think when it comes to confined animals.
This topic is made even more complex by the fact that domesticated and commercial breeds have had many of their survival skills bred out of them. If they were allowed to “roam free,” they likely would not survive, not only because they lack the foraging instincts to find their own food, but, in some cases, because they literally cannot gain sufficient nutrients from foraged food; they’ve been bred to gain weight quickly on commercial feed only.
And yet STILL I buy cat food, that is most certainly the remnants of factory farmed meat. So I’m essentially a hypocrite.
It’s impossible to be a moral person in an immoral culture and not be a hypocrite. It’s impossible to be sane in an insane culture and not be a hypocrite. It’s impossible to promote life in a culture with a death-urge and not be a hypocrite. “Use every man after his desert and who shall ‘scape a whipping?”
That was where I first grew to accept the concept at all. Before that, there was no reasoning with me whatsoever.
Whereas you see the killing of the animal as acceptable because the Inuit had no other way, I see the killing of the animal as acceptable because killing and eating are fundamental parts of living. I don’t think that killing an animal is something to revel in or to partake in carelessly or sadistically, but I don’t think it’s something to shy away from either. I’m going to die, and the fact that I can be reasonably sure that my death will not come at the hands of some animal that is eating me is, historically, the anomaly. After I die, something is going to eat me, as long as I’m not cremated that is, and that seems to me to be entirely appropriate.
RE: your last line in your second post that if you don’t feel sick or immoral, then you must not be…
A small correction: I said, “I must conclude,” not that “I must not be.” It’s a little tautological, so you could accuse me of rhetorical cheating, but basically what I said was that until I feel like my actions are immoral, I will conclude that they are moral. It’s tautological, but what else have I got to go on?
I just will remind you that serial killers and rapists and so forth… don’t feel what they are doing is wrong either.
I think the rape analogy may be the most relevant here, because we live in a culture where many acts that you and I might consider to be rape are treated as “just sex”. Therefore, there is no clear cultural message about what is and is not rape. Unlike serial killers, it’s plausible that a rapist might simply not have gotten the message that what he or she did was wrong. That’s not intended to excuse the rapist’s actions, just to point out the sad state of rape and sex in our culture. Likewise, I think you would argue that our cultural message about how it’s acceptable to treat animals is skewed, and so my personal moral compass about whether it’s okay to eat meat is unreliable. It’s all kind of rhetorical though, because it just comes down to an emotional conclusion. My actions feel right to me, and until they stop feeling right, that’s where the conversation ends, but like I said before, if my feelings about my actions are to change, it’ll be through direct experience of their consequences and conversations like this with people like you. There was a time when I would have thought that composting was gross and cry-it-out was a good way of getting your baby to sleep at night.
Issa,
First I hope you are well and I enjoy the issues you tackle. I wanted to tell you about a similar situation I had growing up. We were given a calf to bottle feed when I was in 4th grade. As the calf got older and became easy to handle we just assumed we would keep her and all would be well. Then the day came she went to slaughter and I remember very vividly the first time I tried to eat a burger I threw up. I just couldnt do it. We built an emmotional attachment with the calf and I could not eat her. Neither would my mom, brother or sister. My dad ended up getting pissed and giving it all away. Since then, many times I have seen the abusive and cruel behavior of the commercial beef, pork and poultry markets and it makes me sad we have become this type of society. One that is abusive, in general, to things that are important such as our food and eco system. Anyway, interesting stuff. Take care.
I
@Jason Hey, nice to see you here! :-) I’m curious what your meat-eating choices are now, given your childhood experience. Do you eat “conventional” meat or go with local/organic or are you a vegetarian or something else? Did you ever raise another animal for eating? I’m really interested these days about the different food choices people make.
I still eat meat but do go through spells when I see the abusive documentaries on tv and adjust how much I consume. I realize slaughter is a way of life and that is ok with me. I just hope the animals experience as little suffering as possible. Just wanting it to be humane if that makes sense. I wouldnt raise another animal for food. It is too easy to become attached. I prefer just to buy my meat at the gorcery store and go from there. Im a big fan of chicken and turkey and those seem to be healthier options. Although I do still enjoy a steak or burger. I prefer to buy from a small, family owned store opposed to Wal Mart or something like that. The meat is generally better quality, or at least it seems like it. Have you had any “flash backs” while in the midst of a meal and not be able to finish?
So far I’ve had a lot of sausage from our pigs (because I made and froze a huge batch of breakfast burritos) and pork chops a couple of times. The sausage doesn’t really register for me, perhaps because it’s more of an ingredient. The pork chops, though, were interesting. I wouldn’t say that I had a flash back, and I definitely finished the meal, but I was very aware the entire time what animal I was eating. It’s kind of hard to describe the feelings. There’s not any wrong-feeling about the process, it’s just a very different process than with eating broccoli!
@Jason: I realize slaughter is a way of life and that is ok with me.
Me too, in case there was any question. What is wrong with the way that commercial meat is raised has nothing to do with the slaughter. It has to do with how the animals are treated when they are alive, which is to say, horrifically. Killing an animal is an inevitable part of eating it; torturing the animal is not.
I wouldn’t raise another animal for food. It is too easy to become attached.
Indeed.
Have you had any “flash backs” while in the midst of a meal and not be able to finish?
No, not at all. In fact, of all the meat I’ve ever eaten, the meat from an animal that I raised and loved is the most unambiguously morally “clean”. I know that, every day of this animal’s life, it was happy, content, cared for, and loved, and I made that possible. If I have ever earned the right to eat an animal in my life, it was those pigs. I eat them with relish, and love them no less for it.
@ Joshua….You are correct about the treatment of animals we intend to use for food. It is aweful.
@ Issa…..I see your point about knowing the animal was cared for and not abused. Interesting scenerio I didnt think of but can appreciate. However, it still doesnt change my stance. Once im emmotionally attached it isnt going in my big mouth :)
Thanks for sharing that. As a life-long vegetarian, I appreciate the honest account. It sounds like you gave the pigs a great life.