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I ran over a squirrel last week. It was less thrilling than I anticipated. I also did not eat it.

Bourdain talks about such a thing in the preface to A Cook's Tour when he goes to the family home of one of his Hispanic cooks and they do a semi-ritualistic killing of a hog. The impression I got was that he felt most cooks should have to do that at least once for various reasons.

In the 4th grade, our school made us watch a film of a cow being made to meat. It followed a cow from the pen, injection, slaughter, draining of blood, flaying the skin, to being chopped in parts. In the next film, they did the same with a pig and even showed how sausages and the casing were made.

It was in a dark classroom and we had 2-3 teachers to "help" if people got sick but they couldn't get out of it. More than anything, it intrigued me.
The people who got sick were given something sour to suck on and stood to the side to watch.

When I was older, I wondered if this was required viewing at all schools, or something the teacher thought was nifty. Anyone else watch a similar film?

I think actually killing the meat you will eat makes you appreciate that animals sacrifice much more. and lets face it, there would be less of an issue with humane meat, if we all had to raise and kill our own. and to lighten this up does anyone know the ancient meaning of vegeterian? bad hunter. (please dont be insulted if you are a veg. I respect that and admire your choice, no insults meant)

Oy Vey!

PerkyMac - No. The job of our government is to listen to beef and dairy lobbyists who are more than happy with the industrial food system. Quality (i.e. safe!) meat is only for the people who a) know to buy it and b) can buy it.

Look at the food pyramid. It's a joke - even the revised standards (make half of your grains whole?!) form a fairly unhealthy diet.

Should newspaper readers cut down trees?

i'd be a vegetarian for sure if i had to do it myself, and, in fact, i find myself eating less and less meat these days.

I'm all for killing and eating it I did and do, but the inhumain treatment of animals is another thing thats what gets my blood boiling...perkymac the American legal system is all about money, next time you get a chance go to the county courtroom and watch the lawyers swim around the court rooms like sharks.....sorry for the rant...just a raw nerve

@renzata.......I think it's a matter of degree - the crime they uncovered was far more severe and far reaching than the crime they committed. They were prosecuted by the owners of the "farm" who cared more about hiding the evidence of their own crimes than they did about a couple of kids entering their property.

I believe I could kill an animal if that's what it took to put food on the table. I'm glad I've never had to, but I definitely could and would.

@renzata, I can't agree with, "if you couldn't honestly answer yes to the question, 'Could you kill an animal for food?,' you might want to reflect on your decisions". I know plenty of happy meat eaters who will never have the fortitude to kill a tiny spider that's running away from them let alone slaughter an animal for food. But we also have to remember that this is a different time than it was a century or two ago when considerable more folks hunted their own food.

@LunaPierCook I have to disagree with your disagreement. If you eat meat but don't think you could kill to eat it, you should, at least, think about that decision.

I think it's good idea to participate in the slaughter of an animal at least once.
It isn't fun, it troubling, and it does make you think, hard; I held chickens down for a friend when she was slaughtering several on her and her husband's farm. I was shaking, afterwards. I don't know that I could actually slaughter one myself without very very strong incentive.

I don't think that newspaper/tree or driving/paving analogies quite hold up, because neither of those instances involves a living creature, struggling frantically to REMAIN alive. I also don't mean that people should do this as a sort of act of contrition/penance for eating meat; it just seems that one should be willing to understand what is involved in getting a tasty roast chicken or steak on the table, and there seems to be no sound argument for not facing the reality.

I still love meat, I still eat meat. But I also consider what went into the end product, and I do put a lot more thought into my selections when buying meat.

Great line, LunaPierCook. Sounds like a rose is a rose is a rose which leads one to ask (maybe it does, for some people anyway but maybe not for others undoubtedly) the same thing about meat.

Meat: Meat is meat is meat. Or is it?

Meat once was a living thing that, when living, can take on anthropomorphic shapes in the mind of man (or woman, for that matter).

If one likes to think about closely exploring the personal philosophic and moral territory that goes along with what one puts in ones mouth, then one might want to think about killing what they eat - but if one does not like to think about these things then there is certainly no rule that says one has to do so.

One does learn things (if one is prone to thinking - it's quite obvious to me that there are people who either are not prone to thinking or alternately work very hard to only think in certain ways that keep them comfortable) the closer one gets to anything.

If you go out with a road crew to help build a road, yes - probably the experience of driving on that road will be different afterwards. That is, if the brain and heart have been paying attention during the time spent rather than thinking about any number of other things like "when can I eat lunch" or "this is really boring - when can I get to a computer to see what's going on at Serious Eats".

If you milk a cow, then drinking a glass of milk might have a certain different shape than if you always buy milk in a paper or plastic carton and have never seen a cow in real life snorting on your face and perhaps pooping on
your foot.

I do not believe there is a "foodie" (silly word - not authentic in any sense I can find) here that would argue that making their own pasta brought them closer to some sort of revelation about pasta in some way - usually it takes the form of a swooning conversation about how wonderful it is in all ways to make one's own pasta . . . that it not only improves the taste-level but also the soul (in some undefined fashion) so that one becomes a more worthy person of esteem in the eyes of fellow-men (and of course, fellow-women).

I like to do as much as is possible in terms of things that I enjoy learning about. So yes, I have killed some things I've eaten and will kill more (heh heh heh - so bloodthirsty! Dearie me!). The knowledge gained (both personal and practical) in those experiences is something valuable to me.

That's not to say that "everyone should". That's rather extreme and to say something like that is to make the species we call human more animalistic and predatory than thinking and non-predatory.

Meat is meat is meat. Except when it's not, I think.

And LunaPierCook, you'll have to try harder to be disagreeable if you really wish to hit that stride. :)

@Karen, I'm suddenly curious as to how much coffee you had prior to 9:30 this morning. ;-)

As a vegetarian, I have a lot more respect for hunters than I do for someone who refuses to touch “icky” raw meat but will happily chow down once someone else has cooked it. Hunters have actually thought about the meat; they understand where it comes from, they don’t shoot more than they need, and they use as much as they possibly can from the animal. I think that if you're going to eat meat, you need to understand where it comes from.
And yes, I have grown my own vegetables, volunteered at my local CSA, so I know where my food comes from! ;-)
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