You know, I thought about this kind of sentiment for a while some years back, and I thought it might be a good idea - not for everyone, just for me. I'm the only one who can really say whether I'm taking moral responsibility for the origin and nature of what I'm putting into my body, or whether I'm just handwaving it away. I was a bit worried about this, because while I can live vegetarian for decent stretches of time (see my last three years' Lenten fasts for this), I don't much like keeping it up forever and I don't have the knowledge or tools necessary to go out and kill myself a deer. As my family hasn't got cows, the nearest 'meat-bearing' animals to where I live are deer, rabbits, and squirrels; deer are the highest on the list of edibles, I think, but frankly no one in my family would be willing to eat wild-killed venison- so even if I was taking an animal's life as an act of responsibility for other meat that I've eaten, I'd probably be wasting most of the meat. There's a good seventy or eighty pounds of meat on a healthy whitetail doe dropped during hunting season, and even if I stuck it all in the freezer, I expect a large portion of it would be ruined by the time I got through it all, were I the only one to eat it.
And then it occurred to me that I had gone fishing many, many times in my life. I've pulled animals from their homes and brought them into the light to die, and while I haven't killed them myself, I've eaten them afterwards. I haven't butchered the fish I caught myself, but I've cleaned and gutted fishes other people have caught, and I've gone through the process of pulling every single pin-bone from a salmon's back with a pair of tweezers. I've killed pet fish when they were too sick for methylene blue or malachite green to save, and I am not talking about the toilet, either; no, I am talking about putting the fish into a cup of water and setting it into the freezer so that the animal will have a relatively peaceful death, instead of being subjected to the horrors of a municipal sewage system.
I have caught, I have killed, I have butchered, I have cooked. I have seen what it takes to put the meat on my table, and I have taken part in that myself. If there is blood on the hands of meat-eaters, then yes, my hands are bloodied- but I accept that responsibility, and have taken part in the process at every step of the way save perhaps for breeding the animals for meat myself.
Then again, I tend to think that quite a lot of the world would be in better shape if people were more aware of the source of things they take for granted. Food, clothing, shelter, whatever- many people would not take their lives and all they interact with so lightly if they had to properly understand what came to them, just *once*. We're awfully disconnected from the source of nearly everything here in the States, and there are days when I think we could use a good 'how did you think you got where you are now?' slap in the face or three.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go save my work and head home before the snow gets bad. And then I have to go see if I can find some cheap rovings on eBay so I can learn to spin.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-12 01:32 pm (UTC)And then it occurred to me that I had gone fishing many, many times in my life. I've pulled animals from their homes and brought them into the light to die, and while I haven't killed them myself, I've eaten them afterwards. I haven't butchered the fish I caught myself, but I've cleaned and gutted fishes other people have caught, and I've gone through the process of pulling every single pin-bone from a salmon's back with a pair of tweezers. I've killed pet fish when they were too sick for methylene blue or malachite green to save, and I am not talking about the toilet, either; no, I am talking about putting the fish into a cup of water and setting it into the freezer so that the animal will have a relatively peaceful death, instead of being subjected to the horrors of a municipal sewage system.
I have caught, I have killed, I have butchered, I have cooked. I have seen what it takes to put the meat on my table, and I have taken part in that myself. If there is blood on the hands of meat-eaters, then yes, my hands are bloodied- but I accept that responsibility, and have taken part in the process at every step of the way save perhaps for breeding the animals for meat myself.
Then again, I tend to think that quite a lot of the world would be in better shape if people were more aware of the source of things they take for granted. Food, clothing, shelter, whatever- many people would not take their lives and all they interact with so lightly if they had to properly understand what came to them, just *once*. We're awfully disconnected from the source of nearly everything here in the States, and there are days when I think we could use a good 'how did you think you got where you are now?' slap in the face or three.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go save my work and head home before the snow gets bad. And then I have to go see if I can find some cheap rovings on eBay so I can learn to spin.