To Hunt or Not to Hunt

Growing up I had a strong sense of right and wrong with respect to animals: anything that hurt them was wrong. Even when I would watch movies as a child I remember my mother trying to comfort me as I sobbed after a horse was killed in a western shoot out. Silly as that may be I still have a fondness for animals that might make you think I would be against eating them, but this is not the case. I was raised eating chicken and beef and when I was about ten and discovered that “beef” came from cows it saddened me, but didn’t stop me from begging my mom to take me to McDonald’s.

My mom raised me in a poor area in Los Angeles County yet always managed to keep us out of apartment living. We always had a house and always had pets, so when she announced she wanted to start a dairy farm I was all for it!! I didn’t realize how much effort it took to actually care for animals other than cats and dogs. Dairy goats have to be milked twice a day (at least) even if you have no need for all the milk, if you don’t milk them they will stop producing it. As you may remember I was opposed to goat milk from the start, and you can imagine my shock when my mother had one of the older goats butchered for meat!! It was hard to know that our oldest goat Aphrodite was in separate packages marked ground meat in the freezer but when my mom actually made spaghetti with her I couldn’t handle it. She begged me to try it, and after fighting to no avail I did. I was not impressed. I could tell it was different, but not in the same disgusted way I could tell with the goat milk. It was different, but not gross. I never ate goat again, mostly because I’ve considered them pets and it is hard to think of them otherwise.

Harvesting your own food is good for not only the environment but also for your own health in knowing the diet and the treatment of the plant or animal you are going to consume. It is definitely advantageous to have a stronger connection with your food; it makes you waste less because it is more meaningful. It is an investment of time, money, sweat and sometimes even blood, so the final product on your dinner plate has more meaning then shelling out twenty bucks for a prepackaged piece of meat that is so far removed from the animal it was originally, without a label it would be unrecognizable.

We like to think that we are more civilized than we were 200, 100, even 50 years ago. But a lot of the problems we have with overconsumption and unfair distribution of food and wealth come from not having direct contact with the food and the environment that make our lives worth living. It is not only moral to hunt for food, if it were the rule instead of the exception to the rule we wouldn’t have many of the problems we face today. Granted I would have a hard time with it at first, but like anything that was meaningful, with hard work and determination the benefits would far outweigh the costs.

I think there are valid arguments on both sides so I’m recommending two books with opposing viewpoints…..

Swan, A. James. In Defense of Hunting. HarperSanFransisco, 1995. P

Bronner, J. Simon. Killing Tradition: Inside Hunting and Animal Rights Controversies. U Press of Kentucky, 2008. P