If We Are What We Eat, God Help Us

WARNING: this video is not for the faint of heart. It isn't bloody. It attacks your heart and soul. From: http://www.humanesociety.org/. By way of Ruhlman and Chris Cosentino.

Beef. It's what's for lunch. Your kid's lunch. And if you think this isn't making its way into your daily MacD or other cheap meat, you're deluding yourself.

I'm not one of those folks who objects, on principle, to killing things for food. Human beings are omnivores, though we have historically found it difficult to be gluttons about it since meat was hard to find (when we hunted) and expensive to raise. Interestingly, our populations were also smaller as a result. We couldn't grow larger than the natural habitat could support. I know, a lot of us starved, or died of disease ...but some days I wonder if our intelligence at manipulating the food chain hasn't just postponed the inevitable. Given the environmental pressures and our now-ingrained meat gluttony, somewhere along the line we are going to pay a huge, if not catastrophic price.

But I digress. I've been posting lately about the need to pull back on our consumption of meat protein -- smaller servings, fewer meals centered around meat. Now I'm discovering another reason for examining our meat consumption: to have more impact over how animals are treated as they approach their deaths. We have the most control over what we buy for home cooking. So I suppose that's a start -- cook more at home with meat that you can determine has been raised and slaughtered with a focus on health and humane practices. There are several sources for meat in our area. Here's one family farm that provides a CSA as well as other types of meat purchasing (not organic or totally pasture raised). Here's another CSA that serves many local restaurants; it includes many purveyors with whom you might already be familiar. They provide locally grown and raised organic food for 50 weeks a year (they also have smaller subscriptions). Contact information for a number of locally grown/raised food is on the KC Food Circle web site.

None of these farmers states whether or not they support humane slaughter but I suspect they will respond if locavores start asking.