Knowing Your Meat
I’ve inquired recently with a few farmers about whether I could see their slaughtering facilities and specifically the slaughtering itself. Generally, when I discuss this with most people (non-farmers), it is met with looks of horror, and is quickly followed by a question along the lines of “why would you want to see that?”
I guess I want to see it because I feel, at least on some moral level, that if I can’t watch say — a pig being slaughtered, then I don’t really have the right to eat it in the first place.
While catching up on my Next Iron Chef reading tonight after finally watching episode three this afternoon (go Cosentino!) Michael Ruhlman had also posted about this sentiment saying:
“…one of five things you should eat before you die is the meat of a freshly slaughtered animal, preferably having witnessed the slaughter.”
He then linked to this great essay at the New York Times about raising pigs for slaughter.
Barbara Kingsolver made what I consider to be a phenomenally great point in her book about people using different names for the commonly eaten meats than they use for the actual animal. (e.g. beef is cow, pork is pig)
What do you think? Is it important to understand where your meat comes from?
One Response to “Knowing Your Meat”
Your maternal grandmother grew up on a farm in Southern Illinois. As a teenager, it was often her task to grab a chicken, kill it, pluck it, dress it, and cook it–for the family dinner. Throughout her life, she loved the taste of chicken…in fact, fried chicken was her favorite meal!
By Your Mom! on Oct 27, 2007