The word has a brutal tone: slaughter. Is it the meaning that makes it brutal or the word itself? The slow slide of the slaugh to the harsh sibilance of the T, the er drawn out, a knife slicing through skin.
I don’t want to be glib about it. Slaughtering, (or butchering or harvesting) animals is not something I take lightly. It is true, it is hard, it is messy. Both physically and ethically. How can we take another creature’s life? How can we name creatures that we eat? Why do we do it when it is so messy?
Love. Just like death, love is messy in all the ways. We love our animals. We care for them, treat them when they’re sick (if we can) and are compassionate enough to cull them if they’re in too much pain. We feed them well, we scratch behind the pigs’ ears and cuddle the bottle baby sheep that run up to us. We do all the things we would do for a pet. But at the end of their time on earth— a time that we determine, not nature— we harvest them to nourish our family and community. We whisper gratitude as we stun, as we cut, as we witness the beat of life flow out of the animal. With the sheep and goats, the skin is removed, often saved to tan and make into rugs. The jeweled innards are saved for eating (liver, heart, kidneys) or compost (stomach, intestines—even though these could be eaten and are in many traditional cultures). We take the life of the animal and turn it into food. We cut it into cookable pieces, pack our freezer full of nourishment. We are connected to our food every step of the way.
Every meal we sing gratitude, we acknowledge who we are eating, who is helping our kids grow, who is keeping our bodies strong. When we don’t know the name, we say the animal, helping our kids connect what they’re eating to the animal it came from. This is not gruesome; it is knowledge that they need to be connected to the animals, to all the beings of this earth. Just like they know that the broccoli or beets are from our garden, I want them to know that this roast is from a pig, the steak is from a neighbor’s cow, these chops are from our sheep. Maybe Thomas or Pumpkin or Prince. Or just pig, cow, sheep. Either way, we honor the origin, the life that was taken, sunshine/grass/grain turned into meat.
Humans have had predator/prey relationships since humans were…well, human. Animal husbandry came later and in all sorts of forms. In the western US, indigenous folks control-burned land to attract animals for hunting. It wasn’t as ‘managed’ as keeping livestock within electric fences, but it was still a symbiotic and intentional relationship.
We contain the animals we eventually eat as a form of care. Not in crates or cages, but within barns or electrified fences in the field. We also hunt and fish and forage as long as there is balance in the ecosystems we exist within.
And we believe in the power of nutrient dense meat! Some bodies don’t need much, some bodies (like mine) need a lot to be strong and healthy. The bioavailability of nutrients in meat is undeniable. I don’t think there would be such a huge market for “meat substitutes” if our bodies didn’t inherently crave meat, know that that’s where the most nutrients are as well as the least anti-nutrients that are found in many plant foods. Again, it’s animals turning grass and grains into nutrients we can more readily absorb! It’s amazing and I’m so grateful.
This essay could ramble on, but in the end, it’s about the health of our bodies, the health of these animals, the health of this planet. It is all a circle, we are all connected, and there is always, always a sacrifice to sustain life, whether we consume plants or animals.