Of all of the changes that we’re making, I think the switch to ethical eating may be the most challenging- for me anyway. I love to eat. I always have. But I don’t like to eat just anything (though, alright- I will if I’m hungry, or moody, or bored). I prefer foods rich in spices and exotic flavours. I love fresh fruit that can’t be grown anywhere near our zone (which borders on a 3 to 2) and cheeses that I couldn’t possibly make myself. And meat… don’t get me started. I really enjoy a good piece of meat. So a switch to ethical eating is, well, daunting to say the least.
I use the term “ethical eating” to refer to eating foods that I don’t feel guilty consuming. So for instance, eating produce that we grow ourselves or is produced locally as opposed to the yummy mangos and bananas sprayed with chemicals that have to be flown in. Avoiding processed foods containing such ingredients as palm oil, which is destroying huge tracts of land and displacing families, never mind the environmentally unfriendly factory practices that produce the final products, and the shipping… Not eating factory farmed meat, and so on. Things that leave me with an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach that isn’t indigestion but good old fashioned guilt.
I think that I can handle the local produce. With our soil building and plans for a small greenhouse, I believe we’ll be able to meet most of our needs. Eventually, all of them. Maybe not as exciting as coconuts and fresh lemons, but sufficient. Cheese, well we do plan on keeping goats within the next couple of years, so I could foreseeably learn how to make my own cheese. Besides which, I’m lactose intolerant so if I have to give up some dairy it’s not an entirely bad thing. Chocolate- I’m not a huge fan anyway, that’ll be a bigger adjustment for Shane who I think would be happy if all foods were dipped in it. The meat… now that concerns me.
I have no vegetarian inclinations. None. My favourite food after a long day of work is steak. I’ve ‘gone vegetarian’ for periods of time when there was no choice and the drama was downright comical (to everyone but me). I moan, and swoon, and put on a great big show worthy of Scarlet O’Hara and when I finally escape whatever vegetarian home we’re staying at, I race to the closest place that serves meat and wolf down a man sized meal. “I’ll have the bacon, sausages, steak and eggs- over easy please. Oh, you’re supposed to pick one? Mmm, I’ll just pay extra thanks.”
So I have nothing against eating meat. But I do take issue with the way that animals are raised for food. Easy enough right? Raise animals, treat them well, make sure they have a good life, and then butcher them. Or, equally palatable (no pun intended)- hunt. I think I mentioned in an earlier blog that I did learn to shoot this year, and I’m a natural, so I could take up hunting next year. Problem solved, right?
Not quite. I don’t know if I can kill an animal. Sure, I can eat something that someone else killed. (For the record, I am very easy going on hypocrites- I give them a long leash. Don’t email me your thoughts.) I just don’t know when push comes to shove if I can actually kill an animal myself. I’d like to think that I could, but I’m the same person who tries to warn the spiders that Shane will see them if they build their webs in such conspicuous areas and physically moves them to ‘safer’ locations (they never listen). And our so-called “barn cats”, which I’m madly allergic to and swore never to bond with, have a carpeted area in our garage with a double insulated house and are fed and watered daily. I just don’t know.
I have this romantic vision of hunting, a quick kill and giving the animal proper thanks prior to butchering it and bringing it home to feed my family. I’m just not sure it’ll play that way in real life. I could very well end up sobbing and throwing up over the poor dead thing.
So I’m left with a dilemma. Either develop the stomach for killing or stop eating meat. Sure, I could leave it to Shane but that doesn’t sit well with my conscience either. I believe if you can’t do it yourself, that speaks too loudly to ignore. Oh, I guess not entirely ‘too loudly’ to be ignored since it is my current practice but I suspect it will eventually get to me as all my nagging does. It’s funny, how doing the ‘wrong thing’ is so amazingly easy while doing the ‘right thing’ (and I’m of course being entirely subjective here) is ridiculously difficult and sometimes requires years of self-talk and condemnation.
Guess we’ll see what happens. I do know that we can’t go on eating the way that we do. A move to more ethical practices would not only weigh easier, it may be the only option left sooner than later. And maybe that’s the ticket- having no option but to do the right thing. You still get points for that, right? 😉
You may have overlooked a third option. Find a local (meat) farmer with similar views as yourself. I’ve made some connections with farmers here in Nova Scotia. They grass feed and finish the cattle. The cows have a great big field that overlooks the ocean.
Their grain silo fell over from disuse during a wind storm and everyone cheered.
These people are within an hour of my home. I have no qualms in giving them my money and consuming their products.
Good luck!
That is a good idea Arnica. Unfortunately in an area of about 5,000,000 acres and 5,000 people farming around here tends to be pretty large scale. I’ll keep my ear to the ground though! Thanks! 🙂
I hear you! I consider veggies as something my girlfriend MAKES me eat with meat, not an alternative to!!!! I am not where you are yet (thats for sure!) food wise, but i have dabbled a little in home preserving and such. I agree with Arnica, with the move towards locavore eating, there has to be someone in your neck of the woods not doing factory type beef… otherwise, CHICKENS!!! Before i had to become a condo dweller, I considered a chicken tractor for my small city lot… i doubt my neighbors would have been happy, but it would have kept me in chickens and eggs for most of the year. maybe a small cob or earthbag coop, built onto the side of your new house, so it would share in the thermal mass heating effect!!
You are at a crossroads… and it’s one that I fear myself coming to… cause i would just sit right down and make a roast beef sandwich!
I’ve been thinking chickens. Actually I’d like to have chickens, goats, and maybe a couple of pigs but I’m a way off being able to keep anything. Once the house is finished we’ll have more time. And bees- I really want to keep bees too! Man, this ‘project’ is turning out to be something crazy! Thanks for the support Dave!
“I have this romantic vision of hunting, a quick kill and giving the animal proper thanks prior to butchering it and bringing it home to feed my family. I’m just not sure it’ll play that way in real life. I could very well end up sobbing and throwing up over the poor dead thing.”
Had a hog once that had some sort of cranial armor – after five .22 bullets bounced off his head, and not even the 9mm taking him down I just jabbed the K-Bar in his neck and let it bleed out. That was not a fun day. No angst, more like “will you die already? Got a dollar fifty in ammo invested in you.” Whack chickens – that’s kindergarten. I cry when I put down a dog or one of our milk goats.
I don’t get all spiritual and grovelly at kill time. I gave the animals good care and you don’t see the wolf bow his head and pay homage to souls before he tears into the flesh. Invoking the deities makes the act unnatural if you think about it. Sells copy, but pointless. “Hey Tyson’s – screw you” is the deepest thought that goes through my head.
Eat the damn banana, but at the same time plant a bunch of whatever fruits in your zone. Run the chainsaw but know how use and sharpen a crosscut saw. The power will be out soon enough – “prepping” a room for painting is taping off and tarping the floor but it sure isn’t putting paint on the walls. Self sufficiency requires action – actually doing something. Time to get busy.
I can’t darn socks. I’d trade out butchering for mending – if there was anyone left in this fast food culture of ours that knew how to knit something besides fluffy mufflers. What’s your specialty?
Hmmm… Well that’s downright poetic brother. 🙂
Not sure that I have a ‘specialty’. It wouldn’t be knitting fluffy mufflers, we can safely rule out that skill. Honestly, I don’t know that you’d say I have any real skills with regards to this lifestyle- quite yet. I’m determined, I’ll say that for me. That’ll have to make up for experience for now. And I’ve been nothing if not busy.
Great Post Brandee
A couple of good ones lately. Funny how the snow starts flying up north there, and everyone starts getting all philosophical. Now if we could just get some damn moisture down here in the desert!
Certainly the locavore option would allow local meat, were it available, but I have another thought. I certainly recognize and can appreciate your desire to sustain yourself, and not leave the dirty work to others. And hey, its your conscience, but what if it turns out that Shane is the one with the knack for making cheese? That wouldn’t weigh heavy right, because there is no death. So really it seems that, like my wife, you figure that you should be able to do the deed in order to eat the meat. Nothing wrong with that, and maybe not as bad as you expect once you try it.
I do think though, that there is really value in having raised the animal yourself, and knowing that it is going to be eaten, allowing yourself time to prepare for the inevitable, and also experiencing the good life that you were able to provide.
That makes it taste even better, kinda like how your home produce just tastes better.
But community is there for a reason. Knowing that you would be able to harvest your meat animals, and actually having to do it every time are not necessarily the same. Kind of like plunging a toilet-you know how and can do it, but its okay if someone else does it too.
And hey, you might be able to have bananas indoors, if you have a sun space. Folks down here in the Earthships commonly grow banana plants indoors. Not much luck with the coconuts though, unless you were wanting to build a 4th story on one of your domes…
Richard
I like that, that makes sense. I may just be able to do that. Thanks Richard. P.S.- I just read “UFOs for Christmas”- love it! What an incredible writer.
You’ve got tons of great posts, and these are great comments too, I just stumbled on this article, and remembered reading this post, then I thought you might find it interesting anyway:
http://www.postcarbon.org/article/273686-beyond-food-miles#_edn1
Anyway, I’ve been keeping up w/yours, and your husbands blog, both are great, and have you guys on my short blog roll now. So shortly after I hit up Owen’s blog, I hit up you guys’ blogs. Keep it up!
Hey Luke! Thanks for the article, I’m heading outside but I’ll be sure to check it out this evening. So are you building? Or in the planning stages?
I’m still in the planning stages, trying to figure out financially how we can build and live at the same time, haha. I think we may either buy a house w/a little land to build the earthbag house on the same property, then rent the older home later. We could also buy an rv, build, then sell the rv later. Idk yet. But we can’t rent the way we do now, and purchase a block of land financially yet. Charlotte isn’t astronomical like out west, but it’s still not exactly cheap.
But my only concern is to buy land asap before it’s too much to buy, y’know? (that’s Canadian slang for you)
So far I’ve taken a workshop in Portland, and found someone about 3 hrs away who’s building an addition to his existing EB house to learn a bit more before I take the plunge (his link is http://asustainablelife.info). I’m also still in the process of building a garden wall on the weekends w/mesh bags. They’ve worked out great, it’s the plaster that I’ve got to get a handle on.
But I’ve got hope knowing that you guys are doing basically what we want to do. We’ll make it happen, needs to be sooner than later.