To ask if you had to kill the animal yourself, would you still eat meat?

[WhatDoYouThink2017]

To ask if you had to kill the animal yourself, would you still eat meat?

It seems that a lot of people say no, but that does confuse me, as if less people ate meat, there would be a less of a demand.

This isn’t me saying eating meat is wrong btw, I absolutely believe there is a food chain, but the food chain is slightly unfair. Animals are bred and kept in awful conditions for their meat, etc. which is where I believe it’s unfair. Other people seem to agree.

So, if you could humanely keep your own animals and kill them, would you? Or would you go without meat?

"If you HAD to kill the animal, to eat the meat, then you would likely be in a situation where you had to produce a lot of your own food, in order to eat."

What? No it doesn't. If I go hiking in the Appalachians and I get lost, I'm not going to set up my own farm to survive!

In a world of overwhelming consumer choice, however, it's incredibly easy to eat very, very well without eating meat. Most people I know who have gone veggie, even later in life, don't miss it after a very short time.

Yes. I am well aware of the fact something has to die so I can eat it though.

How do people think we survived before you just could pop to Tesco of the butcher for your meat?

Of course most people would still eat meat of they had to kill the animal themselves, that's what most of the human race used to do. As others have said, it would actually be better as at least you would just then be responsible for the way that your meat is raised and killed.

This whole 'feeling sad for animals because they have been killed for us to eat' is very new and only really exists in societies where we have such an abundance of different food that we can make these sorts of choices in the first place. What a luxury that is.

Yes, I would, assuming I'd been trained how to do it quickly and competently.

It would be an utterly different mode of living, though: it's not like you fancy a bit of bacon so you kill the pig. Poultry and small game are one thing, but killing a larger animal creates a huge amount of perishable food, plus other usable materials, so you'd have to very carefully plan how to deep-freeze, preserve or sell/barter all the different cuts of meat. If you've raised the animal yourself (on a small-holding or similar), you don't waste anything.

It's the opposite of the casual, 'oh, pork chops are BOGOF so let's chuck some in the trolley' approach. I'm not sure I'd actually like to live that way, but it would certainly make you extremely aware of what you eat, and that's rarely a bad thing. Factory farming gives me the horrors.

I couldn’t kill an animal and then eat it unless I was in a desperate situation.

I am a farmers daughter and I’ve eaten livestock before now but still.

Yes I would.

Yes, although I'd probably eat less, mind you if I could only eat bread I'd baked myself I probably wouldn't have that much.

Life is short, I'm fine with the whole "meat is a dead cute thing", I just don't have the inclination to sort it myself.

Yes

Yes

Although the gutting and butchering can take a while if the animal is big

Yes, but way less often-seems like a lot of trouble to go to.

Unless you mean just kill not butcher etc then yes and the same amount. I wouldn't eat meat it I wasn't comfortable with animals dying.

I insist on unarmed hand to hand combat with my dinner each evening. That’s fine if I fancy chicken, less so if beef. Or crocodile.

Grew up in Pakistan where we would sacrifice a cow/sheep at home on Eid al Agha and distribute meat to family and the poor.

Pakistani kids get used to being there and also to help put the meat in bags ready to distribute.

At least you know the animal is being killed humanely when you do it at home.

Yes, and have killed a chicken for dinner - uncles have free range chickens, and they also go hunting for deer for the freezer. Rural US life hasn't changed that much in a century. I've grown up eating some form of meat at most meals but very little of it, as mum was used to having to make the pig last for months. I will buy a chicken and make several meals from it, have sausages one night then next will be potatoes fried in sausage drippings, etc.

Eid al Adha, blasted autocorrect

Eating it would be the least of my problem. Killing it would be a struggle!

I wholeheartedly support self raised meat for the table and it's my ideal but I haven't done it because I think I would struggle with it. I absolutely love when my farmer friends give me some of their self slaughtered meats though, can definitely cope with that.

I barely eat meat anymore for this very reason
We all need to wake up to factory farming and the brutal realities

How do people think we survived before you just could pop to Tesco of the butcher for your meat?

Apparently in my family - they used to raise the pigs and pay someone to kill it then get carcass back and pay them in final meat products they then make – was the way it was done apparently.

FIL used to get someone in he knew to wring the necks non-laying hens. He had no issue with fish - and they plucked turkeys and skinned rabbits just didn't like that job.

So I'd look to outsource first - but yes I guess I could do it so I would still eat meat even with the extra work involved.

I would be more likely to eat it because then I would know what is was, where it came from, how it was handled after that.

There are many jobs I couldn't do but that doesn't stop me using the service. I cannot imagine myself being a surgeon, a coal miner, going down a sewer or constructing a high rise building amongst other things but I'm happy to use the result of others work who do these things.

if i was faced with impending death - then yes, of course i would!

I would

Oh yes, and killing a pig wouldn't mean meat for one meal. But for months worth, it would need to be sold, cured/baked to last longer etc. Plus the costs of keeping and slaughtering 1 pig would be considerably higher. So yes, meat would be less "every day, throughout the year" foods.

But then the premise of this sort of question seems to be that if you balk at the idea of having to kill animals yourself , it's due to not properly linking the meat that comes wrapped in plastic from the supermarket to the cute animals gambolling in the fields. Rather than "producing certain foods is hard work, time consuming and messy".

I have been asked several times by vegetarians and vegans if I would still eat /eat as much meat if I had to kill it myself - no one asks if you had to store grain, mill it and then bake your own bread, would you eat as much of that. I bet if you could only buy cocoa powder, not chocolate bars, few but the most determined chocoholics would bother outside of special occasions.

Yes, if I was living like Little House on the Prarie or some such. Not necessary these days, though.

I could, I have and I do. Most of the red meat I eat is killed by me or my husband. Can't be arsed with killing chickens though, but I certainly have in the past (and geese and ducks and quail...). It isn't a lovely job (and anyone who actively enjoys killing probably shouldn't be allowed to do it) but lots of things aren't fun.

These is no moral superiority it doing it yourself though. We just produce excellent meat due to the salt marshes we graze the sheep on and we like to know exactly how the animal has been reared. I pay a plumber because I'm not good at plumbing. I pay a mechanic because I really don't care how things work, just that they do. If everybody did everything for themselves there would be no jobs.