On Knowing Where Meat Comes From
The importance of food literacy and acknowledging eating meat is eating animals
Americans are disconnected from food. They are happy going about their life buying meat from the grocery store without asking too many questions. Given that only 2% of the U.S. population works in the agricultural sector, it's no surprise that the remaining 98% are agriculturally illiterate. Industrial-scale agriculture and its efficiencies have allowed for fewer people to grow our food, but our reliance on farmers has come at the cost of being ignorant of how our food is raised.
I used to go hunting and fishing with my old man. We cleaned, gutted, and processed everything on our own and ate every bit of what we caught. Nothing went to waste. After we were done, the remaining carcass was used one last time for soup.
Only about 5% of Americans currently hunt. You may have your own opinions of hunting, and that I respect that. But my point here is that along with the 2% who work as farmers and 5% of active hunters, we have a society that is disconnected from how meat is processed.
I fear that most will remain happily disconnected so long as meat price is low and pre-packaged cuts are available at the market. People don't want to see a pig being hunt at the butcher store, even though the reality is that pork comes from pigs, beef comes…
