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July 18, 2006

Take Responsibility for Your Food Choices

It is really quite humorous to me how many Americans eat meat and poultry and are at the same time entirely disconnected from the reality that what they are eating was once a living animal and was intentionally killed for food.

Take, for instance, a planned chain of grocery stores for Colorado that is seeking approval to slaughter chickens by electrocution each morning for its customers. Suddenly the public is having a conniption fit.

I won't deny that the horrors of corporate meat production and the slaughterhouse make me think twice about eating meat. In fact, that is the primary reason I support hunting and go hunting. A well-shot animal, after living a free life in the wide open country, dies in seconds and doesn't really understand what even happened. A commercially produced animal, on the other hand, after being crammed into disgusting quarters for weeks or months at a time, waits in line smelling blood and fear sometimes for hours before being hung upside down and bled to death or, in the case of chickens, electrocuted. It's disgusting.

But we don't think of that when we see the neat little packages of steaks and drumsticks lined up in the grocery store, do we? Few of us are willing to give up meat, and even fewer, it seems, are willing to take moral responsibility for our eating choices. For me, the responsible choice has been hunting – and I feel good knowing my license fees are working to protect wildlife habitat at the same time.

Posted by Becky at July 18, 2006 08:56 AM