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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Harvey

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: Harvey Ussery <harvey@themodernhomestead.us>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Harvey
  • Date: Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:17:29 -0500

Jaylee Barzo wrote:
Have you ever killed and butchered an
animal so you could eat it? Ever looked into
its eyes as it died so you could eat meat?

Jaylee
Dragonfly Creek Farm
Oregon

Puh-leez! Who do you suppose you're talking to, friend? I'm a homesteader with chickenshit on his boots and decades of experience putting much of his own food on his table. Yes, I have killed and butchered many animals who have graced my table (couple of thousand fowl of all types, many kid goats, a few lambs, squirrels, and groundhogs. And yes, I always make it a point to look in the eyes of that dying animal--I do not *want* to avoid confronting the essential tragedy of killing a beautiful animal for food.

And no, I do not cede the moral high ground to *anyone* who assumes she is more completely avoiding unnecessary suffering of living beings because she doesn't put food on her table the same way I do. I am just as passionate about maximizing the well-being of living beings as any vegan on this list.

You felt free to ask me a personal question, so I'll ask you one: What is the percentage of the food on your table, year round, that you produce yourself, or that you buy face to face from producers you know personally, so you also know how that food was produced, and at what cost to living beings of all sorts? My estimate is 85% for my own table. If you have not a clue where your vegetarian fare was produced, by whom, at what cost to other players in the local ecology, including economically oppressed humans--then do not presume a moral superiority based on the fact that I do indeed "kill and eat," in the context of a system of food production which is most of all about regeneration, about healing, about ensuring an agricultural base "unto the seventh generation."

May I recommend Lierre Keith's THE VEGETARIAN MYTH--it's most instructive in this context.

Thank you.

~Harvey

--
Harvey in northern Virginia
www.themodernhomestead.us





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