If you eat meat you should meet your meat. Meaning you should know the route your meat took to get to your mouth. Our ancestors and First Nations people have known their meat for thousands of years. This deep knowledge and understanding helped them respect nature’s bounty; appreciate the blessing and protect the source for all to enjoy. In modern times we need to re-learn these lessons to become conscious and responsible consumers of meat and animal products.

My journey came in three steps:

Step One: Visiting a working farm.

Step Two: Working/volunteering on a farm.

Step Three: Raise food animals or Hunt

One: Visitations.

We all visited petting zoos as kids, but working farms are a whole different animal. Hehe, get it? Anyhoo. I got to see the dirty end of things: poops, blood, wastes, sick animals, dead animals. It’s all part of reality of meat production. There’s also the cute bunnies, curious goats, docile cows, noisy chicks, funny ducks. All will have to end up on someone’s dinner plate at some point. Not an easy fact to swallow.

We humans are compassionate animals. The well-being of others affect us deeply. So when we see fun-loving animals having a good old time we feel bad about killing them and eating them. Full respect to vegetarians and vegans, but I choose to eat meat just like many of my ancestors and aboriginal peoples. How did they love their animals but also have the heart to slaughter them for food?

I got a lot out of visiting working farms and gained full respect to farmers who raise animals for the rest of us. But I am still wanting to know more. So I decided to get my hands dirty.

Two: Helpping Out:

I was lucky enough to live close to farms and when the opportunity came up I jumped at them. I helped transport piglets, feed them, play with them. I milked a yak in Tibet. I slaughtered and skinned a rabbit.

Do I feel bad when I killed? You bet. We all said thank you to the rabbit for providing for our families, but somehow that didn’t feel enough for me. So I decided I need to share the meat with family and friends so the sacrifice of this particular animal will fuel many living beings to continue in the wonderful world of the living.

Stay tuned of part two of Meet your Meat. Did I raise animals or did I Hunt?

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Published by ZEN WANG

Nuclear Project Engineer turned Filmmaker. View all posts by ZEN WANG