It saddens me when I see children and adults today that have no idea where there food comes from. If you ask a lot of them where their food comes from they look at you like your crazy. They will most likely tell you that it comes from the store. I know this because I have asked a lot of my friends and their children that still live the city and suburban life style. A lot of them didn’t know that I live the homesteading life style they thought I just lived in the country. After they told us that all meat and vegetables only come from the store we just could not take it any more. So that’s when I told them that we were homesteaders and on our homestead we have chickens, ducks, sheep, and pigs that we raise and grow our own vegetables. The children got big smiles on their faces and said you have chickens, ducks, sheep, and pigs for pets?! Then they wanted to know why would you grow food when you can just get it from the store. That’s when we had to have the talk. We explained to them as well as their parents why we grow our own food and they thought that it was very interesting until we got to the part about the animals. We told them that our animals are not pets we raise them to eat. You should have seen their faces! You would have thought that I shot their dog!
That’s when it started and I don’t mean by the kids ether. Yea they were upset that we would kill cute animals. But it was the adults that actually asked us why would you kill the animals that is so sick! Why can’t you just get your meat from a store like normal people? They even went on to tell us that they felt sorry for our children because they had to see things like that. They also said that they could only imagine what damage we were doing to our children sociologically! They even had the nerve to say you know that is how serial killers are made by seeing stuff like that!
We just had to laugh at them. We told them that if they wanted to keep their kids in a protective bubble then that’s fine. But if anything would ever happen and their was no more food in the stores they would be running to sick people like us. I just blows my mind how people can think so differently about things just because they live in different areas.
But we refuse to not teach our children were their food really comes from. We want to show them that every time they pull up to the table to eat that a life had to be taken for them to continue to live. We want them to respect that life that was given for them. When it is time to dispatch chickens we will have the children help. Their job is to pluck the feathers off of them. So you tell me are we wrong for wanting our children to respect life, to know how they get their food and that there is work involved to getting that food, and to give them the skills and knowledge to know how to raise and grow their own food?
We need to expose our children to more animal processing. We usually just send things to the processor and have them handle it all. We need to learn to process our own.
I think you should show your children. Start off small like a chicken or something. It also turns into a wonderful teaching tool for you.
Not only are they disconnected from their food supply, they are disconnected from reality too.
This is so true. I just wish that we had a way to show people that this is apart of life. If you want to eat this has to happen. But the masses will turn a blind eye and live in their fairy world.
We had a similar response (although not quite as drastic) when we said we ate our excess roosters. We just calmly asked them what they thought the chicken from the shops they were eating was. You can see the penny drop then.
I wonder if having a photo ready to show of how factory farmed animals have to live would get them thinking a bit more?
My father was in advertising, and had occasion to visit a client's processing plant. Live chickens from a shed in one end, frozen tv dinners out the other. Suddenly he was a proponent of free range and organic eggs and chickens, and not one more tv dinner entered our house.
Nothing like a smack in the face by reality! And I'm guessing he taught his children why he didn't agree with tv dinners and cage produced.
this is so true! A lot of people just don't know or just don't care where their food comes from. The sad thing is that the animals that they want to buy from the store has a really bad life then a bad slow death in a lot of cases. We believe that you should offer the best life you can to your animals before it is time for them to serve their purpose.
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STOPI've never killed anything for food, but that is due to circumstance, not choice. I've killed for protection, (mostly rattlesnakes,) so I'm sure I can do it if I need to. My children learned early where their food came from, and had no problems with it.
That is good that you allow your children to know the truth. But I will say it is a lot harder to kill an animal that you have raised and made a bond with than you think. But you just have to know that they are giving you their life to help keep you alive.
I don't think it would be easy, but I think I can do it.