Please Happy

RePost: Killing Dolphins, Killing Cows

March 09th, 2010 | Category: Meat, Movies, The Hard Stuff

I’ve been thinking a lot about meat recently. About packaging. About how real and natural it felt in Australia to kill a lobster (called a “cray” over there) and eat it. About how when we went fishing with Dad as kids, we would thank for the worm for giving its life and thank the fish we would eat that night. Been thinking about the disconnect between people and food. Glad this issue is so publicized. Glad movies like The Cove and Food Inc. have brought this thinking to the fore.

On that note, Jake found this response to The Cove winning an Oscar. I think it’s worth re-posting his blog entry.

From More Perfect Market:

“Everyone around here knows about it. The water nearby turns red during the hunt. The actual killing is done in a concealed area because it is unpleasant to look at, as is true of killing cows or pigs or any other animal.”

Hisato Ryono said that. He’s a town councilman in Taiji, Japan. And he doesn’t think it’s fair that the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove calls Taiji “a little town with a really big secret.”

While I’m sure he’s downplaying the secrecy, he’s right to compare what happens in his cove to what happens in slaughterhouses worldwide.

So I hope we don’t dismiss him entirely. I hope we see that he’s accidentally reminding us to look.

Comments
  • Piney
    OK so you've seen Food Inc. ... Now how about Earthlings? I dare you to watch it till the end. Nothing but business as usual in there.
  • Piney: Never seen Earthlings. I will look that one up over spring break. Thanks for the suggestion!
  • Jess Taverna
    I remember being in a environmental studies class at Bowdoin, and we were watching a movie that featured factory fishing ships, with the "processing" (i.e., killing) prominently featured. Murmurs went around the room and I heard a number of people proclaiming some variant of "Eww, I don't want to see that." All of whom, I happened to know, readily ate fish, meat, etc..."Let me eat without guilt that comes with knowledge" it seemed to me.

    As a former vegan and current pescatarian, I'm not one to proselytize, as I think it's all about personal choices. But those choices should be as informed and aware as possible. If you don't want to watch your food being prepared (in all stages), how can you really be ok eating it?
  • Jess: I'm not one to proselytize either, seeing as how I drove my car with canvas bags to Trader Joe's last week for groceries. But. It'd be a great exercise for high schoolers or families to take their turn slaughtering their meat. I wonder if anyone's minds would change. I think just a tour through a facility might sway people. But, then we'd have to come up with great ways to feed a ton of people wonderfully nutritious and delicious food. We still have the problem of crappy food being cheap and wholesome food being more spendy. Anyway, thanks for reading!
  • Myles
    Come back to WY and eat some elk, no preservatives, no feed lots or corn feeding, no stress. It was out on Blacktail Butte one day and in the freezer the next.
  • Myles: Yes. That's what I'm talking about. A happy life, a humane kill, a connection to the land we live on. Thank you, brother elk! When the apocalypse comes, it'll be a beeline for the Tetons. Of course, I'll probably have been swallowed up by the great fissure from an L.A. earthquake, but I'll try to make it there!
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