To Shoot or Not to Shoot

I've been thinking lately about some things that I'd like to experience in my life but haven't gotten a chance to yet. If you know me you might be a little surprised by this, but I really have the desire to go hunting at least once. Growing up in Western Pennsylvania, hunting was a big deal to a lot of people. There was always a pretty noticeable amount of my friends missing from school on the first day of hunting season, and I always got a chance to eat some deer jerky later on in the season.

Nowadays we are so far removed from our food that most of the time we don't even think about where it came from. Some people may think of this as a good thing, but I think it's one of the major downfalls of having a highly industrialized food industry. Our food is not something to be taken for granted, and one of the reasons I don't eat a lot of meat anymore is because I really have no idea where it came from or how the animals were treated. Fruits and vegetables aren't a big deal because anyone can grow them in their back yard, but meat is a different story. I have a feeling that if everyone could see the industrialized and non-regulated process of turning a cow into a McDonald's hamburger, the beef industry would be absolutely screwed. Veggie burgers for everyone! Yum.

Anyways, I would think of my hunting experience as kind of an emotional experiment. I've never seen an animal die in order to become someone's food. I wonder if I would feel happy after shooting a deer or a boar or a turkey. I'm sure that after a day of waiting outside in the freezing cold for even the slightest glimpse of an animal, I would feel relieved at finally getting one. Maybe I would feel remorseful and upset that I took the life of another creature. I wonder if it would make me feel more thankful about getting the opportunity to eat meat, rather than taking for granted our seemingly endless source of factory-farmed meat. Regardless, I would feel a thousand times better about eating a wild animal that I killed rather than one that comes pre-marinated in some shrink wrap in the meat section of Kroger.

So someone please take me hunting, and I'll let everyone know what it's like to actually feel connected to my food.