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Growing I was taught that all animals are okay to eat so I do not connect to food in the terms of right versus wrong, but my views on preference of food and the methods we use to get meat may have been swayed after considering how different societies prefer certain animals over others, the means we go through to eat these animals, and the origins of where my meals come from.

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Growing I was taught that all animals are okay to eat so I do not connect to food in the terms of right versus wrong, but my views on preference of food and the methods we use to get meat may have been swayed after considering how different societies prefer certain animals over others, the means we go through to eat these animals, and the origins of where my meals come from.

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While there is a wide variety of animals on earth, societies in the United States tend to prefer to eat certain animals over others, deeming it would be weird or wrong to eat anything other than the meat most commonly eaten in their community. Jonathan Foer, author of Let Them Eat Dog, takes this topic on in a clear argument that dogs would be a great and beneficial animal to rely on when one is hungry, but since it is not seen as the norm, most people overlook the value it could have to those who need food. He points out that a majority of people are unable to bring themselves to eat a dog because they are considered “man’s best friend”, but argues that there are some places where “dog eating isn’t a taboo… and it isn't’ in any way bad for us,” (1). By showing the readers that in some places eating dogs is actually considered normal, he opens their eyes to see that if several communities can accept this practice, it may be okay for the reader to do so as well. It makes it less of a taboo for the readers to see that other people eat dogs. As of right now, I personally would not mind eating a dog if I had to but this helped me understand that other people already have dogs on their menus, and I have a sense of ease knowing that I am not the only one doing so.

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	Whenever I ate my meals I only paid attention to how it tasted and felt, I would usually brush off the details of where the meat came from. The only connection I’d ever felt with the meat in my food was the idea of money and how much this package of chicken cost and if my mom would buy the egg cartons that seemed pretty expensive. I’ve seen commercials about how animal products were from farms filled with grass and land for them to roam around freely, never having a thought that in reality they were in pain at the exact same time I saw this happy place. I never felt uncomfortable looking at the fully dead fishes in the market or the packaged slabs of muscle meat. Having to watch the death of these animals would definitely make me uncomfortable and disgusted though. There are some people who don’t feel uncomfortable at the death of animals in front of their eyes, just like Makenna Goodman. In fact she has written about her experience with harvesting live chicken for food and the other people who experienced it also. She expresses the experience as a way becoming “connected to… self sufficiency, and understanding that meat does not simply fall from the sky” by speaking of a time she harvested a chicken. I never have thought about this way and including that she also explains its anything from sadistic makes. Her perspective allows people to reconsider the death of animals and allows them to feel a sense of relief and understanding when eating meals that involve meat or animal products. She doesn’t want to make people believe that there's no sadistic and powerful feeling over the animal and in fact there is an “emotional, ethical” feeling in doing so that does not harm the animal, expressing that I can find a way to connect to my food. 

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If people would rather not raise their own livestock in order to have a connection with them and would go to the supermarket to buy packaged meat, are there any other options? Tara Lohan’s article “The Ultimate In Eating Local,” explores this idea as she uses a different method of obtaining food. Lohan, in San Francisco, did urban foraging with Iso Rabins, who started a company that teaches people how to do urban foraging. What Lohan did was find natural food in her urban neighborhood instead of purchasing it from the supermarket. Lohan says that urban foraging has its benefits, saying that it is healthy and beneficial for you and the environment, it can help people in a tight economy, and how people in cities like Los Angeles and New York who are on their way to healthy supermarkets pass by the food “that can fill their plate for free”(3). This demonstrates how urban foraging can be beneficial and that there are other options than the store. If people chose this method, the fact that they are getting their food on their own and being involved in foraging can bring them closer to their food. 

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Because of my upbringing and how I was raised, I was taught to view food merely as a source of fuel and nothing else, which can be revised by imagining the roots from where the food came from and the type of life it had before.  

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Because of my upbringing and how I was raised, I was taught to view food merely as a source of fuel and nothing else, which can be revised by imagining the roots from where the food came from and the type of life it had before.  

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Meat is not just gifted from a god or was randomly placed on this planet.  Consumers have to realize that it comes from a living thing and do not know what type of life it had before it was slaughtered.  Many considerations can come into play when asking the question, if I ever had to kill what I wanted to eat, would you do it?  Makenna Goodman’s article “Ever Wonder if You Could Kill What You Eat?” created a situation where the readers can imagine that the only food they had was live chickens and whether or not they would have to kill them if they wanted to have dinner.  It would be very difficult and emotionally challenging for anyone to kill a live animal right in front of them.  None of us know the type of life it had, besides the owner.  The type of life can be the deciding factor of eating the animal because it can make you feel inhumane and even Goodman stated, “I want to know how that animal lived...the amount of sun that animal got during its life” (2).  If we were able to give the animal freedom for its life, in return they can offer us their bodies for consumption.  In the end, Goodman’s objective is to clarify that the meat we eat comes from a living thing and we can consider eating it depending on the life it had.  We don’t know if it was brought up in a cage or if it was freely roaming.  Instead, we can use this to contemplate on eating them or not without leaving with guilt.

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For most of my life I haven't had much of a choice in what I eat, but as I gain independence I have begun to navigate food I really like and can be more picky about where my food is from. 

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For most of my life I haven't had much of a choice in what I eat, but as I gain independence I have begun to navigate food I really like and can be more picky about where my food is from. 

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As I am only 16 years old there are still a lot of decisions I cannot make because I do not support the family and buy food land make all the decisions like where I get my food or what exactly I eat. Especially for low income families such as myself options are pretty limited on what I can realistically eat. I would much rather get my meat from a local farm or go full vegetarian. But those options are not accessible to people like me due to my age and class, for a long time vegetarianism is seen as more expensive and not widely available like other meat products that are sold in virtually every store. Their is a class barrier that many feel impossible to get through to eating more sustainable.When I tried to become vegetarian without the support from my family I had to cook my own meals despite having no kitchen knowledge.I had to meal plan myself which was hard because of school and extracurricular activities. Tara Lohan opens up the world of Foraging and the possibilities of eating sustainable. You find things locally that you would often overlook. Lohan reasons that forgian can be important because  “the world is suffering from lack of access to healthful and satisfying fresh food.” So foraging and my goal for food or finding better ways to be sustainable on a budget share a common goal, but the execution is different.In theory foraging for food like Iso rabbins would be cool and definitely something to think about is not realistic for me and many others  who have busy schedules and lack of time. 

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More people should make the effort to expand the close-minded views many hold on food. 

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More people should make the effort to expand the close-minded views many hold on food. 

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In addition to being mindful of the food process, individuals can also consider the morality of how not all foods are prepared in a gracious way. Readers got to read about how farmers such as Makenna Goodman allow their animals to be let down in a graceful manner, but that is not always the case. Anyone could think of factory-farming as a prime example of that but cruelty towards animals’ can also be seen in something as simple as food preparation. David Foster’s “Consider the Lobster” article touches on this by explaining the preparation of lobster for dining. Foster explains that lobsters are cooked alive, but this fact is taken with a mere grain of salt. One would imagine that this process with any traditional animal would be excruciating for them, but why don’t we gasp in horror for lobsters? Foster also informs us that lobsters have been seen trying to escape being boiled alive and adds, “it is hard to deny… that this is a living creature wishing to avoid/escape the painful experience.” One thing to note is that Foster never explicitly says that it is cruel to eat lobster, but he questions the boundaries of when something is considered morally okay and outright unacceptable. In order to be truly educated, we must learn and decide those boundaries for ourselves for the food we eat.

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To me, food has always been a critical means of survival. Though, this has me wondering about different questions when I sit down at the dinner table.

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To me, food has always been a critical means of survival. Though, this has me wondering about different questions when I sit down at the dinner table.

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When a tiger is eating its prey in the jungle, say for example a moose carcass. It is sad but people rub it off their shoulders with phrases such as “It’s just the cruel ways of nature” or “It was doing it as a means of survival”. Though on the other hand, when a human for example a butcher is cutting/grinding up meat for business purposes. Why do some people think it is inhumane, and shouldn’t be done for their own selfish reasons? If a tiger is seen to be a beast trying to survive in the harsh world, we humans who are considered animals should not be judged either. At the end, the butcher is feeding another animal. As humans we are considered the top predator, at the top of any food chain, due to one reason and one reason alone, and that is because of how we have civilized. I say civilized due to the fact that when we choose to devour meat, we give the animal the most honored and painless death possible. While the tiger might take out its victim in one smack, the prey has to wait to bleed out of its neck to die obviously the tiger is a wild animal it’s not one to blame in this situation though humans in a sensible way are considered civilized since our slaughter methods might be immoral, they are not inhumane. This similar scenario is brought up by Makenna Goodman in her article “Ever Wonder If You Could Kill What You Eat? We Did the Other Night”. In the 5 th paragraph 2 nd sentence, she exclaims a personal experience, “ My fella’s stepmom . . . She is a foodie from Brooklyn and wanted to honor this chicken by taking its life quickly and as (painless) as possible.”

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 Convenient and fast, something everyone wants, however we never connect with the things we are buying, never given a chance to connect to the things we eat, or the culture.

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 Convenient and fast, something everyone wants, however we never connect with the things we are buying, never given a chance to connect to the things we eat, or the culture.

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Eating dogs never really interested me, but for other people it is normal. Eating dogs is not common in the U.S so I never really thought about it, I did not think it was beneficial either. This is considered taboo in most people’s minds, but Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Let Them Eat Dog” made me realize how idiotic it is to think that way. “‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others’”(1).   He brought to my attention how dogs and other “companion animals” are above other animals. But why is that? Is it because they’re cute and they stay by your side, in most probability yes. But pigs are also remarkably intelligent, they can do most of what a dog does, but why do we eat them? I’ve never thought of dogs as food, but they should be thought on the same level as pigs as they are mostly the same in intellect, dogs can be food too. In addition, “The french, who love their dogs, sometimes eat their horses..” showing that people of different cultures and different parts of the world take advantage of what they have, even dogs. Things that I thought were taboo could actually help others and be part of their culture or the place they live in! For example, “dogs are still eaten to overcome bad luck in the Philippines; as medicine in China and Korea…”(1). There is culture in eating dogs, and benefits that you do not see with your biased thinking.

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Because of my growing up with farm animals, I have been fairly concerned and aware of where my food has come from, however, my knowledge of the subject can grow even more open and aware by looking at other people's experiences with food.

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Because of my growing up with farm animals, I have been fairly concerned and aware of where my food has come from, however, my knowledge of the subject can grow even more open and aware by looking at other people's experiences with food.

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For most people culturally eating dogs is a taboo, but why, it does not make environmental or economical sense that we do nott. Jonathan Safran’s article, “Let Them Eat Dog,” explores the idea of why we eat cows, but not dogs. In Safran’s article he begins by comparing dogs to animals that we do eat such as pigs. In almost every way pigs are the same as dogs, except that most cultures do not eat dogs. For the most part there genuinely is not any reason why we do not eat dogs other than it is a taboo in most cultures. Safran points out that, “[humane groups are] spending enormous amounts of money and energy in a futile attempt to reduce the number of unwanted dogs”(2). This illustrates that massive amounts of money is being spent to dispose of these unwanted dogs which in turn hurts the environment and this is all done for a taboo? When Safran asserts these claims it paints a picture of how inhumane it is to these farm animals who are just like any dog. The author continues to clarify the main underlying argument when stating, “ it systematically forces tens of billions of animals to suffer in ways that would be illegal if they were dogs” (2). This statement further illuminates that there are an abundance of reasons why factory-farmed meat does not make any rational sense at all, because as Safran justifies, “ Food is not rational . . . Food is [a] culture”(2). I myself believe that Safran is completely accurate when stating that food is a culture and not rational, because when taking into account how the environment is negatively affected will a hamburger be worth your foreseeable future?

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Because of lifestyle and culture as a food consumer, I do not feel very connected to the item, but my position can change by knowing what my food was before what it became, how the food is prepared, and learning new ways of acquiring food

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Because of lifestyle and culture as a food consumer, I do not feel very connected to the item, but my position can change by knowing what my food was before what it became, how the food is prepared, and learning new ways of acquiring food

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If people would rather not raise their own livestock in order to have a connection with them and would go to the supermarket to buy packaged meat, are there any other options? Tara Lohan’s article “The Ultimate In Eating Local,” explores this idea as she uses a different method of obtaining food. Lohan, in San Francisco, did urban foraging with Iso Rabins, who started a company that teaches people how to do urban foraging. What Lohan did was find natural food in her urban neighborhood instead of purchasing it from the supermarket. Lohan says that urban foraging has its benefits, saying that it is healthy and beneficial for you and the environment, it can help people in a tight economy, and how people in cities like Los Angeles and New York who are on their way to healthy supermarkets pass by the food “that can fill their plate for free”(3). This demonstrates how urban foraging can be beneficial and that there are other options than the store. If people chose this method, the fact that they are getting their food on their own and being involved in foraging can bring them closer to their food.

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When people hear the word “food” they immediately think of the finished product laying on a plate, but most forget to think back to the life said food lived up until their death and marketing. 

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When people hear the word “food” they immediately think of the finished product laying on a plate, but most forget to think back to the life said food lived up until their death and marketing. 

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In the past, I always thought about what my food had to go through to be a part of my meal. I never got to connect with my food and labeled it as a means to survival. I stopped treating the animals I ate like living creatures and turned them into the reason I’m alive. Recently, I started gaining awareness of the things I eat. Jonathan Foer shines a light upon the legal side of things by reminding us that animals are included “under the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act. That doesn’t say anything about how they’re treated during their lives”(2). Because the law allows animals to be treated the way they are, we make it seem like it isn’t something to be concerned about. Foer makes it clear that people can be the “worst hypocrites” when it comes to deciding what can and cannot be food and how they get treated. The experiences that the meat on my plate got to have when it was still alive matters just as much as how they were killed.

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I never felt a connection to my food and I never felt a need to, yet there are people who do so why shouldn't I feel one? 

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I never felt a connection to my food and I never felt a need to, yet there are people who do so why shouldn't I feel one? 

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Whenever I ate my meals I only paid attention to how it tasted and felt, I would usually brush off the details of where the meat came from. The only connection I’d ever felt with the meat in my food was the idea of money and how much this package of chicken cost and if my mom would buy the egg cartons that seemed pretty expensive. I’ve seen commercials about how animal products were from farms filled with grass and land for them to roam around freely, never having a thought that in reality they were in pain at the exact same time I saw this happy place. I never felt uncomfortable looking at the fully dead fishes in the market or the packaged slabs of muscle meat. Having to watch the death of these animals would definitely make me uncomfortable and disgusted though. There are some people who don’t feel uncomfortable at the death of animals in front of their eyes, just like Makenna Goodman. In fact she has written about her experience with harvesting live chicken for food and the other people who experienced it also. She expresses the experience as a way becoming “connected to… self sufficiency, and understanding that meat does not simply fall from the sky” by speaking of a time she harvested a chicken. I never have thought about this way and including that she also explains its anything from sadistic makes. Her perspective allows people to reconsider the death of animals and allows them to feel a sense of relief and understanding when eating meals that involve meat or animal products. She doesn’t want to make people believe that there's no sadistic and powerful feeling over the animal and in fact there is an “emotional, ethical” feeling in doing so that does not harm the animal, expressing that I can find a way to connect to my food.

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Food is not just something to support life, food is a way of life. 

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Food is not just something to support life, food is a way of life. 

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If someone were to one day ask me to try rat meat, my immediate response would be a hard NO. Even though some people say that rat meat can actually be quite healthy to consume, my answer will still be no. According to Automatic Trap News, “Rats love to get into the rice fields and eat as much as they can. This diet of rice and a relatively clean environment makes these rodents reasonably wholesome and safe to eat. According to many who eat them, this also makes them plump, tender, and delicious.” This doesn’t change my opinion on rat meat because first of all you don’t always know where the rats have been, what they’ve eaten, and if they had any types of diseases. Second of all rats are one of the most unsanitary creatures on the planet, that even if someone told me it was cooked properly it would be really hard for me to trust that statement given that food poisoning is quite common. According to OsteoPathic “Food poisoning is a common warm-weather malady that can cause painful consequences. An estimated 48 million Americans, or one in six, get sick from food poisoning each year, many suffering from violent vomiting, diarrhea or even death in rare cases.” That is why I will never eat rat meat in my life.