We Need to Put a Face Back on Our Plate

PACKAGED MEAT.

What we consider convenience in the modern day grocery store has actually distanced us from our food sources and resulted in devastating consequences for how we include animals in our diets. In fact, this “visceral insulation” has produced the least nutritious, ethical, and sustainable use of animals our diets have ever known. As we shop for our sirloin in meat Styrofoam packages, offal, the most nourishing part of the animal, has disappeared from our conscious. As we celebrate the incredibly cheap price of meat in this country, animals are fed food they are not designed to eat and raised in deplorable conditions behind our backs.

The answer to this problem that we all created is not to stop eating animals. No, animal based foods remain the safest, most nutrient dense and bioavailable food our species has ever known and the very foods our ancestors relied upon to support their growing bodies and brains. Instead, we need to reconnect with our food.

I am convinced this begins by PUTTING A FACE BACK ON OUR PLATES!

What I mean by this is that each and every time we consume any animal based food we must remember that an animal gave its life so that we may nourish ourselves and our families. This conscious act helps us take on the responsibility of utilizing the entire animal and care about how it was treated in its life and its death. And, that is the most nourishing, ethical, sustainable and economically viable way to include animals in our diets. That is a food system in which we should all strive to be a part.

There are a multitude of ways to take steps towards accomplishing these goals that range from ethically sourcing your meat and getting to know your butcher to learning how to cook with offal, hunting and butchering at home. Each and every step, no matter how big or how small, is an important step towards reconnecting with your food and learning to eat like a human again.