Many of us love meat, but the grisly truth is that we would eat a lot less of it if we had to kill our own food. Supermarkets brimming with bright red meat in dainty plastic wrap and styrofoam makes the decision easier for us. Many of us do not even see a carcass sliced and diced as that is often done off site.
Well, Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook (depending on with whom you speak) gives himself an annual challenge each year. For 2011, his goal is to only eat what he kills. He is attracting all kinds of snarky comments and scorn, but he makes a good point--even if it is ridiculous that any animal he kills is driven for 45 minutes from Palo Alto to Santa Cruz to be dismembered by a butcher.
Plenty of evidence suggests that the pace at which we eat meat is really not sustainable in the long run--what was once an occasional treat has been made convenient thanks to feed lots and factory farming. While new processes have at least made the slaughter of animals more humane, plenty of folks make the point that you are still killing an animal. If we had to do it ourselves, we may think twice. Plenty of more sustainable options exist, like
lamb and goat (or garden snails in Northern California), but those animals just do not agree with most Americans’ palettes.
No word on whether this goat, seen in Ojai, would make his menu--Zuckerberg already made enough wince when he
announced he had already slaughtered a pig and goat on his private Facebook page.
