I have no problem with people catching/killing their own food. I think people who eat meat but refuse to kill the animals themselves are hypocrites. Unfortunately I think I might be one though...
My sentiments exactly, sans the last sentence- because I'm a monster (see below, haha).
I also know, some people are just more visually/viscerally sensitive to the sight of blood- so much so, that some might even have trouble killing an animal in a survival scenario. I guess I can't look at them ethically as hypocrites to that degree.. picturing them stranded on an island, vomiting whatever insects/plants they'd managed to find before they'd finally bludgeoned an injured seagull with a rock.. only to be unable to eat the protein rich meat.. & losing the other nutrients.. I'd just pity them. I'm being extreme here just to be an ass.. but it does have a kernel of truth to it, in some sense. /end tangent
Most animals I kill I have the general desire to consume for food, even snakes I've killed out of fear, though I haven't eaten one of those yet.
I don't know what that says about me.
There's something primal & satisfying about being able to kill & eat something.
I don't know how else to express that. I've seen wild turkeys blocking the road when I was on my way to the grocery store, super hungry, & I genuinely wished I could've hit them with my car or something.
I'll take it a little step farther & admit I have an odd desire to sample the meat of almost
* any animal I could encounter in North America that would make me fear for my life by getting too close.
-Alligator (already ate it- tastes like chicken, I kinda figured)
-Grizzly bear (I bet would be gross though I'd try a little of it on principle)
-Shark (fish is good for you!)
-Rattlesnake/cottonmouth/python/boa (providing the venomous ones don't
bite me after I've decapitated them)
-Most recently (after watching a documentary), the Humboldt squid.
*I don't list any indigenous wild cats of North America who could maul me, because all kitties are friends
I think I'd also like to eat any [meaty] animal that can live well over 100. Mostly out of spite for being able to outlive me.
Ok, entirely out of spite.
I killed and gutted four fish with one of those combination steak/butter knives the other night. Someone else caught them and didn't want them and my kids had lost my filet knife. I was a little grossed out and had to get passed it to eat the fish, but eat them I did and kept them down, so I'm pretty sure I could get used to killing my own critters if I needed to. You just try to make it quick so they don't suffer long. I was more worried about distressing my kids than anything else.
I used to love fishing when I was little/lived in Georgia (between ages 6-11)
I ate everything I caught - mostly bass, some catfish. In hindsight, I would have been more proactive about making sure areas I fished met certain health/safe bacteria standards, since some fish are primarily benthic, or consume smaller benthic organisms. But yeah, being a little kid, I was unaware/didn't consider these things.
Never got sick, & it all cooked well.
My dad taught me how to kill/clean my own fish when I was about 7. I thought it was interesting. I didn't feel bad killing it, since it was such a quick decapitation.. and I knew where meat came from well before then. I found removing the organs fascinating & got yelled at for trying to keep an [expensive] encyclopedia nearby once, haha. My lack of disgust kinda creeped out/disappointed my ISFJ mother, but my readiness to learn to cook them (something more... domestic) offset some of that.
Like I said above to Bamboo's post.. killing/eating something has a raw/natural feeling, to me.
Maybe those of us who can stomach it are primitive beasts.
I can accept that.