On a level of food justice and preparation for post-peak-oil we need to be thinking about getting animal food to more people rather than writing it off because the idea of killing an animal makes us feel yucky. There are nutrients in animals that do not exist, or at least not in their best forms, in plants. And without animals you’re not going to have much success farming unless you use slave labor. Because at this point and this population level, without tractors, that’s what it’d take to feed everybody. Unless we’re willing to distribute land to everyone–and that’s never happened yet.

There are ways to store meat for lean times. There are even ways to store cheese and butter that make them last longer than the usual shelf life of traditional cheeses and butter. And I really wish more survivalist types would talk about this instead of assuming we will all do dandy on beans and rice.

Trust me–Even if it was the only calories I was getting it’d still mess me up.

This post reminds me of one of my favorite stories about my grandpa. My mom did not even realize until she was an adult with a family of her own, that her father did not like broccoli. When she was growing up with her sisters and brother, my grandpa would always take a serving of broccoli and eat it with a smile and tell my grandma how delicious it was. It wasn’t until, as an adult, my mom had them over for dinner and made her dad’s “favorite” vegetable, broccoli, that he told her, “No thank you, I actually don’t care for it much.” How cool is that?

My husband has really taken that story to heart. He had terrible digestive issues as a child and had to be put on a special, bland diet for his first 4 years of life. Then his mom coddled him for the rest of his childhood and he turned out to be a very picky eater (by his own admission). When we started having kids, he really stepped up to the plate and he will pretty much eat anything I put in front of him. I am so proud of him and proud of my grandpa for the wonderful example he set for all of us who have come after him.

Thanks for sharing this post! I really enjoyed it.

Kimbrah

I liked your post so much I had to ramble on more about it. If anyone is interested you can see it here.

We have a rule in our family, no exceptions–we never cook separate meals for the kids. We have a family meal (and we eat just about everything under the sun!), not a nutritious adult dinner with nuggets or hot dogs or noodles for the kids. Quite a few of our friends do this regularly; they claim their kids “won’t eat anything” unless they get standard kiddie meals, which are often lacking in nutrition and are really just stomach fillers. Interesting how when their kids are eating at our house their dinners get eaten! Another downside to cooking separate meals is that the kiddie dinners are often done first, so the children don’t eat with their parents. All the pleasures of a family meal are then not experienced.