Blog 4_Harvesting Food

There are both disadvantages and advantages to harvesting your own food. If we assume that harvesting your own food gives you a stronger connection to the source of your food, it can be a very good thing to gather your own foods as many people who do harvest their own food confess that the food is more fresh and tastes much better as well. It may also be very rewarding for some to know that they hunted, planted, caught, etc. the food before preparing it to eat. Some people who realize the diligence it takes in not only preparing food, but obtaining the food will probably be more appreciative of food than someone who simply buys packaged food from the store and doesn’t think twice about where it came from. However, there can also be disadvantages to having a stronger connection with the source of your food. Some people may find it even stranger that certain people can raise their own animals, establish a connection with them, name them, and truly care for them, then slaughter them. So on one hand, it might be viewed as respectable, that someone will work hard for their food, but on the other hand it could also be viewed somewhat disturbing that they kill their personal pets. It also takes a lot more time and resources to harvest your own food that many people are not in a position to do. Personally, if I had to butcher the animals I ate, I know I would be less likely to eat meat because it would bother me too much to have to butcher any type of animal. I’d rather not eat it, and not butcher it. I don’t think it is fair though to not allow people who wouldn’t be able to butcher their own animal to not eat meat. I don’t know very much about hunting so I don’t think I am qualified enough to decide whether or not hunting is moral or not. However, I guess it depends on the situation of the hunter and the hunter’s intensions. I think harvesting anything of too much is not necessarily unmoral if people plan on finishing all of it, but insanely crazy. When Harrison was describing all the food prepared for this meal it was incredibly disgusting. I can relate to eating too much because I always have a problem with eating more than I really need to. I’ve never been able to eat until I’m satisfied. I eat and eat. So as long as the food being harvested is not wasted, I think can be alright. Unless the animal is endangered or something and people continually hunt it for personal purposes.

Harvesting Resources:

Tait, Heather. Harvesting and country food factsheet. Ottawa : Statistics Canada, 2007

Benediktsson, Karl. Harvesting development: the construction of fresh food markets in Papua
New Guinea. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2002.