We lost a chicken this morning. Jonathan was moving the pen at dawn and one of them got caught under the edge as he slowly moved the pen to fresh grass. My husband felt the accident keenly. That is one of the many things I love about my husband.
When discussing the processing procedure with someone last week they said, “Jonathan does not seem like the type to enjoy that sort of thing.” To which I replied, “He doesn’t. He likes to eat.”
Have we gotten so far removed from our food that we forget that death is involved? Some people do not want their meat to even remotely resemble an animal. Maybe that is why the demand for boneless, skinless chicken breasts lead to the type of chicken whose legs will not support it once it reaches the optimum weight for processing.
I confess that meat is not one of my favorite things to prepare and I get a little grossed out by the blood. However, I like the fact that our grass-fed cow smells clean – not like traditional meat from the store. I like that we knew that this cow had a good life until his one very bad day. I am looking forward to chicken whose history is known to me and am so grateful that we live in a land of plenty so there is chicken to share.
Death is my least favorite part of the pasture to table process but I am learning the difficult truth that death is as much a part of life as living. Thankfully nothing is wasted in God’s economy.