Chapter 14: You Can't Run Away On Harvest Day

The more we know about our food system, the more we are called into complex choices.

Chapter 14 looks at animal harvest day for the Kingsolvers; the time of year when they have to slaughter the chickens they have raised on their farm. Kingsolver, who used to be a vegetarian but is no longer, expresses very eloquently her belief system regarding eating meat. She points out the hypocrisies of condemning animal harvest on moral grounds but ignoring that millions of animals die each year from pesticide exposure, contact with genetically modified pollen, and habitat removal in the processing of plant food. "Humans may only cultivate nonviolence in our diets by degree."

She also notes that it is understandable for one to oppose eating meat when we consider that most nonfarmers are only intimate with animal life within 3 categories: people, pets, and wildlife. But there is a fourth category to consider. On a farm, these animals have been bred to become food and the farmer should value the harvest as way to reconnect with that purpose. A harvest should imply planning, respect, and effort.

Kingsolver further reminds us that this is not always the moral purpose behind a slaughter. An unacceptable amount of American animal farming has become industrialized and dehumanized. It has led to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, deadly E. coli strains, massive fuel consumption, concentration of manure into toxic waste lagoons, and the shameful act of confining creatures at their physiological and psychological limits. But alternatives to the products of CAFOs do exist. Pasture-based chicken and turkey has become available in many supermarkets and farmers' markets. Clearly, farmers who raise animals on pasture have to charge more than factories that cut every corner on animal soundness. But like anything else in capitalism, as demand rises, more farmers can opt out of the industrial system and the cost structure will shift the other way.

Please choose your meat wisely.