Eating Meat in Harmony with Earth: A How-To Guide

This article is a how-to guide, sharing my suggestions for eating meat in harmony with Earth. It is an excerpt from Food Freedom: A Year of Growing and Foraging 100% of My Food.

Educate Yourself on Factory Farming

Need more education on the truth of factory farming of animals? Start with Food & Water Watch’s Farm vs. Factory website and the foodprint.org website.

Don’t stop there! Educate yourself on the holistic ways to raise animals through regenerative agriculture, ecological agriculture, hunting and traditional ecological knowledge. Here are a few resources to get started: Watch “The Biggest Little Farm” for an inspirational introduction to regenerative farming. Explore the Regeneration International, Weston A. Price Foundation and Rodale Institute websites for knowledge on regenerative agriculture. Read The Compassionate Hunter’s Guidebook by Miles Olson.

Tips to Eat Meat in Harmony

What can you do to eat meat in a way that is in harmony with Earth, your local ecosystems and the animals you share the region with?

Eating meat can actually be an ecosystem service, which we will explore through these numerous options ahead.

Find a Balance

Find a balance for eating meat within the means of your ecosystem and what your body really needs. Eat a balance of nourishing veggies, fruits, grains and nuts, along with food from animals, if you have access.

Regenerative Agriculture and Local Farms

Purchase from farmers practicing regenerative agriculture. Pasture-raised chicken and turkey, grass-fed beef and pastured pork are common to find at many farmers’ markets, along with eggs from chickens; and milk, cheese and yogurt from cows, sheep or goats raised in pastures. Besides the farmers’ markets, there are many opportunities to buy directly at the farm and many do deliver as well or offer these foods through CSAs. Visit the farm, be a part of the animal raising and butchering process, if possible. At Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm you can see the chickens being processed right out in the open.

Raising Animals

Raise animals yourself. Backyard chickens for eggs is one of the easiest places to start.

Use the Whole Animal

Use the whole animal. Get to know the nose-to-tail movement. Eat the organs. The heart, liver, kidney and tongue are four of the most common organs to eat. Make chicken broth with the chicken carcass. Make bone broth from the bones of mammals. Make fish broth from the head and the whole body. Pressure can cartilaginous fish to break down the bones and eat it all. Eat the eggs of any fish that you harvest. Take it to the next level and make clothes, tools and other items from the skin and bones. Earthskills Gatherings are a great place to learn these skills.

Salvage wasted parts of animals from farmers, hunters and processors. Bones for bone broth are the easiest to find. Organ meats are common and are more nutritionally dense than the prized meat cuts. Organ meats have traditionally been the most important part of the animal for many cultures. If there’s a local market for it, they might sell these items, but in many places they give it away for free.

Eat “Invasives”

Eat “invasives.” What I mean by this is to harvest or source species that have been introduced from other ecosystems and are outcompeting the native animals and causing destruction to the ecosystem. In this way, eating meat isn’t only done sustainably, but can be an ecosystem service, contributing to habitat restoration and quality of life for the plants and animals native to that land. In Florida, for example, there are wild boar, iguanas and lionfish, to name a few.

Eat Low on the Food Chain

Eat low on the food chain. Animals that reproduce in large quantities and are low on the food chain are much more sustainable to harvest, like mullet in Florida. Suckers, carp and bullheads in Wisconsin are other examples.

Seek Abundance and “Pests”

Learn what animals are reproducing out of the environment’s carrying capacity and in abundance and hunt them. This includes deer in many regions of the country.

Eat animals that are a nuisance in the garden as part of an organic gardening practice, like squirrels, groundhogs, deer and rabbits. In permaculture, we say to turn the problem into the solution!

Eat “Undesired”

Eat the animals that other people don’t want to eat. In US English, we have the absurd term “trash fish.” Not surprisingly, these fish are often delicacies in other countries and are often found in abundance. Mullet, ladyfish, jacks and sail catfish in Florida; and bullhead, rock bass, suckers and carp in Wisconsin. I have found no correlation in desirability between what is prized by the dominator society and what is hated by them. It’s just a matter of knowing how to prepare it. Learn from other cultures!

Go “vulture fishing” like my friend Andy Firk does on the Florida piers. He shows up with a cooler, sets it in a central location on the pier and walks around to each of the fishermen and shares that they can put any fish in there that they wouldn’t keep. You can also show up at the local marina at fish cleaning time and take home large quantities of fish bodies to make fish stock.

Car-Killed Animals

Harvest animals hit by cars. In Wisconsin alone, 20,000 deer are killed by cars each year. I have many friends who were formerly vegan who eat deer that are hit by cars. In fact, I’ve had numerous vegan friends say that meat from a car-killed deer is the most truly vegan thing they’d ever eaten! See How to Harvest a Car-Killed Deer in the Empowerment Manual for guidance.

The Supermarket

As far as buying meat at the supermarket, I don’t feel comfortable providing much advice. I need to be closer to the source. However, my recommendation is to do your due diligence when selecting. Use critical thought and don’t simply trust the labels, and use the guidelines I’ve shared through the Take Action pages of this book.

Veganism

For an in-depth exploration of my view on veganism I welcome you to read My Thoughts on Veganism … and Why I’m Not Vegan

This article is an excerpt from Food Freedom: A Year of Growing and Foraging 100% of My Food. Food Freedom is an empowerment manual to break free from the destructive food system and live in closer harmony with Earth through growing food, foraging and embracing community.

We welcome you to order the paperback copy here or download the eBook here.

100% of profits, after book distribution, are donated to Gardens of Liberation, supporting Indigenous and Black-led food sovereignty initiatives.