SUSTENANCE HUNTER - I don't outsource my killing
- 100% made in the USA
- Ultra comfortable, super soft fabric
- Lightweight
- Athletic Fit
Many modern meat eaters these days seem to consider themselves to not be killers because they buy their meat at the grocery store; already dead and neatly packaged for them. This is akin to a person who orders a hit on someone, but does not consider himself to be a killer simply because he didn't pull the trigger personally.
Over the years I’ve met a lot of the urbanite meat eating anti-hunters who talk badly about hunters - but who actually eat meat regularly, somehow mentally deceiving themselves into believing that they are not animal killers because they bought their meat in a package from the store.
Through conversation with such people I’ve found that many anti-hunters are against hunting because they think hunting is all about trophies. The concept of hunting to feed your family with the healthiest available food possible doesn’t seem to have ever even occurred to them.
Nor does the fact that hunting is a brutally honest, hands-on engagement that forces the participant to either 1) truly come to terms with what they are partaking in (killing and eating an animal) or 2) not participate at all (not kill AND not eat an animal).
When you have to harvest it yourself, there is no pretending that meat doesn't come from death. In my opinion, this connection with reality - rather than the common modern denial of it - is healthy for the soul. It allows us to see nature, ourselves, and our relationship with animals and the natural environment so much more clearly without any option for convenient, “feel-good” self-deception about the central role that death plays in sustaining life.
It also doesn't seem to occur to these people that hunting for your meat is the only form of meat acquisition which allows the animal to live it’s entire life free and healthy in its natural habitat all the way up until the moment that it dies. If there is a more humane method of acquiring meat, I have yet to find it.
After living all of its days free in the wild, the animals dies a quick respectable death at the hands of someone who is going to use that animal's life to feed their own family. It doesn't get any more personal than this.
This is in stark contrast to the inhumane treatment that most animals receive when they are raised in the industrial meat complex - far away from the sheltered eyes of their ultimate consumers who never even see the animals that they eat raised in their cramped, unhealthy, disturbing conditions.
And it is important to note: demand drives supply. The people who are buying this meat are perpetuating the existence of these practices – whether they see them and participate in them first hand or not.
Some people respond to this warped situation by choosing to become vegan. That's fine. I have all the respect in the world for someone who acts on the courage of their convictions, even if I personally disagree with them.
Others of us respond by reconnecting directly with the cycle of life in much the same way that our ancient ancestors did. By personally hunting for our meat.
It also doesn’t seem to occur to most anti-hunters that the existing habitat for wild animals to live in is shrinking because of the sprawling cities that these peaceful grocery-shopping urbanites live in.
Not to mention, the loss of millions of acres of forest and grassland that has been converted into farmland to provide vegetables and grains for these people.
These factors cause overpopulation of herbivores on the limited remaining open land, and thus subsequent starvation and disease among these animals. If they are not regularly hunted in a responsible manner, then we will have an absolute mess on our hands.
Not only this, but we are not the only predators that feed on these herbivores. If we do not do our fair share of killing of these herbivores, then we provide an excess food supply for their other natural predators: namely wolves, coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions, bears, etc. etc. We are a natural predator to these herbivores and if we remove ourselves from the equation in this delicately balanced circle of life, the impact can be severe and far-reaching.
There are no consequence-less actions. And don't kid yourself, inaction is an action as well.
Buy groceries, you have blood on your hands. Eat store-bought meat, you have blood on your hands. Eat vegetables only, but live in a city, you have a blood on your hands.
Those who hunt, kill, and butcher their own meat are at least brutally honest with themselves about the blood on their hands. They literally physically see and feel that blood on their own two hands hands every time they meet with success in the field. And their family eat because of it. Hunters realize in the deepest part of their being, that the life that this animal gave is directly providing their family with life.
Anything less than a direct connection with reality is dangerous for the soul and perpetuates self-deception that can build a foundation of false premises and consequently poison our thinking in other areas of life as well.
Just because most people have left of the woods, doesn’t make them no longer responsible for their affect on the woods.
Just because most people don’t kill their animals personally, doesn’t make them not responsible for the way the animals that they are killed.
Just because you bring your groceries home in a nice clean package, does not mean that the process of getting them to you was clean.
Just because you throw your garbage in the trash can does not make it disappear.
Burying your head in the sand does not make you not responsible.
There is much more to be said about all of this. But these are some of the high points.
I figured the phrase "Sustenance Hunter" may help spark up some good healthy discussion and hopefully a more accurate, healthier, more respectable picture of hunters than what many people usually seem to see in their mind.