My family both hunts and fishes -- and nothing from either is wasted. Even the bones are used (really!). I grew up eating wild duck, rabbit, squirrel, catfish, carp -- and they were good.

My grandmother used to raise and kill her own chickens. We helped catch them and hold them while she did the decapitation. I don't know what ever happened to her little red hatchet. This did NOT desensitize either me or my brothers; if anything it gave us a greater awareness of the mandela, the cycle of life. I could do if I had to, but it's much more convenient (and a lot less messy) to buy what I need.

My grandparents also raised their own potatoes, raspberries, apples, cherries, and other fruits and vegetables. All in a small backyard.

My late father-in-law told me that when he was growing up in Holyoke, Mass. HIS father taught him how to plant and over-winter vegetables grown in his backyard.

We do grow lazy and apart from the sources of our food, which lessens our respect for it and for those who provide it.

By the way, as an experiment my brother once hooked an oscilloscope to some carrots and then yanked them out of the ground.   The 'scope showed waves essentially the same as when he later hooked it up to himself and then cut himself. Do plants feel pain? I don't know; I don't remember ever being a plant. But I do know that if I should happen to die (I'm not planning to do so) I'll return my "cosmic dust" back to where it came from.