QuickTime vPIP A Word of Warning: This is a graphic video. If you do not eat meat and think killing animals to do so is bad, you should not watch this video. We live at The San Mateo Eco-Village, where we know our neighbors, garden together and learn how to live more sustainably. Part of living sustainably is eating local foods. Harvesting food from the garden and raising hens for eggs is about as local as you can get. When our neighbors Amy and Malaki arrived at the Eco-Village, they noticed a lack of eggs coming from the hens. Both have an agricultural background from years of working on a farm in Kenya. What do they do in Kenya when a bird gets too old to lay? They eat it. The whole damn thing! So we, as a community, decided to do just that. Most of us had never experienced living with chickens, let alone killing them for dinner. Growing up in the United States allows us to be vastly ignorant of where our food comes from- meat and vegetables alike. We thought this would be a good education for us city kids. The interesting part to me was the difference in methods between Brian, co-founder of The Eco-Village and Bay Area Native, and Malaki who grew up on a farm in Kenya. Also I thought it would be way more physically dramatic- you ve heard the saying running around like a chicken with its head cut-off . Well, it s true. Even after the chicken has died, the body still moves around and spasms. Though it was not the most pleasant experience to watch an animal die at human hands, I do know that these birds had a peaceful life full of good food and loving owners. That s saying a heck of a lot more than all the meat that is factory farmed and trucked to our grocery stores. Runtime- 8:30 Technorati Tags: local food, sustainable, chickens, hens, permaculture, garden, san mateo ecovillage, ecovillage, co-housing, san mateo, ryanishungry
