More Bacon Please

First off, let me start by saying I do not hate animals, in fact, I love animals very much. I like all animals and even reptiles. Snakes, lizards, none of them bother me. I think they're all cute in their own way.

People say I am a hypocrite though because I hunt... and how can you love animals if you hunt? Well... I'll explain.

I will NEVER give up meat unless for some reason I get some medical condition that forces me to have to stop eating meat. Meat to me is a necessity in my diet. I understand that you can replace your meat with other proteins, but I hate the taste of most of those other proteins. To me, bacon is FAR better than some chunks of tofu. Sure I can eat a vegetarian meal every now and again and some of them are very tasty, but after a few days go by I need meat, my body craves it. When you were raised like I was, it's not an easy task to just wipe meat out of your diet.

This is where the hunting business comes in. I have gone hunting with my dad as far back as I can remember. I enjoy it.

Judge me all you want, I really don't care. The same way vegetarians/vegans have their opinions, I have my own. You can go ahead and argue why you think I shouldn't kill animals, but you'll never win. You can tell me "picture them on your plate," and it still won't work.

I do picture them on my plate, I picture them on my plate when I come across them in the bush. When I see a big moose standing there, I have no sympathy at all for it. It's a totally different demeanor that hunting brings on. I separate myself from my feelings towards animals and it strictly becomes about man vs. food. Fact remains is that I'm still going to eat meat no matter how I get it, and I'd rather get it from the wild than in a store.

Most of you don't know what particular cow you are eating. It's just a pack of meat you got from the store that you're told is steroid free, raised humanely, and fed organic grains. Some people do visit the farms and stuff that these animals are raised on, but you still don't know what particular cow you are eating... you're just eating a cow from that farm.

Where as at least when I sit down and eat some moose (or any other animal for that matter,) I know what that animal looked like, roughly how much it weighed, how many points it had on it's antlers (in the case that it's a bull.) ... I know the general age of that moose, and how long the meat was hung for. I will have pictures of it in my photo albums. I will look back and think "wow that was still the best moose I've ever eaten." And on top of it all, I will have spent some quality time with some family or friends making awesome memories that I'll have for the rest of my life. I'll look back and say "hey _____, remember that hunting trip we went on where we shot that big bull?"

That animal will be something I remember for the rest of my life... where as to a lot of people, their steak is just another meal that will be forgotten all about.

Everyone associates BAD things with hunting when really, the animals I kill will have more meaning to me in my life than anything I could ever buy from a store. No matter what farm it was raised on or how humanely it was raised.

I eat meat GUILT FREE. And there is nothing that will ever change that.