Food eaters should pay more attention to entire process

You probably aren’t conscious of it all the time, but the fact remains: Food is life. At the very least, it’s true from a literal point of view. After all, what’s more essential than food? Technically water and air, but that’s a conceit. Think about it: Food is everywhere, and in a smorgasbord of flavors, volumes and textures.

Within this venerable rainbow of edibles, one particular item holds a special spot in America’s heart: meat. Any meat. Red meat, white meat, the other white meat, whatever.

Whether it’s beautifully aged and seared, smoked until it falls apart or even served on a bun straight from a pool of dirty water, meat is a food group woven deeply into the cloth of the American eating tradition (sorry, vegans).

But although many people love to eat meat, most wouldn’t be able to face their food and witness the transformation of a living, breathing animal into a sizzling filet mignon.

This might be a bit of a conundrum for us carnivores.

Slaughtering animals and harvesting all their gristly parts is not necessarily pleasant, but it’s still a process appreciated and accepted in many of the world’s great food cultures. The United States, unfortunately, is not yet one of those places.

Have you ever seen a tourist in Chinatown wrinkling their nose at a live chicken about to be prepared or expressing disgust at a whole roasted duck with its head still attached in a window? Ever been that tourist?

It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that the average American is turned off by reminders that they are eating something that was once alive. Most people aren’t even used to fish served with their heads on, let alone chicken feet or lovingly braised lamb’s intestines.

Most modern supermarkets sell pre-butchered meat parts in shiny plastic-wrapped Styrofoam receptacles. They resembled the original animal as much as a bunch of carrots. Offal (the entrails and organs of butchered animals) is rarely seen, only found at exotic locales, such as ethnic markets.

Live fish or poultry, freshly prepared? Forget it. Even the full-service butcher shop, the go-to place for many a ’50s housewife, is an endangered species these days.

This brings us back to that carnivore’s conundrum: Should we be eating meat if we can’t stomach the process of slaughtering an animal and carving it down to the steak on our plate?

I love my animal-derived foodstuffs, but there is something to be said for being fully aware of where your food comes from. “Know your food” has become the mantra of the enlightened foodie.

People clearly care about the condition of their drinking water and the air they breathe and yet turn a blind eye toward much of the food we consume, meat being the most significant of all. Factory farmed? Improperly slaughtered? Who knows? Who cares?

There are two issues at hand:

The first is that there ought to be a constant respect for the fact that eating meat results in animals being killed.

The second is that this involves understanding, even embracing, the process of slaughter.

Acknowledging the source and demanding quality could bring reformation to the increasingly industrialized, money-first nature of animal farming, and being more cognizant of the entire cycle of meat consumption could bring positive changes.

At the very least, you might as well challenge yourself as an eater by exposing yourself to it. Kill It, Cook It, Eat It, a new BBC program that premiered Jan. 11 on Current TV, is an opportunity to do just that.

The show features volunteers who travel to a farm and follow an animal from the caretaking stage all the way through slaughter and eventually to the dinner plate.

It pledges to “tackles tough issues in a tasteful manner,” and the show will certainly be something new for American viewers, perhaps mandatory viewing for anyone who consumes meat.

And if you find yourself too repulsed to watch?

Well, that’s a bit of a conundrum.

Watch Kill It, Cook It, Eat It on Current TV, Tuesdays, 10 p.m.

Eddie Kim is a sophomore majoring in print  journalism. His column, “Food is Life,” runss Thursdays.