Why do I talk about things like vegetarianism versus omnivorous diets?

This is because in the long run, I am planning to have my own house, possibly within an intentional community. I would like to live in - at least, try to live in - a homesteading community that emphasizes self-reliance and produces a lot of its own food.

So I try to be very blunt and harsh about the reality of what I will be doing if I produce my own food by hunting or farming or with livestock. (Livestock is the hardest thing for me to imagine. You raise an animal, feed it, take care of it for a few years, and then slaughter it - I'm not sure whether I can really get used to that.) I don't want to be fooling myself or anyone else about the reality of it. It really is scary, unpleasant, and traumatic to think of, when you grew up in a suburb and ate meat from the grocery store.

I intend to start with something that is usually considered easy: insects. Those are somewhere between the organisms we call 'germs' and the organisms we call 'animals.' Almost everyone can tolerate the idea of killing insects at least once in a while. So I intend to learn how to use insects in the diet as a supplemental form of meat. It's done in other cultures, it's done by some kinds of apes, it's done by lots of other animals. So I think it will be useful in a self-reliant homestead.

So that's why I worry about the subject of whether or not I can really accept this, what I will be doing on a farm or homestead or while hunting.

(And usually if I write a blog about it, it means I'm thinking about food because I haven't eaten anything yet today.)