The Weight of Knowing Your Food

Modern food is designed for convenience and allows us to become disconnected from where it came from. Meat arrives neatly wrapped in plastic, stripped of anything that would remind us it once lived. Meanwhile, our food system is increasingly built from preservatives, chemicals, dyes, hormones, fertilizers, antibiotics and additives most people can’t identify — all while we grow further removed from the source of our nourishment, more addicted to "food" that is not actually food and more dependent on a system that makes us sick and keeps us sick.

But I digress.

Before moving to our homestead, we bought a processed rabbit from a butcher to see if we liked it, and to see if rabbits would be a viable livestock option for us. We loved it. The meat was mild, versatile, and surprisingly good. It made us excited to get started raising our own.

So we bought our breeding stock: two Silver Fox/New Zealand cross does at five weeks old, and a red New Zealand buck at four months old. We waited until the recommended age to breed them, and 31 days later we had our first kits. Tiny, wriggling babies tucked into fur-lined nest boxes.

At six weeks old, they moved out to the grow-out tractor for another six weeks.

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And yesterday, we processed them. Our first "grow-outs".

We knew it would be mentally and emotionally difficult. We knew there would be weight in our hearts and minds carrying a rabbit from its cage to the dispatch area. We knew there would be gravity in taking the life of something so soft, warm, and vibrant.

And there was.

Though rabbits have been regarded as a source of protein here in the US in the not so distant past, and are still a main source of protein in almost every other country; we grew up seeing rabbits as pets. Our children had rabbits as pets.

Even though we had intentionally shifted our mindset toward stewardship, raising them ethically and humanely as livestock, there was still a lot of hesitation before dispatching the first rabbit. And the second. And every one after that.

We prepared as much as we could. We watched countless educational videos about humane dispatch methods. We chose the "Hopper Popper" method, which is one of the cervical dislocation methods; and watched even more videos specifically about that technique. Part of me hoped the repetition would desensitize me a little. Not enough to become careless — just enough to make the first time less emotionally jarring.

The videos covered some of the sensory details:

They talked about the warmth of the body during skinning,

the appearance of the organs during gutting,

and the smell that can sometimes accompany processing depending on the age of the rabbit.

But none of them prepared me for the moment you feel the cervical dislocation happen. The small pops like someone who cracks their knuckles machine gun style. That was something I wasn’t ready for, and it has stayed with me.

We processed five rabbits.

Each one was carried with care from crate to dispatch. Each one brought a mix of guilt, gratitude, sadness, and growing confidence in the process. Not confidence in taking life lightly — confidence in doing it quickly, correctly, and respectfully.

Every part is being used.

The meat is chilling in the refrigerator. The ears and organs are in the dehydrator for the dogs. The skins are salted for tanning. The feet and tails are in alcohol for future crafts.

Nothing wasted. Nothing treated as disposable.

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The next grow-outs have already been added to the rabbit tractor, and we are already dreading the next dispatch day in five weeks.

But we are not quitting.

This life isn’t about becoming hardened to death, but softened to gratitude. I don’t think the goal is for this to become emotionally easy. In some ways, I hope it never does. Because the weight of it creates appreciation. It keeps the reality intact. It keeps gratitude from becoming automatic.

Homesteading keeps confronting us with realities modern convenience tries to hide. The work is hard; but fulfilling. The emotions can be heavy. But the connection — to the animals, the land, and our food — feels truer and more honest than the disconnected convenience we left behind; not to mention gradually feeling less dependent on the "convenience" lifestyle.

We are also learning that stewardship is not always gentle or comfortable. Sometimes it means carrying the emotional weight of providing food responsibly, with gratitude and respect for the life given.

Maybe the point is not to stop feeling the weight of it, but to remember that we should.