Realizations...

I don’t have much to say but I like writing these small little posts about random things so here goes another one.

Ever since we got to Minnesota seeing farm animals has become a regular thing, well I guess you could say just seeing random animals everywhere has been normal for us.

So while driving through New Mexico on our way to El Paso Texas I saw a bunch of cows! I usually get very excited and say Cows or Horses! (in a very annoying childish voice of course...) At first sight of them each day, I didn’t want to break the ritual so of course I did the same. Although this time I immediately regretted saying this loud enough for Kember to hear through her headphones...

This was not a pretty sight for anyone to see, hundreds of cows in small pens pushed up against each other with barely enough room to walk. It was a sad sight to see. When Kember looked over I instantly said “wait no look at me” or “look at this beautiful sunset over here.” This has been something that we have talked about several times on this trip, eating meat. That there is a difference between going out and hunting to feed your family than being a trophy killer or America’s meat industry. That this farm was simply a kill house for all these cows. The second I saw this I thought of all the little baby cows running around with miles of open land grazing on long grass and having the freedom to be happy and play. Yet these cows right before me were just meat in everyone’s eyes, that they have no other meaning but to fill our stomachs and throw out the rest.

It’s something I don’t think I could forget, that all I have seen on this trip so far has been free range animals yet all of a sudden I was faced with the brutal reality of how we treat animals.

This all being said I ate steak last night... so yea.

I don’t see myself going vegetarian anytime soon but seeing my sister cry at the sight of these horrible conditions for cows, I can’t lie it changed me a bit. That we all give into allowing this to happen. I don’t see this changing anytime soon but maybe one day.

Even walking in grocery stores the last few months I instantly feel nauseous of all the food we produce that no one will buy, that it sits on shelves until it “expires” then to be put it in a land fill. Not even to mention all the food people buy then do not eat so they throw it out and once again goes to a land fill.

We all do this and I am not saying I haven’t wasted my fair share of food, of course I have. Just now I think about it more ever since being in this trip.

So yea that’s one thing this trip has helped me with that maybe college wouldn’t have done. I would be like every other student with an unlimited meal plan and a huge buffet of food in front of me, piling my plate, seeing how high I can stack my food each day without dropping it. Then throwing out what I don’t eat without a second look.

Living on the road seeing so many people with such lack of food, we take for granted what we have. That this cow died and I ate half of a burger and tossed it in the trash. It makes so sense to me anymore of why we do this.

There’s a little rant from me who is not a vegetarian and probably never will be at least not long term. I have eaten my fair share of tofu since we left, we bought chicken for the first time a few days ago. I think that’s the only meat we have bought in 11 weeks. So I guess you could say I’m a vegetarian¿

​Anyway I am not here to change anyone’s mind on anything just wondering if anyone else out there thinks of this stuff. Where our food comes from? Where does the food go that no one eats? There are so many questions we all should be asking ourselves. Yet the answers are the scariest part.