We’re buying a half cow from a family we know. We toured their farm and met the meat. My kids loved the tour–they got to raise and lower the front-loader attachment on the tractor, were given a ride on our host’s RTV, collected eggs from the chicken coop (we got to take the eggs home), rode in the house elevator, and were nuzzled by friendly horses.
But then there arose a snag.
“My friend thinks that the butcher will have our cow ready some time in September,” I told my husband at dinner.
“Our cow? Where are we going to put a cow?” asked my daughter. “Will it live in our yard?”
“Well, we’re just buying half the meat off the cow,” I explained. “The cow’s got to be killed first. ”
“I don’t want the cow to die,” cried my daughter.
“He has to die before he can be made into beef.”
“But I don’t want to eat that cow!”
“Look, kid, see those meatballs on your plate? They came from a cow. Every time you eat meat, it came from an animal. And most of the animals we eat weren’t treated anywhere nearly as nicely as the cow we’re buying.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, they don’t get to wander around a farm like the cows our friends raise. They have to stay in very small, crowded places, and their lives aren’t as happy as the life of this cow.”
“Then we should only eat cow from the grocery store,” said my daughter, calmly chewing a forkful of spaghetti and meatball.
“Er, why is that?”
“Because it’s better to kill cows that have a sad life than a happy life.” I was a bit nonplussed, so my husband jumped in.
“Honey, these cows only exist because people want to eat them. Without people wanting to eat cows, there would be a lot fewer cows in the world.”
“Some people don’t eat meat because they think it’s wrong to kill animals,” I added. “We think it’s okay because, besides being delicious, animals have lots of protein and other nutrients that are good for your body. But, I mean, if you want to be a vegetarian and not eat meat, you can have a perfectly healthy diet without it.”
My daughter frowned, looked at her plate, and popped another meatball into her mouth.
We’re picking up the beef today.
Postscript: And here it is, minus some bones and ground beef defrosting in my fridge.
Lazy Mother Musings 
I really enjoyed this post. Hilarious! It is both intriguing and frightening thinking about the moral reasoning of young children.
Growing up we had two standalone freezers in addition to the main fridge/freezer. The third freezer would only be used when we bought half a cow. The meat would last our family the better part of a year. I’ve always wanted to do this for our family. It’s a fantastic plan and your family is smart to do it.
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Thanks! I am glad you enjoyed the post. We’ve never done this before, but the price was great and we like the people we’re buying from. But this is why we shouldn’t have children making policy decisions; granted, 6 isn’t 16, but children simply haven’t the experience to make nuanced moral decisions.
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lol! i love kids!
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