Kids who grow up around farm animals vs kids who only know them as pets

I'm working on a children's book about farm animals, permaculture style. I'm thinking of a world in which the kids who read it grow up as omnivores, and knowing that some animals are also omnivores or meat eaters. I don't want to present the industrial farming "bad world", monocrops etc, just as if only permaculture reality existed - but without sugar coating it.
At the same time, I don't want the "other kids" to be horrified... the kids who have vegan/vegeterian parents, who live in cities, who only know pet animals, etc.
It's probably impossible to combine the two...
But maybe you'll have some ideas?
Do your kids who eat backyard pork/chicken/rabbit etc meet kids who only have a pet bunny, or such families? How do you talk about it? What books/stories do you read?

Maybe the "other" kids can appear within the story itself?

Perhaps the permaculture bit can be presented as something that also happened in history?  Like, x years ago, our great-great-greats farmed this way...  and then tie it in with the present?

My own response to kids who object to meat eating (though this is more in the context of predators eating prey than people eating animals, so may not apply): everybody needs to eat.  Lions and hawks and killer whales need to eat too.  I seem to remember a Sesame Street song called "Everybody Eats" though I'm not sure it had lions eating gazelles in it :)

G Freden wrote: I seem to remember a Sesame Street song called "Everybody Eats" though I'm not sure it had lions eating gazelles in it :)

]

I think that was the prequel to Everybody Poops.

G Freden wrote:Maybe the "other" kids can appear within the story itself?

I don't want to make it a "we" vs "them" kind of thing... although there should be some kind of antagonist ;)
I'm more worried about some random vegetarians reading the book to their kids to find out that suddenly a chicken ends in a broth, or something like that - which would be totally normal to a farm raised kid. Of my real life friends with kids, it seems that they're either vegan/vegetarian (most of them), or they don't talk about "where the meat comes from" at all. I can't think of any omnivore savvy kid right now, haha.
Also there is another kind of parents/relatives: who believe that city kids should know nothing about butchering meat and any other death than natural (like in-your-sleep kind of natural), because they don't grow up around it like countryside kids, so they will be scarred from such experience.

I loved Sesame Street!!

Hi Flora;
I agree with G,   Have both children in the story. Country cousins and city cousins. You could have a farmer dad who is all business about meat animals and the country cousins carefully explaining their version about food and where it comes from to the others.  Maybe have the children unbeknownst to dad giving treats to the animals that are donating themselves to the family.
Ahhg.. what do I know about children story,s ....I operate heavy equipment.
Good luck with your book!

I grew up hunting, fishing, gathering and harvesting. And my four sons are now growing up like I did. They are a very curious bunch, they've watched me as I gave a lesson on quickly killing and butchering Chickens. And that goes for the youngest of them, they range from 4-11. Recently my father-in-law had squirrel problems so we went hunting, the two oldest came with their own rifles (.22). Again the lesson on butchering squirrel. And eating what you kill, I was taught that if I killed it I had to eat it. With a few exceptions (dogs/coyotes in with livestock) I have followed that rule and taught it to others.

I have friends who are Vegan, and my wife is a vegetarian (She can cook a mean steak!). My Vegan friends know I eat meat and hunt, I've even discussed hunting with them, they understand why I am who I am; I've never had them try and convert me. And when they are at my house I don't cook them meat.

I did tell them that they might need to begin growing a garden since I foresee the food chain becoming weak. And as an Omnivore I am an opportunist but as a Vegan they are limited and must heavily plan for the future.

I think don't go heavy on details, its a children's book after all, good people will understand. Some people have agendas.

Ben House wrote:I think don't go heavy on details, its a children's book after all, good people will understand. Some people have agendas.

I just wanted to highlight this statement.

Flora Eerschay wrote:  I can't think of any omnivore savvy kid right now, haha.
Also there is another kind of parents/relatives: who believe that city kids should know nothing about butchering meat and any other death than natural (like in-your-sleep kind of natural), because they don't grow up around it like countryside kids, so they will be scarred from such experience.

When my son was five he asked "where do hamburgers come from?"  

I said, well, they raise cows cramped up in tiny stalls until they are just old enough to process.  Then the cows are led single file into a chamber where they are hung from the ceiling and have a water hose stuck down their throat to increase the weight of the meat, then they're shot between the eyes with a bolt gun.  Their meat is processed into steaks and such, and what is left over is ground up into burgers.

He turned a little green and said "I think I want to be a vegetarian."

I respected his choice so I started cooking mostly vegetarian meals, usually with a small meat side dish that he could avoid. But as the months wore on he started looking pale and listless.  So I increased the variety of colors and nutrients and such, but he didn't improve.  His hair got dry and limp, his skin turned sallow.  I watched closely and saw that he wasn't eating any rice, nor any beans.  The two main ingredients I thought were the staples of a vegetarian diet.  I asked him about it and he said, "I don't like rice or beans."

I said, if you're going to be vegetarian, you have to eat rice and beans.  You need to get all the nutrition your body requires. It didn't work.

Rather than force the issue, I spent all day slow-cooking ribs, being sure to baste often so the smells would waft around the house.  Smoky, sweet carmelization, and onions cooked down to nothing.  

At supper I passed around a heaping tray of ribs.  His eyes got real big.  

"What are those?"

"Beef ribs, son.  But don't worry, I made you a plate of vegetables."

Our vegetarian says were over.  But we still talk about food security tradeoffs and such.

I'm vegan and I only cook vegan food in my house. The kids also eat that way. Neither are pale or listless, but you do have to cook a variety and make sure they get B12. Its a vitamin from the soil so would originally got it from eating veggies that probably weren't washed as well as we do now. The animals get it by eating small bits of soil whilst grazing (and I suppose the factory farmed animals are given b12 supplements) so we just take a supplement for that rather than eating soil 😅

As a vegan parent, I wouldn't shield my kids from where food comes from. My 5 year old knows. I suppose we have a different view point but if we ever were to eat meat (I can't imagine it because it goes against everything I believe in but let's say hypothetically) it would only be done in the permie way. I can't wholeheartedly say it is ethical but it is a damn sight better than anything factory farmed. I honestly think that should be illegal. Part of the health crisis at the moment in my opinion is the amount of meat people eat. I am assuming permies don't eat meat as much as a regular person who buys from the supermarket as your meat is precious and I feel like if you eat only 1-2 meals a week with meat in it, you can still have health benefits of the majority of your food being plant based (which is where all the real nutrition is). I actually think there will be big lawsuits in the future against the meat industry, just like the tobacco industry. Probably won't be for a while but I bet it will all come out.

I definitely disagree with letting kids eat meat that don't know where it comes from.

Our eldest, aged about 4, with a smoked pork chop in hand that we used to source at the Madison farmer's  market declared "Its too bad for pigs that they taste so good".

That wasn't on a farm - just suburbia in dairyland with parents who cared about where food came from.