Hunting for dummies

A typical day of a man a long, long time ago: he wakes up early, eats breakfast, farms/hunts during the whole day, comes back home with his proceeds (meat, vegetables, milk, eggs, etc.), stores them, trades them and finally eats them. This guy deserved a big meal because he worked hard for it and sometimes he risked his life for it. In periods of extreme weather conditions he had to adapt - eat less, make harsh decisions (eat his cow or keep it for milk), eat previously stored food, find water, etc. In other words he had to adapt in order to survive. Eating was his main concern and he dedicated his entire life to feed his family and himself.

Today, this reality seems so far away (at least in the rich countries). Yes, eating is still the fuel that keeps our bodies running but getting it is kind of secondary now. We can go to the supermarket and in less than 15 minutes and no effort we acquired as many products as our ancestors did in a whole week of labour! Going to the supermarket is like the modern hunting. We have electric doors to enter, no need to push or pull; we enjoy the modern stairs - escalators - so that we don't make any kind of effort during our hunt (and we hate it so much when they're out of order, because we'd have to make an actual physical effort); we have elevators, lights, endless aisles of food and we don't have to lift a finger. In the case of extreme weather conditions, we just import from somewhere else and don't really need to adapt our behaviour.

But I'm glad, of course, that eating has become so easy and secondary. This is why we managed to focus on other things, enabled our societies to develop and get where we are today. Nowadays, all we need in order to eat is money, and all we need to get money is a job, which is why all the governments' efforts and money go into keeping the economy alive.

Nevertheless, I think we take "eating" too much for granted. We want mangos in December, we buy things that we might not need which will end up rotten in our fridge and we want the easiest ready-made dish ever so that we won't have to bother losing one minute when we get home. All of that leads to an extreme overconsumption and overuse of our natural resources which has now become a major issue. Add to that the overpopulation and you can make a nice ticking bomb for our planet.

My solution to this problem is that we have to educate people, starting from schools, and give them agricultural class MANDATORY FOR EVERYONE. This way people will be more sensitive about the issue and aware of how everything is produced so that hopefully they start consuming reasonably. I am sure that if we all know how everything is produced and how our lazy-ass behaviour affects the environment we'd start shopping differently. We'd buy less meat (because so much land is used for livestock rather than for our direct food), we'd only buy fresh vegetables rather than frozen ones, we'd buy an entire lettuce and spend this ONE MINUTE chopping it at home instead of the already chopped one, we wouldn't buy the products that are wrapped in plastic inside of another plastic wrap, inside of an aluminium case, inside of a carton package.

YES, it is WAY easier today as everything can be done so fast and so efficiently but I'm not saying that we should get back to the stone age and spend our days preparing our dinner; but we need to be more responsible and not that lazy!


In picture: here is what the modern hunter looks like...hot, right?