To Gather or Starve

To Gather or Starve 

Emily Madsen  |   Communication & Food 

Word Count: 1,459

As humans, we often rely on others to gather our food. All we have to do is walk into the grocery store, and our food is ready to pick up. We often forget the process in which our food, especially the meat we consume, comes from. It doesn't just come from the back room of the grocery store, it comes from the wild. There is a lot of work that goes into the selling and buying of food that we are unaware of. After discussing a little of this concept in class, I became more interested in it. My question is: would we starve if we had to gather our own food? We are busy people who take convenience for granted.  

We are all used to going to the grocery store and purchasing food that is ready to cook. We pay the price by buying meat that has already been cut and seasoned, easy to cook. It may be cheaper to hunt and prepare our food, but it would take a very long time. Most of us don't have excess time. If we had to do gather on our own, it would take a lot of time and money. Stores make it easy to get meat, and get the cut you want. Grocery stores have made it easy to cook meat and have it very accessible. Grocery stores are also filled with produce and packaged food, ready for consumption. We do not have to go out into a garden and harvest the crop because it is already done for us. I think that if people had to do this on their own, they would instead eat meat only on special occasions, or even stop eating meat at all and go vegetarian. With our everyday busy lives, we do not have time to catch an animal, cut it up, preserve it, and then eventually cook it. 

Hunters and gatherers were a society that thrived on foraging food. This was their largest task, because the only way to stay alive would be to get their own food. They focused their time on gathering food because that was their only option. Shown in the photo above, hunter and gatherers worked in large groups to obtain the food they needed to survive. The ladies shown in the photo are gathering wheat that they will make bread out of. Over 12,000 years ago, the people of southwest Asia and Mesoamerica all were part of the hunters and gatherers foraging group. They obtained their food by fishing, hunting, scavenging, and gathering plants. These people relied mainly on domesticated species. Hunters and gatherers did not have the option to go to the grocery store and purchase food. They had to forage their own food so that they would not starve. But, could we do this in current day world? We would not even know how. 

                             

Alaska the Last Frontier is an excellent example of a lifestyle where the people forage their own food. The show airs on the Discovery Channel, and follows the life of an Alaskan family who lives in their homestead in Homer, Alaska. The family, the Kilchers, shown above live off of their 600-acre farm. They spend the summer and fall gardening, hunting, fishing, and gathering supplies. The winter conditions of Homer do not allow for the family to get much food. They must do their foraging during the warmer months when supplies are available, and the weather is warmer. They are able to get supplies, but it takes weeks to get them, and through a lot of work. The family goes without electricity and running water much of the time, and use the resources only when they are needed. During the summer months when they hunt, they rely on animals for their food for the upcoming winter. They hunt the animals and are able to provide food for their family for months because of summer hunt. Without hunting, their family would not survive. Their garden supplies vegetables for them, but that is not enough for the family. They do not get food from outside places like grocery stores. What we take for granted a lot of the time is what some people never experience like going to a convenient grocery store. This family would not starve without others gathering their food. 

Hunting and fishing are both timely and costly. The average hunter in Washington state spends $2,484 a year on hunting. This counts for supplies, licenses, and gear on the activity each year. In total, eight million dollars are spent each year from hunters supporting wildlife agencies which they do by obtaining licenses. Hunting season goes roughly from November to December. Most hunters and fisherman spend their weekends and early week mornings looking for the hunt during these months. It is only legal for them to hunt during the season. An average American family spends $6,602 per year on meat and fish. So, it is more cost friendly to hunt and fish. If we had to rely on hunting for our only household meat, we would have to do it all during the time of November and December and be able to preserve it for the whole year using refrigerators and other preserving mechanisms.  

In school, we are not taught how to hunt, fish, or garden. These are skills that if we want to use them, we have to learn them ourselves. The problem is, our families often do not know these skills either. This leaves us with the only option which is to buy food from the store. If we knew how to gather our own food, we would not have to go to the grocery store. Since we have grown up in the city life, at least for me, we did not learn how to collect our own food. I personally would be in big trouble if grocery stores went out of business and I was forced to gather my own food. I think I would become vegan because I do indeed know how to grow a garden. We did this is my family home growing up. But we did not hunt or fish, so that would have to be cut out of my diet. Gardening equipment, shown above, is not as expensive as hunting or fishing equipment. Even if someone did not know how to hunt, fish, or garden, there are many resources online that teaches people how to garden. Learning to garden from YouTube would be a lot easier than learning to fish or hunt from a YouTube video.

                       

 In the video above, the host, James Prigoni talks about his garden and how he is able to feed himself, his family, and many others. His garden has provided him with learning experiences and brought a lot of food at a cheap price for him and the ones he shares his food with. It brings him happiness that he can grow and gather food at a low cost. But, the way he lives, farming his own food, takes a large chunk of time. He also comments about his small dog that harvests and gathers the food for him. Together, they gather the food. This is something they have learned to do together because of passion and hobby. His YouTube channel features a lot more of his videos with his dog and gardening.  

I think that if we were forced to gather our own food, we would become vegetarians or vegans. Being a vegetarian means that you eat plants and fish, but not meat. Plants and fish are easier and timelier to get than meat. A person is able to grow plants in their garden by getting the soil ready, planting seeds, watering, and maintaining the crop. Fishing requires time, but the preparation of fish is often faster than meat would be. Being vegan means that you eat plants, and not fish or meat. Because of gardening, we could survive and not starve. Both of these foraging methods take time, but do not take the time and money that collecting meat would take.  
       In conclusion, if we had to gather our own food without the help of grocery stores, we would either starve, or perhaps we would  be forced to become vegetarians or vegans. In today's world, we do not have the time, nor the knowledge, to survive based on growing our own crops and hunting our own meat. We are so used to the convenience of the grocery store, that we have lost the ability to provide for ourselves and our families. Perhaps, what we should do in the future is take advantage of opportunities to teach us how to grow vegetables and grains, and to store meat an fish that we have gathered to provide for our families.