Clean Eating Movement and the Increased Hunting Polulation

[miamigirl1970]

There has been a 2.3 % increase in the amount of hunters/trappers in the last 5 years. There are 13.7 million people hunting, spending 38.3 billion dollars on equipment, gear and clothing annually. Hunting is influencing the fashion industry. Companies such as high end Kuiu have seen sales at 30 million in 2015 with a projected 50 million by the end of 2016. Under Armor has even launched a new line recently of hunting apparel just for women. Even Bass Pro Shops and Cabella's are growing in sales when it comes to the increased apparel sales for hunting.

A new upscale trend is not just in rural America any longer. Who are your hipster hunters now a days? It is the younger millennials who are urbanites living in New York or San Francisco. There has been a shift in the pool of people hunting. These are people taking the farm to table movement to the next level. These younger types are typically often left leaning conformists who have started by taking up bow hunting and other hunting. They are motivated by a healthy life style and organic foods.

Female participation rates for gun-deer hunting are increasing fastest among millennials. For instance, female participation never exceeded 20 percent for any age group until 2007, when girls represented 20.6 percent of all 12-year-old gun-deer hunters. In 2014, girls represented nearly 26 percent of 12-year-old gun-deer hunters.

Generation Y has inherited the most polluted planet in all of recorded human history. The impact of this is felt everywhere, but no more viscerally than on our dinner plates. The question of where our food comes from is on the lips of everyone today, with books like Food Inc or The Omnivores Dilemma fueling a rethink on what food and eating mean in the 21st century. As a generation, our entire generation faces a choice: either continue the disastrous environmental, and economic food policies of the Boomers or make new choices regarding how and what we eat.
It’s time for us to start hunting.

It will take strong voices to make a cultural change, while hunting has its brutality, people don’t think twice to Instagram their food with dubious origins. There are emerging voices in this fight, authors like Steven Rinella (@stevenrinella) and Hank Shaw (@Hank_Shaw) remind us that the best food is wild, and that the story of what is on our plate matters just as much as how it tastes.

[mostwomenshouldstfu]

It's economical. The cost of tags and possibly a license are minimal compared to the yield you get in pounds of meat. The less time it takes to bag one, the more you save in food cost.

[mostwomenshouldstfu]

Girls, if you are going to hunt, shut... up.

[peachblossomluck]

I'm not sure I could do this but respect people who do. It's hard to find food that hasn't been hormonally tampered with or saturated with high fructose corn syrup these days.

[Anonymous]

I believe the food chain must remain pyramidal, where the large predators (including humans) must be few, and prey must be plentiful to sustain a successfully balanced and sustainably ecosystem where the animal predators can still eat too.

I respect people who farm and hunt their own animals instead of paying large companies to do it. With hunting, the wild animals get to live their lives roaming free before they are killed quick and served on a dinner plate. This is an ideal situation, to me, if people are going to be eating the animals throughout their lives.

BUT we need to figure out a way for our ecosystem to remained balanced so not all prey is too low to the point where the animal predators start dying off from starvation...

In order to do that successfully, I believe (please hold the mean opinions) as a society we should maintain a vegan diet to sustain us through out the week and then go on weekend hunts. Or an end of the month hunt (whatever is preferred). This way we can also save our trees from being deforested etc etc and keep hunting alive and booming for everyone (:

I'm just thinking of the billion of people on this planet too. Were going to have to make major diet adjustments as a nation.

[Anonymous]

I don't think hunting large animals is a good idea, considering the higher up you go in the food chain, the less predators there should be. In other words, the food chain must be pyramidal, where the large predators must be few, and prey must be plentiful to sustain a balanced ecosystem.

Instead of hunting large animals, I think it is a good idea to do some worm farming. Worms can generate a great deal of protein, and they can reproduce quickly, so you'll always have a constant supply of worms on the table. You also don't have to worry about male and female worms breeding, because worms are hermaphroditic. Therefore, a switch to eating bugs (especially the meatier types of bugs, like worms) is best and more sustainable for the planet than eating megafauna.

[Longshoreman]

I would say your suggestion is idiotic at best. I don't know very many people that want to eat worms. I also don't understand your logic because people have been hunting for their food for thousands of years so what's it hurting to continue to do so. Another thing I might note is that in my area of the country there has been a large increase in deer population in the last 50 years due to conservation efforts of hunters. With an increase in population there also has to be an increase in population control.

[miamigirl1970]

@Longshoreman I tend to totally agree with your thoughts on this one!!!

[Opinion Owner]

@Longshoreman We don't need people to do the population controlling. If we allow the deer's natural predators (wolves) to hunt them, then we get a win-win situation, in which the deer population is checked by the wolf population. Unfortunately, we treat wolves as if they are a menace. We need to bring back the wolf population to hunt the deer population. We actually don't need more humans.

Regardless of what you think, humans will one day all consume bugs as a source of sustainable animal protein and photosynthetic algae as a sustainable source of plant-like protein.

[Longshoreman]

I personally will never eat bugs or algae. Your logic is wrong. The fact is wolf and coyote populations will continually be controlled for the simple fact that they wreak havoc on cattle herds. To a cattle farmer a lost cow is lost money so they won't stand for it so that brings us right back to the same place increased deer population.

[Opinion Owner]

@Longshoreman The existence of cattle herds shows the great impact of humanity on the environment. Instead of the original predator-prey relationship, humans just grow meat in the form of megafauna. But megafauna livestock take up a lot of land, water, and air resources, damaging the planet just for human consumption. We need to put the human population in check. Fortunately, we have natural and man-made disasters. It's just a matter of time when doomsday comes, wipes out humans, and allows other species to grow and prosper. The Earth has had several mass extinction events, and out of all of them, new life always springs out. This just shows the great capacity of Earth to regenerate after mass destruction and to do away with humans and their trash.

[miamigirl1970]

@Longshoreman- maybe you better start building your Ark

[Longshoreman]

Would you please explain how cattle damage the earth.

[Longshoreman]

It almost sounds as if you believe humans have no right to be on the earth or utilize it's resources.

[Opinion Owner]

@Longshoreman Cattle generates methane gas, which heats the atmosphere, causing global warming or climate change. Cattle consumes huge amounts of clean water. Cattle needs space to grow. Want organic and grass-fed beef? Then, double your pastures! What this happens is push wild animals out of their homes, so more land goes toward protected livestock animals and less land goes to the wild animals that are being increasingly confined to natural parks and reservations.

[Opinion Owner]

@Longshoreman The way the humans are utilizing the resources right now is unsustainable for long. Humans use the oceans as a toilet and a food pantry. They grow birds, swine, cattle, and fish for meat. They domesticate plants, so that plants are more efficient in growing food for human consumption than spreading their seed. If humans disappear, then it will probably take a few decades for wildlife populations to rebound and a few centuries for buildings to fall and revert back to nature.

[Longshoreman]

I guess when you say populations rebound you are referring to them dying and off and decreasing in numbers due to lack of conservation. It's obvious that your a nut job so I'm not wasting anymore time talking to you.

[Opinion Owner]

@Longshoreman Humans only conserve wildlife for their own enjoyment. In reality, the nature parks of the world are not providing enough room for the megafauna. Elephants can't migrate long distances anymore, because humans have contained them in nature parks. Animals become roadkills every year. If humans are gone, then there may be some initial dying, but nature will recover herself and do away with human trash.

[Scrambledagain]

Op you are 100% right that the way food is done currently is unsustainable. It's heading south.

Hunting... the apex predators are dying out. That's also a no brainer.

It's a whole bunch of factors. In Africa, where I'm from, they hunt wild game. That's all fine and dandy but some of the animals are on the brink of extinction. In African hunting actually saves endangered animals as the owners of these game parks need a sustainable population of animals to hunt for profit.

[posted]

Farming is a major reason we have this many people in the world to begin with, created villages, let populations grow. People (generally) didn't have to worry about if they were going to go hungry after a point. Hunting is trying your luck, huge farms with cattle provide meat for a huge number of people, compared to going out and hunting all day. If everyone hunted all day, shit would die out, work wouldn't get done. Technological advancements would grind to a halt.

[SnowHearth]

I don't hunt unless is for survival, to eat.
I'm against sport hunting.

[blutwolfe]

yeah my buddies have gone hunting every year as far as I can remember, always kinda wanted too but I have other priorities

[Phoenix98]

So what's wrong with hunting?

[posted]

Think op is saying it's time for everyone to hunt..

[Phoenix98]

@posted I hope so more people need to be able to fend for themselves, hunting is a great way to do that. Learn a lot of useful skills while doing it.

[posted]

Yeah but every single person hunting and getting rid of livestock farms is beyond a terrible idea haha.

[Phoenix98]

@posted Yeah that would never happen trust me especially since most people hate killing and hunting.

[coolbreeze]

Good mytake and very good points.

[Omar5881]

What's wrong with hunting

[peachblossomluck]

Nothing.

[miamigirl1970]

Nothing at all!

[Adigelunar]

good topic