Image by Sean Driscoll

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is a goal orientated guy.

Away from the world of social networking he sets himself a personal challenge each year – last year it was learning Chinese, this year it’s maintaining a diet that involves only eating animals he has killed himself.

This he regards as more honest than getting someone else do the dirty work for you and buying processed and packaged meat from the supermarkets. I agree with him but I’m too squeamish to contemplate doing the same. That’s why I don’t eat meat or fish.

Apparently Zuckerberg’s  first kill was a lobster and he has since graduated to killing a chicken, goat, and pig. Presumably sheep and cows will be next in line. Or maybe not.  He told  Fortune magazine that he is now not far off being a vegetarian.

I grew up in the country, my Dad was a farm labourer, and I always made a direct connection between what was served up on my dinner plate and what had previously been a living animal. I  became a vegetarian as a result of  seeing a chicken’s neck being twisted and after experiencing the horrible stench and sight of a rabbit being skinned and de-gutted.

I think more people would go veggie if they had to be hunter gatherers and Zuckerberg’s actions deserve praise  for highlighting this issue of ethical and sustainable food consumption.

Related links:

Zuckerberg’s new diet challenge (Fortune Magazine)

Facebook founder gets sustainable food lessons  (Sustainable Food news)

Website advocating the abolition of meat