The Catholic Guide to Sustainable Living

Dr. Samuel Shephard talks with Brandon Sheard of Farmstead Meat Smith about raising, killing, and eating animals the right way. Brandon teaches people to slaughter and process pigs on the domestic scale—in the backyard, the old way—and argues that this work helps us develop virtue and understand what it means to be human.
The conversation covers why "doing what you love" is overrated, the structural impossibility of real community in our car-dependent world, and how prioritizing Mass and the sacraments might be the key to restoring authentic Catholic villages. Brandon makes the case that we're all naturally equipped to be "meat smiths"—we just need to activate that latent potential.