She was a beautiful bird, a Bourbon Red turkey whose rich brown feathers were flecked with white, and she had spent her days roaming free around an organic farm that overlooked the Hudson River. But as I stood watching her, she did not seem happy. Instead, with her almond eyes downcast, her subdued manner suggested a kind of forbearance.

Perhaps she sensed I was not there to make friends. In truth, I was there to kill her.

We were standing in Madani Halal, a family-run slaughterhouse in Ozone Park, Queens, that follows Islamic dietary strictures. Many of the small New York State farms that bring their livestock there are drawn, however, by something more basic: the slaughterhouse’s commitment to minimizing the animals’ discomfort.

Its staff is also committed to the idea that people should know what they are eating, which is why Madani, along with a small but significant number of farms, allows customers to choose their animals, to witness their slaughter and even, for those so inclined, to wield the sharpened knife. It’s all part of the broader cultural effort to escape the climate-controlled, linoleum-lined artificiality of supermarket shopping, in which meat magically appears all ready for your oven and animals are characters in children’s storybooks.

Still, there’s a big difference between shopping at a greenmarket and actually dragging a blade across the throat of a living creature.