The picture I linked, shows a sprite sheet from within the game. The sheet still contains the sprites for the meat objects. And it seems like they are just sitting there wasting space, if they are no longer being used.

No, this is not another post in favor of butchering - I already know he doesn't want it.

But what about hunting? Hunting animals in the Forest area, and there could be 1 or 2 animals in the forest that we could hunt, and the animals would change with the seasons. So like, maybe a rabbit or deer in the spring, a bear in the summer, maybe a turkey in the fall...
And with hunting would come a new weapon - a Bow and Arrow - and you could craft arrows with stone(arrowhead), wood(arrow body), and fibers(arrow tail) - which are really all the most common resources, so it'd be easy to get those. And it'd be a decent replacement for the Slingshot, since personally I don't think the Slingshot really fits among the other weapon categories - all the weapons are medieval types - Swords, Daggers, Clubs, Hammers, there's even a Spear in there(though I don't know if it's used atm, there's a lot of unused things floating around the game's resources).

The animals don't even have to die a bloody death, they can maybe just go *poof*\ in a puff of smoke when you kill them, and then the meat appears on the ground, as a loot drop, that you can use to cook with. My niece and nephew play this game, and they also play things like Zelda, etc. where a Bow and Arrow can be a weapon - they once told me that they very much liked the fact that the enemies died in a puff of smoke instead of a gross bloody mess on the ground. So I think having the animals die that way would be the best way to keep it All-Ages-Friendly.

I think Hunting could be a viable, very nature-oriented alternative, and I'd like your opinions, and maybe u/ConcernedApe as well, with his thoughts on the matter.