---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <authfriend@...> wrote:
Just what I was thinking. There are so many reasons these days to reduce, if
not eliminate, one's consumption of meat that don't have anything to do with
how one feels physically (or, for that matter, because one thinks it's
"spiritual" not to eat meat, ethical considerations aside). The "happy
omnivore" excuse for eating meat is mostly an anachronism. It may have made
sense waaaaaay back when before factory livestock operations, before feeding
livestock required a disproportionate share of agricultural land and water. How
many people can a hamburger feed, versus the 16 times as much grain it takes to
make that hamburger? Not to mention what we know now about the unhealthiness of
a high-meat diet. Back in the "happy omnivore" days, what "nature intended" was
for meat to be an occasional, even rare, treat, not the mainstay of the diet.
Granted--Bhairitu will confirm this--some people don't do that well on a
strictly vegetarian diet, and they shouldn't be made to feel guilty for eating
just enough meat to keep their physiology in good shape, especially if they can
stick to chicken and fish. (A TM teacher of my acquaintance told me that
Maharishi once said to someone who asked about eating meat: If you really have
to, "best to eat small animals.") And of course if you can afford it, buy
free-range meat--it's better for you and, obviously, for the animals it comes
from.
But to puff oneself up and feel superior because one has rejected
vegetarianism is the shallowest of egotistical nonsense.
Thanks for this incisive post. You have said a lot here and most of it
encompasses my feelings about this subject. I do eat small creatures because I
feel sometimes I need to eat meat - things like fish and birds. Fish I would
have a hard time cutting out of my diet but for the rest of the meat, I could
leave it alone.
For me it was not primarily about feeling better or not physically. Eating
less meat was and is about contributing as little as possible to the meat
industry and its inhumane practices and standards and to try, in some small
way, to lessen the suffering of other living creatures by not causing them to
be held captive and force fed all sorts of bad stuff in order for me to later
ingest them. It is my very miniscule attempt to try and cause a little less
suffering by my fellow, living creatures here on this planet.
