Let's talk about something that seriously bugs me. I have lived a vegan lifestyle for more than 25 years and people rarely recognized that fact. I didn't advertise it. I told myself it was because I disliked labels. Life was life and we all lived it the best way we knew.
But that's not entirely true ... actually not true at all. Having lived as part of both the vegan and macrobiotic communities of this country, I think it's time to have a discussion about compassion, a word often thrown about, but that seems to have little to do with the actual living of these healthy lifestyles.
In macrobiotics, it is said that by living according to the laws of nature, we are choosing to create a bigger life, one steeped in ancient wisdom, compassion and freedom of choice. We make a lighter footprint and strive to create harmony in all phases of life. And yet, I repeatedly see a kind of 'them and us' attitude that excludes anyone not of the same mind. In accordance with macrobiotic thinking, we are all part of one whole -- all connected to each other in the web of life and that what happens to one happens to all.
So why the exclusion of anyone not choosing this lifestyle? How can we ever hope to achieve 'oneness' if one or another group continually sets themselves up as superior and better because they choose to eat brown rice or meditate or eschew animal products? Is anyone really better, smarter, on the fast track to enlightenment? How can anyone ever hope to attract people to gorgeous, gentle, healthy lifestyles that make a light footprint and leave the world a better place if we refuse to let them in because they don't know or understand?
And then there's vegan, another label I proudly wear -- except when people are yelling at other people for their choices. When books like Skinny Bitch can thrive, where has compassion gone? I cringed my way through the books in this series and realized that they were quite successful in conveying their message: that you are a fat and stupid waste of skin if you are not vegan. Really?
These Dr. Phil-like authors set themselves up as paragons of virtue and goodness as they demean their fellow humans. There is enough in life to make us feel bad about ourselves. I don't know about you, but belittling language, funny as it may be to others, is not my cup of tea and not the way I want to be perceived. And while some say that these books did the job -- conveyed the message that meat production and consumption is at the root of a lot that ails us, both as humans and a planet -- it came at a high price to our image as compassionate beings.
As a committed vegan, I am deeply concerned about the way we treat our animals, and how we produce them for food. It is a horror show on many levels, from cruelty to the fact that meat products have been turned into monstrosities that bear little resemblance to their original form. If we think for one moment that farming and producing more than 10 billion animals for food annually can be done in a compassionate, healthy and humane way, then we are more out of touch with reality than I feared. Michael Pollan says it well when he says that the chicken of today, having been engineered to contain more breast meat bears little resemblance the chicken we recognize in fairy tales. That should scare us.
And yes, organic meat is better for health, more humanely raised with no hormones, antibiotics or steroids to deform them, right up until they are 'humanely' slaughtered. Please spare me the rationalizing. If you want to eat meat, eat it, but be aware of what you are doing and don't kid yourself. The animal on your plate had to be killed. If you are okay with that, then it's your karma -- and cardiovascular system.
I also care deeply for human health and there's not a lot of good news about animal foods' affect on our collective well-being. We all know that. As vegans or macrobiotic people who say they are committed to health -- of humans, the planet, all living things -- how can we justify reserving all our compassion for animals and serving up only disdain for people? How can we hope to enlighten people and help them to see another way to live when we are constantly blinding them by shaking our fingers in their faces? How can we hope to achieve harmony when we care only for the welfare of some animals and not for the welfare of others (humans, for example)?
One of the most chilling movie scenes in recent history was in (of all films) 'Sex and the City,' where one of the character's fur coat was splashed with red paint at Fashion Week by an enraged, ugly vegan. Trite, I know. A caricature, to be sure, but more the image of vegans than the truer image I know of gentle, compassionate people who care about all life.
Some vegans tell me that I am not 'vegan enough' for their taste because I refuse to berate people who wear fur (as gross as that is to me, that is their karma); I don't protest with violence; I don't feel contempt for anyone not playing in my sandbox, so to speak.
The philosophy of catching more bees with honey (vegan pun intended) would draw people to learn more about these lifestyles. If we are peaceful, attractive, inviting and open to all we meet, do we not stand a much better chance of them hearing what we have to say and thereby affecting greater change? Seriously, who wants to be scolded? And who wants to scold? It's exhausting to be so self-righteous -- for the scolder and those who must endure it.
For me, the time of 'them and us' is over. It's time for all those who live compassionate lives to show their fellow humans the same compassion we show to cows, pigs, chickens, puppies and kittens. Compassion opens the door for understanding and with understanding people can -- and will -- make better choices. But they can't, and won't, if they are constantly under attack, made to feel that they are inferior to more 'enlightened' types and left feeling that they are worthless and evil.
Compassion is not selective, but the gift of all sentient beings to each other. Think about it.
Follow Christina Pirello on Twitter: www.twitter.com/christinacooks
Factory farmed cows are often fed drug and hormone laced meat and kept in highly restrictive environments not allowed to graze, eat grass (which they are evolved to eat) or get exercise.
Instead these animals are fed non-grass grains/soy beans etc. which are shipped in from many miles away. Since cows have a four chambered stomach evolved to digest grass, the grains they are fed disrupts their digestive bacteria and the meat they produce is low in healthy omega 3 fatty acids and high in fat.
The feces these grain fed cattle produce is high in deadly E-Coli bacteria which often contaminates their meat in slaughter houses.
Dairy cattle are most often raised in this manner and sometimes beef cattle. The reason they are not allowed to graze is it requires more land and the cattle become less profitable than if they're crowded into enormous factory farm pole barns.
Pigs and poultry are the most common factory farmed animals and their feces and urine, which is stored in enormous factory farm manure/urine lagoons around factory farm buildings, are one of the largest sources of fish kills and river pollution in the U.S.
Buying and raising free/range organic meat is a solution to this problem.
And I've noticed this in the polical sphere, too. Anyone not of a certain politics or on the "other side" are evil, ignorant...not just Americans who maybe seeing things different and with good intentions.
Most days, my diet is vegetarian, in that I choose, when possible, to eat from the palate of plant products. Yesterday, my diet was vegetarian as it was the day before and the day before. So far today, my diet has been vegetarian. Tomorrow, who know... but probably, it will be vegetarian also.
But it's my diet. It's not who I am and I don't understand the rush to identify Self with a diet plan. I am vegetarian. I am vegan. I am fruitarian. For the love of pickles, it's a sandwich.
I've always suspected (can't prove and certainly don't think it's a universal statement or even a description of the majority) that many of the people who yell the loudest and get the most caught up in notions of "purity" in their diets have very unhealthy and skewed relationships with food to start with. The notions that some foods are morally good versus morally bad ... it's a little dodgy for me. Since I have sufficient addictive issues of my own, I've never felt compelled to add this load to my wheelbarrow. I am, however, reminded of a wise man who once said that it wasn't what we put into our mouths that made us unclean; it was the shite that comes out of it.... or words to that effect.
It is a difficult truth, which affects everyone on some level and perhaps contributes to vegans yelling at meat eaters (projecting their own unconscious guilt perhaps?)
That wise man talked about the "karmic load" we acquire from our food choices (which was alluded to in the article) and he recommended that we eat as low on the food chain as possible. If we eat fruits, vegetables and grains, that is the lightest load, as these have the least conscious life. Reptiles, fish and fowl are more conscious. Mammals are more conscious still. Eating animals creates heavy karma, even if they were compassionately raised.
Even some culturally dedicated meat eaters have some sense of this. For example, I've seen children raised in farming families have a very difficult time seeing their 4H animals sold to be slaughtered. The children are praised for their fine food producing efforts and given money, but they are still grief stricken at the death of their beloved animals.
So, let us have compassion for the children, for those who eat those animals and for the pain of the killing that occurs to sustain all our lives.
I guess if you can't see it, it doesn't happen.
"We must all kill to live in this world." is a great saying, and is too true. You should have respect for what dies so that you can live. When you pretend that eating grains is somehow healthier for the world than eating grass fed beef, you're diluting yourself, contributing to the problem, and damaging the natural life/death cycle that exists between grass, grass-eaters and carnivores.
Well, one of the exaggerated myths are that vegans yellat or impose on, or attack people for not being vegan. This is a huge part of a myth.
It is ridiculously blown out of proportion that we vegans do any of this.
The truth is just walking into someones house or attending a dinner and mentioning one's veganism puts most people who are not vegan...on the defensive.
I've been vegan for 20 years and without a doubt it is always the non vegans who make the comments and ask me questions.Usually thinking they are funny and then confroning me with how animals kill other animals so therefore humans can do it as well. Really??? Whenever I answer the truth...that I'm vegan for ethical reasons people become uncomfortable and act as if my decision somehow is imposing on them or taking away their rights to eat dead animals. By my just being vegan is a threat to their freedom...happens nearly everytime.
I really...seriously need to start doing undercover videos of just the insane reactions people throw at me when they hear me calmly mention..."oh I'm vegan..."
That's all I need to state before the passive aggressive questions, attacks, same tired jokes begin to be tossed at me.
I'm calm, focused and honest about why it is I don't eat or wear animals and this drives the meat eaters crazy. It's the meat and animal product consumers who flip out...always!!!
We vegans are treated as if we are extreme by just being who we are even if we never say anything more than...I'm Vegan!
It's a bit like claiming one is an atheist in a room full of religious believers...somehow not believing in the ludicrous makes one extreme in the eyes of the faithful. Remember...Faith is the belief in something without any evidence.
Is this below article...extreme to mention? It's a REALITY and no faith is involved....thank god.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/02/un-report-meat-free-diet
Veganly yours,
Philip Steir
Simply yelling at others makes them confused and angry and polarized against you. It really serves to polarize the debate with people taking sides like a sports match.
It is okay to restrict yourself to an unnatural diet, "but be aware of what you are doing and don't kid yourself." It is your karma.
You are the kind of Vegan I like: one who says "I am a a vegan because want to be - you go ahead and be whatever it is that you want to be."
Additionally it is becoming clear that animal and animal byproduct consumption is responsible for many of the chronic diseases which plaque modern human society. Beyond that the number one cause of choking death is meat.
From chronic disease to shortened life spans, humans pay a great price for eating meat. While it is true that tribes in the far north have over hundreds or thousands of generations adapted to be able to better tolerate a meat diet. That does not mean it is healthy for everyone or ultimately even for them
The only way that humans can be considered Omnivores is in the same way scientists classify many other primates as omnivores, and that is that they occasionally eat insects.
It's easy to understand the anger that many vegans have towards humans since it is humans that hurt and kill the animals and for what? The taste. An outfit. Unneccessary things. But that anger is better directed at the people behind the factory farms than at people who might not know any better. Unless a vegan is born into a vegan family and raised that way, he or she was probably a meat-eater, leather and wool wearer who didn't know any better at one point and some point, became educated and made a more compassionate choice.
Approaching people with a smile and not being judgmental guarantees more people will be open to listen and learn. And setting the example of being a happy, joyful vegan is the best example of all.
The only reason meat tastes "good" is because it's flavored and smother will all kinds of things for you to eat it. Your tastebuds can change. Are you willing to give up your health and the health of the entire planet just because something "tastes good"? We need to move away from this selfish mentality and think beyond our mouths and appetites.
I see things differently. Meat tastes good whether you eat it au naturel: simply grilled over an open flame or even raw as in steak tartare. You don't necessarily lose your health or the health of the planet by eating meat.
Propaganda about meat destroying health and the planet is a reaction to the excesses of the Standard American Diet and the horrendous factory farm system that grew from the SAD diet. The irony is that the meat centered diet that Vegans react against is itself a reaction to the sense of deprivation that all of our ancestors felt. They desired meat and equated it with the good life. Until recently, only elites ate meat daily. Now, a fraction of their descendants reject meat on specious grounds and exhort the rest of us to join them. Irony abounds!
As to choice, only certain sectors of the Global North really have any choice at all. The majority of people in the world are currently down to one or two meals a day due to escalating food prices. Food prices bumped up by the use of food grains (corn, for example) for biofuels to power cars driven by Global Northerners, including many vegans.
This shows how unnatural veganism is. How can something be so much more right and better if those who believe it have to use force or misinformation or violence to get other people to follow along?
Veganism is a club now. It is a Vonnegutian "granfalloon." People who are different use an self-acquired characteristic to form a bond around and this "bond" becomes a sign of self-annointed superiority. "I am ethically a better person because my lifestyle and culture allow for me to have complete control over my dietary intake." Are ya? People want to be part of group and I cannot really fault them on it. Just that it is odd how forward some people are about it (though this happens with every group--even gender, sexual orientation, race, and other social constructs). People identify themselves as being a vegan above other things as though it is a sign of their higher standing.
As far as the compassion goes, do vegans understand what happens after the animals are no longer being used as food? They die. Forever. Domestic animals only exist because of their utility, when that is gone, so are they.
In the case of most animals they are penned/caged and fed and medicated. They live a better life than would occur in nature (just like my kitty that peta is against).
This whole "best interest" thing does not make much sense as the "best interest" does not appear to be a natural course. Animals "rights" people have this idea that the natural way is best (that is without human interaction), but also that humans need to work to save animals from extinction. That makes absolutely no fecking sense! How the hell can people allow nature to run its course while intervening in the lives of animals?
The arrogance bothers me. Humans are not above nature. There is nothing that can show that they are. Moral philosophy and belief in god still cannot take man outside of the natural world. The world is not some sandbox for people to care for.
No it doesn't!
How can something be so much more right and better if those who believe it have to use force or misinformation or violence to get other people to follow along?
Force? Misinformation? Violence? What planet... No scratch that. Vegans do not force others to be vegan. Misinformation? The misinformation is that meat is essential to human health, to the contrary meat is next to cheese one of the most unhealthy things you can put into your body. Violence what violence? Vegans are not violent in fact to the contrary it has been shown that meat consumption leads to violent tendencies in humans.