WHAT WE EAT WE BECOME:

                THE VEGAN/VEGETARIAN CHOICE

 

                   By Dr. Michael W. Fox

 

        

We harm ourselves in many ways, and one way in particular has an ironic twist.  It is that when we harm others we harm ourselves.  This happens when we are ignorant of the interconnected nature of the phenomenal world, reality.  The law of karma operates when we violate the principle of ahimsa---the moral imperative to not harm others in obedience to the Golden Rule of treating others as we would have them treat us,--- we suffer the consequences. The novice American Indian hunter was traditionally advised to kill the deer not only with respect and remorse, but also swiftly with one arrow, otherwise whatever fear the animal experienced would be passed on to all who ate that meat. When we are aware of the true nature of reality we feel compassion toward every sentient being that, like us, has selfhood by virtue of its living presence, be it beautiful or ugly, harmful or beneficent; and through empathy we are able to live more spontaneously and mindfully in the present: To heal and to be healed, made whole.

The true nature of reality is often called holy or sacred, and it is a tangible presence everywhere and in all things when we are connected in communion.  It is in the musk of ancient woods in the misty glow of dawn, and in the caress of a spring breeze on a dappled fawn.  It is through our senses, liberated from emotional confusion, especially fear, and from rationalism's Doubting Thomas, that we connect with the sentient, mortal, and transient world.  Our free and instinctive, most ancient senses, awaken our intuition that is the union within us of heart and mind. This unified sensibility enables us to enjoy communion with the Self in all, and is renewed and inspired by the omnipresent creative and divine energy that some call Shakti or Chi, the life force.  It is in the pure air we breathe, the clean water we drink, and the good food that we eat. 

This state of communion, that future research may well prove to be the key to human health and spiritual well-being, mandates vegetarianism whenever it is possible, the consumption of meat, fish, poultry, eggs, and dairy products to be deliberately avoided.  This is primarily for reasons of compassion for those creatures whom most consumers never know in any way other than as a piece of flesh from a castrated or spayed and hormone-treated, feedlot over-fatted ‘beef’ calf, or from a pig or chicken raised under such crowded conditions that create stress, suffering, and disease. No animal needs to be killed in order for most of us to be well nourished. Few know the suffering behind every egg they consume from a hen whose living space with four other hens in a ‘battery’cage is barely the size of this opened page.  And then there are dairy products from cows, many injected with a genetically engineered growth hormone, who were deprived of and bawled terribly for their newborn calves, their milk going to us instead of to them.

Vegans eat no animal produce, including seafoods, while vegetarians may consume eggs and dairy products from free range, organically fed animals. Neither vegans nor vegetarians eat seafoods. ‘Conscientious omnivores’, as I call them, accept the killing of animals for their own consumption, but restrict their diet to organically and humanely raised livestock and poultry.  The highly contaminated seafoods come from ‘fresh’ water sources we have turned into toxic sewers and waste dumps, and from oceans that are over fished, poisoned, and dying.  Little wonder that we harm ourselves and our children when we eat the produce of animals we have harmed from an environment that we have harmed.