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"All Forms of Life are Sacred"
genkaku
Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
Passed along in email today was this well-written essay by Chris Hedges, "All Forms of Life are Sacred" -- a lesson in morality and/or food for thought.
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Well written to be sure, but relative to the title, a bit myopic.
If all forms of life are sacred, and I believe they are, how do plants (a form of life) fit in here?
Perhaps the title should be, "All Forms Of Animal Life ........ ".
I was struck by the notion, if we believe in non-violence, how can we be sticking animal flesh in our mouths? It's not enough to get me to swear off meat, but it does raise an interesting and perplexing question. I guess my beliefs in non-violence aren't as strong as I thought, and I never thought they were that strong in the first place. I guess I I can live with that .....
@Chaz -- I agree with your caveats ... i.e., if animals deserve our concern, how can the grain and grass and bugs some of them subsist on not likewise be a concern ... which train of thought leads me to the conclusion that even if killing is against the precepts, we are inevitably all killers. Now what?
A recipe I made this weekend called for the meat from a rotisserie chicken rather than neatly packaged precut pieces. Getting my meat from something that more closely resembled an animal made me a little uncomfortable.
I may switch to almond milk now after having read that bit about the treatment of dairy cows.
You can try to minimise the harm that you do.
If it were just killing animals because we eat them...it's bad or worse to read about how dogs are killed in some oriental countries for their fur by skinning them alive and /or boiling them alive. What we may do - like becoming a vegetarian - will do nothing to stop all the other slaughters of animals for all those other reasons.
I think this is where that equanimity comes in, which I am still working on.
Right on ... minus, of course, the notion that such minimizing exempts anyone from the "killer" label.
I've heard some vegans say we shouldn't wash our veggies lest we kill the tiny little animals that live on all organics. As if they will pass through our digestive tracts unscathed.
I was on a pure vegetarian diet except for eggs for a year and a half with no negative effects until just over a month ago when some stress hit and I lost quite a few pounds (which usually takes me a while to collect) and I had to include fish and poultry to my diet just to feel healthy again. Sadly it worked and am still eating chicken.
I still do figure that no brain equals no pain and don't thing plants feel a sense of separateness from the rest of the universe as we do. They could feel just as at home in our poop as in the forest. I don't know.
Also I truly wonder if we are really omnivores or if it's just a habit that evolution took advantage of. After all, we usually have to cook the meat before eating it.
I wonder how that came about. Maybe a fire stole all the food and all that remained was cooked flesh.
@ourself said:
Cooking food makes more of the calories available. Also, you don't have to expend as much energy chewing and digesting it. So evolutionarily speaking, cooking makes sense. Meat is also more calorie dense, so less work for more benefit.
A couple days ago, I read an article on AOL news about human history - it said that humans started getting lighter skeletons (fragile) when we stopped hunting & gathering, so it's probably due to more exercise and more protein from meat & fish among other things.
our jaws are also far less pronounced because the amount and type of fibre we eat, has changed drastically over the millennia. Basically, compared to the types of fibre we USED to eat - the stuff we have nowadays is pap.
Minimise the killing if you prefer it that way. Same thing.
Both physically and psychologically.
There's a big difference between killing an animal than eating it versus eating steak out of a packet.
It would be the direct killing that would affect us more.
I would ideally prefer to be vegetarian. I think it would be better.
I don't like to force anything though, I've made some changes like just about cut out pork as well as not killing fish. Feels right.
Nothing worse than someone pretending to be compassionate because it's what the book says they should do. Likewise with the whole eating a animal.
Just be mindful of what and why you are eating right?
Karmically, directly killing another animal to eat may (or may not) affect us more-none of us knows that for sure.
But psychologically I'm not sure it does. Keeping that mindset allows us to continue to eat mindlessly, which contributes to a whole host of problems, including emotional eating, food addiction, health problems, and other things as well. Being oblivious to where our meat comes from (and eggs that are factory farmed as well) doesn't excuse us from the responsibility. Ignorance is not an excuse.
I grew up in a family that hunted, fished and trapped to survive during many long winters my dad was laid off from his job. I grew up knowing exactly where food came from, and what happened in order to bring it to the table. Reverence for the life given was part of the hunting, and part of the dinner table. I don't really believe people who grow up without that are better off. They might not be committing the act of killing the animal, but in their case, the animal they ate was a prisoner it's whole life, and no respect or reverence was given for it during it's life or at the time of it's death. It affects the well being of the animal, it affects the nutritional aspect of the food and it affects us when we buy neatly packaged meat at the store. Thinking that whole process is "worse" for us in some way than supporting factory farms doesn't make sense to me.
I have a cat and a dog that I value as pets. I do not value them as members of my family. I have a human family.
I grew up on a dairy farm. Yes, I would love some day to have a beef suckling herd; partly because of my heritage but mainly because of the current regulations about beef on the bone - it's not possible to get well matured and hung beef because of the BSE scares - and I enjoy a good steak, especially when I know it comes from stock that has been well cared for and humanely killed.
My family dairy farmed because milk, butter and cheese were their livelihood. They invested a lot in improving living conditions for the cattle - they cared about their cows which had been bred within the family for generations with bulls being exported all over the world - but they did it to pay the bills. They also quite liked winning awards
Milk quotas etc make dairy farming as a living impossible without milking machines. I was put on a milking machine when my son was born. Many mothers express using mechanical methods. It was pretty painful the first time - the nurse told me to just take it off without mentioning that I had to release the vacuum when I removed it - but farmers do release the vacuum. Other than that, I had no problems expressing mechanically even if it did remove the bonding experience of feeding. That was not always practical. Farmers would never treat a cow the way I was treated - the cow would not give an economical amount of milk if they did so even if they didn't care about the pain caused. In my experience, mastitis is treated quickly and effectively for much the same reason - unlike in the case of human mothers, many of whom I have seen suffer for weeks.
Yes, it is heart rending when calves are separated from their mothers. My heart was rent when my kids started their first days at school. All male calves are sent direct to market. They have no value on a dairy farm. Some of them are farmed for beef. Very few grow to be bulls - there's limited need for bulls especially in these days of AI. From my experience, AI is usually prefered by cows to traditional means of insemination, which may not be as bad as ducks/cats mating but is not particularly pleasant for the cow.
My main issue is that, without dairy farms, the sight of cows in British fields would be vanishingly rare. Yes, dairy cattle do not stay out all year in the UK - it is too cold for them during the winter even though beef cattle manage - but at least I can enjoy seeing them during the more clement months, at least they exist. They are domesticated animals, bred by humans for human use. Cows as I know them would not exist without humans. Just as the Sussex downs would not exist if humans had not cleared the forests and kept sheep.
I don't know what the answer is. But I do feel this country would be a poorer place if folk stopped drinking milk/eating cheese and we no longer saw cows in our fields. Almond trees are pretty too but they don't grow so well here. Not sure whether you can make butter/cheese from almonds? Or will all our fields be given over to rape - an endless sea of yellow with no diversity of bird life, insect life or weeds?
All life - including plant life - is sacred to me. But for me, purpose is also relevant.
Absolutely, and I would suggest an aspect of that is how the food found it's way onto your plate.
@SarahT but how long are the cows on machines per day? How many days out of their year? How many years are they "in service?" To me that could be quite a lot different than a human mom pumping for her one child for whatever reason it's needed. The cow isn't expressing enough milk to feed her one or 2 calves, she is expressing milk to feed many people, and I don't know if cows are the same but in people the more you feed/pump, the more you produce. That doesn't make it good for you, though. Also, human milk is unique to the mom and the baby, the hormone levels and other things fluctuate based on the state of the mom's body, the baby's needs, and the diet of the mom. Again, I don't know if cows are the same, but it seems likely. I was fine having to pump for my son because he was in the ICU when he was born. But it would have been another story to do it for hours and hours a day to produce an amount needed to feed a dozen babies. Just not a comparison that seems to make sense to me. BTW I'm not trying to be snotty, I'm honestly curious about the questions I asked because I do not know. I suppose I could look it up.
Also, are you familiar with how factory dairy farms work in the US? They are quite unpleasant. If it is too cold in the UK in winter for them to be out, then that means much of the dairy producing states in the US, the weather is too cold for at least 6 months a year for them to be outside. Most of them are not pastured, and are not well cared for. You can find them, of course. We get our milk from a local farm, but it is $8 per half gallon as opposed to $3 a gallon. We limit how much we drink (since people should drink more water than anything anyhow) so we can afford it, but with 3 kids it gets to be a lot! Many people can't afford to do so, and by no fault of their own have no choice by to support factory farms if they want to get milk and cheese.
Just discussing, no emotion attached to my post whatsoever, so whoever is reading please don't attach any where it isn't present, lol.
@karasti:
No longer being involved in the dairy farming industry (since milk quotas came along), I can't answer all your questions but, from the farm where my parents obtained their milk until they also left dairy farming as they were being paid less than production costs, I believe it is about 20 minutes twice a day. Yes, cows like humans produce more milk the more is taken but there is a limit! Friesians in particular have been bred to be "milking machines" but there is now a bit of a backlash against this (vets bills got too high) and many farmers are using cross breeds as they are more sustainable. WWII had a huge impact on farming methods as breeding became a short term issue for many but the pendulum has now swung back a long way.
I know nothing about US farms. None of the milk I drink comes from the US although some does come from France where EU regulations also apply.
Mindfulness still seems the best advice to me - I find it bizarre that folk do not know how their food is produced - but I would also ask for balance before dismissing dairy farming altogether. My only experience of poultry farming was turkeys but I am careful about where I shop for my eggs/chickens too.
Thank you for your interest
It's quite humbling to know that our bones,flesh and blood were not derived from us.
Most people don't realise. That beating heart of "ours" was derived from protein we assimilated.
We ARE what we eat!
@karasti I know it affects me more, ever since I've stopped killing (mostly!) I feel better about it. I would say that's karma.
I got my dog to kill a mouse a few days ago. The guilt and the thought arises periodically. Even now it came up.
Karma?
If it was for survival I don't know how it would affect me then
Was looking for a tale to explain how not to play the Burger King or the 'how to eat dharma card' and came across this from Rabbi Nachman of Braslav:
A King had a son who believed he was a rooster. The prince hopped around the palace and spent hours under the table pecking for crumbs. He was naked and wild. No doctors seemed to be able to cure the boy and bring him back to sanity. Finally, a great sage arrived who offered to see the Prince. The man took off his clothes and crawled under the table with the boy. He too pecked and hopped, scratched and called out for the sun to set and the sun to rise.
Days passed. The boy was happy to have another rooster companion. then one day the sage put on a shirt. The boy spoke for the first time, “A rooster does not wear human clothing.” The sage said, “That is true usually. But I am cold and I am still a rooster whether I wear a shirt or not.” So the boy also put on a shirt. Day by day the sage walked more and more upright. The boy seemed horrified. “I thought you were a rooster and now you are walking like a man.” The sage whispered to him, “I am still a rooster, but I am pretending to be a man. A rooster is prey to hunters and those who are hungry.” the sage dressed and began to sit at the table. Finally, the prince dressed and sat down beside him.
The King was pleased. And the sage said to the boy, “Even when you pretend that are a King you should never forget that you are a rooster.” And that is what happened.
You will have to find your own ending as how a prince ends up KFC, how to eat with compassion towards the uprooted lettuce etc
. . . in the end decided not to play with your food . . .