Eating Anger?
nakazcid
Somewhere in Dixie, y'all Veteran
After reading another thread on anger, I decided to read a book by Thich Nhat Hanh caller Anger: Wisdom For Cooling the Flames. Most of what I've read so far I agree with, including "tending" your anger and eating mindfully. However one instruction strikes me as a bit dubious. TNH recommends that you eat organic, humanely produced animal products. Apparently if the egg you ate came from an angry chicken, it'll make you angry too. Is there any scientific evidence for this assertion? (Stress hormones in the egg, maybe?) Has anyone here personally experienced a lessening of anger after moving to a cruelty free diet?
Note that I'm not debating the rightness of eating organic. Factory farms are indeed very cruel. I'm just wondering if there's any anecdotal or scientific evidence to back up that assertion.
Comments
I have to leave in a few minutes, but I have seen studies where people's mood has been affecting by stopping eating factory meat, but as you suggested this has more to do with how many hormones and antibiotics factory farm animals get that impact our bodies, as well. However, hormones are still released by the animal during the time it is imprisoned and at the time of death and it seems feasible (I have not looked it up yet) that the presence of those hormones as well could have an effect.
I don't think it's material from the egg, but rather traces on the mind for knowingly eating a creature/s that was/is brutalized for your benefit. BTW I am not a vegetarian though I was for humane reasons for about 2 years.
I don't have the book in front of me, but I think TNH implied that the effect occurs even if you're ignorant of what goes on in those factory farms.
Lately, the abysmal treatment of animals has been coming more and more to my attention. This is just the latest incident. And, no, I'm not a vegetarian either. I tried for about four months and it tore my digestive tract up. Plus, I need to avoid gluten or I'm miserable. A vegetarian diet without wheat is pretty restrictive. I can eat supposedly "cruelty free" meat at by buying at Whole Foods, but that's very expensive and we don't have much time for cooking. That means eating fast food, or at least in a restaurant, and there's no telling where they got their meat.
You should look around your area for farms that sell their meat. You can usually visit and see how they treat the animals (small farms, these are) and you can order packages that are very comparable to supermarket prices but grassfed and better cared for.
I try to eat vegetarian a few days a week. You certainly can do it without gluten
The other day I made a Navajo Stew that was to die for, veggies, black beans and then adobo chiptole and tomatoes blended together for the sauce. So good.
We live in a very rural area, our closest town is 3200 people, and we still have farms that sell organic meats, so I imagine most people have access to those sorts of things outside of just Whole Foods. It's worth the effort. If you look up CSA's in your area (you can google and there is a page that houses all that information) you'll find options in your area. CSA=community supported agriculture
I think this is more related to the interconnectedness between all beings than anger passing through the eggs in a concrete way.
@Rodrigo said what I planned to. TNH developed the concept of 'interbeing' which would cover (and explain) why eating the bodies or products of distressed creatures will naturally be 'unhealthy'.
Then again, the Buddha made over and over again the point that in our 'natural' state, humans are deeply 'unhealthy' due to instinctive layers of ignorance, aversion and fear, stuff we are born with and develop (dare I use the word) organically.
I encountered this as a truth when my ex husband and I had a farm. He brought over a friend and they killed and butchered two 'useless' goat wethers (castrated male goats). My husband brought me the meat and I cooked it (lovely rich smell) and couldn't chew or swallow it. I knew the goats personally, I was their caretaker and sometimes their mother.
If I had a similar awareness of the creature from whom the slab of Porterhouse steak came from, I would be unable to eat it. I've heard this same experience from SO many of the 'new homesteaders' in the US -- you know, the idealists who seek a simpler life, raising their own food -- and then being unable to eat it.
When my (Italian) cousin discovered she was eating the chicken, the eggs of which she had only collected that morning, she actually threw up.
I think free ranged eggs are less expensive than meat.
Organic apples are about fifty% more expensive than regular but I think nothing of letting a bag of regular apples half of them go spoiled and an organic apple indeed tastes better and I look more forward to eating them.
So, looks like I have a reading assignment. Thanks to you and @Rodrigo for explaining. Like you, I doubt I could eat a pet or an animal I had closely associated with.
Organic apples are indeed much more deliciouser than mass market fruits. Organic bananas, not so much.
What's worse is Buddhist practice makes sure you don't need a close personal relationship with a steer or a pig to become mindful of eating them! Or an egg from a caged chicken who is living on wire mesh. Sure, the chicken knows no difference at all . . . but we do. That can make a person see it as their personal responsibility to avoid supporting such industries -- interbeing, we are all alive and want to live, why else would animals run for their lives from us and each other? The slug I threw to the ducks didn't want to die either. I feel LESS badly about that, justifying the lack of a central nervous system in slugs . . . but maybe there is no difference.
Do I eat meat? Sometimes, and I really like it when I do. Functional denial really helps with that.
When they do alms round they will eat whatever is provided, meat included.
They asked him about this, he said monks don't ask for food. Or dietary specifics.
They don't ask for an animal to die, the animal is already dead and the food sustains the monks. He feels there is no negative karmic actions due to this.
Yes, but...from what I'm given to understand monks must accept whatever they're given (with the exception of alcohol perhaps.) Householders have the luxury of choosing and buying their food.
That's not a valid excuse for not eating meat (if one thinks that's important). The Supreme Sangha makes all sorts of public pronouncements to the public. If they asked the public to stop providing meat, the public would accept that fairly readily for 2 reasons. First, because the Supreme Sangha said so. Second. because food for monks is not left over food. It has to be bought specifically for the monk(s), and frankly, your average Thai person cannot afford to go out and buy expensive meat. Vegetables and fruits are comparatively inexpensive at any Thai street market, which are everywhere.
A little off topic (sorry @nakazcid) but if anyone is interested the link below gives a list of the fruits and vegetables that have the most pesticides and chemicals (the dirty dozen) and those that have the least (clean fifteen).
It's recommended you try and buy organic versions of the dirty dozen where possible.
http://www.bodyandsoul.com.au/nutrition/nutrition+tips/12+foods+worth+buying+organic+and+others+that+arent+worth+the+expense+,29255
for every + there is a -
I like my chickens to be happy. They are not happy when I eat them (a little birdy told me).
But how do you know? Death may be the greatest thing that ever happens to us!!!
Is there any difference between an egg from a happy chicken and an angry one? More specifically, does eating an egg or meat from an angry animal pass that anger on to you?
There are reasons why eggs and meat from healthy, organically raised animals might be healthier for you. Anger cannot magically be transmitted through food. Anger is as empty as the mind that creates it.
If you buy the happy-chicken eggs there will be less demand for the angry-chicken ones, thus increasing the proportion of happy chickens.
Nuffink like an 'appy chicken, gawd bless 'em.....