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bad karma from eating meat
zombiegirl
beating the drum of the lifelessin a dry wasteland Veteran
hello all, didn't want to start a heavy discussion here... just a slight musing of my sleep deprived brain at the moment...
as i've discussed before, i was a vegetarian for maybe 3 years, went back to eating meat for 1-2 years(? i'm horrible with time) and now i've gone back to being a vegetarian for the last year or so. but this time, i am much less strict. i used to be the type that wouldn't eat jello or anything, but now i'm more of a "don't support the meat industry" veg.
i've been taking into consideration things that people have been saying about intent to kill and whatnot and at some point i decided that i would sometimes eat meat to appease people in social situations if it was given to me.
a situation like that presented itself to me tonight and as a result, i have horrible stomach cramps and have lost out on hours of sleep. i knew this would happen, as it usually does when i eat meat, but i did so anyways. now i suffer, haha.
this really is the definition of bad karma, no?
but then, i find myself wondering, was it like this for me before i became a vegetarian? is it just because i haven't eaten meat in so long or did beef stroganoff always make my stomach hurt? i do remember when i first stopped eating meat, i was amazed by what a difference it made on me physically. i remember thinking, "uhh...it's normal to have a bowel movement every day???" most vegetarians seem to complain of some sort of physical problems when they eat meat again (usually either cramping, constipation, or diarrhea). but for me, it seems to me that i ALWAYS had these problems, i just thought they were normal until i changed my diet.
just curious what other people's experience with all this is. i'm talking from a purely physical standpoint here, nothing to do with ethics or morals.
and now... it's time for work
as i've discussed before, i was a vegetarian for maybe 3 years, went back to eating meat for 1-2 years(? i'm horrible with time) and now i've gone back to being a vegetarian for the last year or so. but this time, i am much less strict. i used to be the type that wouldn't eat jello or anything, but now i'm more of a "don't support the meat industry" veg.
i've been taking into consideration things that people have been saying about intent to kill and whatnot and at some point i decided that i would sometimes eat meat to appease people in social situations if it was given to me.
a situation like that presented itself to me tonight and as a result, i have horrible stomach cramps and have lost out on hours of sleep. i knew this would happen, as it usually does when i eat meat, but i did so anyways. now i suffer, haha.
this really is the definition of bad karma, no?
but then, i find myself wondering, was it like this for me before i became a vegetarian? is it just because i haven't eaten meat in so long or did beef stroganoff always make my stomach hurt? i do remember when i first stopped eating meat, i was amazed by what a difference it made on me physically. i remember thinking, "uhh...it's normal to have a bowel movement every day???" most vegetarians seem to complain of some sort of physical problems when they eat meat again (usually either cramping, constipation, or diarrhea). but for me, it seems to me that i ALWAYS had these problems, i just thought they were normal until i changed my diet.
just curious what other people's experience with all this is. i'm talking from a purely physical standpoint here, nothing to do with ethics or morals.
and now... it's time for work
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Comments
Last night, I slept badly because I read this essay, then watched the TV show it was commenting on, and kept being started awake by angry thoughts and violent fantasies. That's bad karma.
So, I don't know if it's bad karma or not, but it does seem to vary from one person to another.
yeah, i've noticed this as well. it makes me wonder if perhaps we aren't all the same after all. some people also say that they get these intense cravings for meat, but i never get those either. i sometimes wonder if something about my heritage and genetics makes me more prone to vegetarianism. i was definitely raised with a protein in every meal, so idk.
"What you mean you don't eat no meat? That's ok, I'll make you lamb!"
i have no answer for you zombiegirl, no real answer. i have been a vegetarian, and i have been a vegan, and now i eat a little meat now and then or sometimes daily but very little. last night at a dinner party i passed on the turkey, today i had a little beef for a fajita. i basically don't like the idea that an animal died to feed me, but i feel better physically when i do have meat. it could be that you need digestive enzymes when you eat meat; i don't know.
i also don't worry about my karma; i just do my best because that is what i desire to do. but my best isn't always being a vegetarian. i am sure i have not helped you at all.
Mtns
no, you have. i was hoping to just have an honest discussion about meat and vegetarianism and the effects people experience physically. i admit, i was a little out of it when i wrote this because i was running on a couple hours of poor sleep and finally gave up on sleep at 3am.
i'm more inclined to eat fish than other meat. my family is swedish and it's kinda like, when don't we eat fish? haha.
i recently watched a documentary talking about swordfish (aka billfish, marlin) and other predatory fish though. they were saying that due to over-fishing, these fish are now so toxic with mercury that only a small amount is considered safe to eat. tuna is also a predatory fish.
well, my girlfriend experiences the same thing so i was kinda curious if others did as well.
So, in short, eating meat (especially red meat) after some years of vegetarianism does tend to play havoc with your biological processes - at least from my experiences.
Regards,
Vangelis
pretty much the same as me. when i ate meat, i gravitated more toward the red meat even though i know it's worse for me. in my experience with trying to be less strict as a vegetarian, red meat is horrible for me. chicken i have no experience with. fish/seafood doesn't affect me at all either.
i read an article online that said that it has to do with enzymes and that after a few days, the enzymes will be able to break down the meat (sick). but it also said that there have been no studies on this so i wonder where they got their information in the first place.
Completely apart from Buddhism I have make some effort at improving the healthiness of my diet. To that end the intake of fruits, vegetables and grains/nuts have increased and the consumption of meat have decreased.
To the extent that I eat meat I make most of it seafood. Fish and shellfish seem to be easily tolerable to my digestive system and many studies show the positive benefits of avoiding red meat and replacing it with fish/seafood. Less saturated fat, more omega 3s and there are even those who argue (with some, but not a lot of scientific evidence) that eating *anything* non toxic from the ocean provides us with trace minerals we can no longer get from terrestrial plants and animals, but only from the ocean where all life has it's origins. There is no question that salt water contains trace minerals largely not found any longer in soil, the question is whether or not those trace minerals matter to human health.
Folks who advocate the Mediterranean diet and similar ideas point to the oceans as the source of good health. Even Eskimos who ate almost nothing other than meat seem to have been relatively free of modern health ailments and their meat came from the ocean so who knows.
I don't.
Still, there seems to me some wisdom in not neglecting food from the oceans. That's where a lot of the healthy stuff comes from whether it be plant or animal based.
So, when I eat meat I try to make it something from the oceans.
i agree with you and my "vegetarianism" is a hybrid of health reasons as well as "ethical" reasons. to bring buddhism back into the picture, part of my problem with fish/shellfish is that we have so completely overfished the oceans. i heard the statistic from a documentary once that they think we only have about 10% of our world's fish population left. but i'm not sure how they reached this number, as this seems to be a pretty difficult thing to determine.
the obvious answer would be to buy farmed fish instead of wild caught. but they actually found that farmed fish is much higher in toxins than wild caught.
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-01-13/health/salmon.farmed.fresh_1_salmon-consumption-wild-salmon-atlantic-salmon?_s=PM:HEALTH
but they also say:
i guess, damned if you do, damned if you don't.
I do agree with you in regards to over fishing though, it's a very real problem.
that's interesting. i didn't know they were ecologically friendly, although i had heard that sardine is a blanket term that could refer to several different types of fish. thank you for that bit of information
At the end of the day no body knows for sure if you can accumulate negative karma from eating meat (tough some claim there is no debate to be had on this if you read the posts in the link).
http://newbuddhist.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6696
Metta to all sentient beings
i was speaking of karma in a more literal sense of "cause and effect", attempting to take "morality" out of the conversation completely. such as,
cause:"i eat meat"
effect:"i experience pain and sleeplessness"
this seems to equate to negative karma to me.
but as one suggestion might also be,
cause:"i become a vegetarian and stop eating meat until the other day"
effect:"because my enzymes are not used to breaking down animal matter, i experience pain and sleeplessness."
in this scenario, i could be experiencing "negative karma" just by becoming a vegetarian and then deciding to eat meat, making the meat not inherently bad.
or, option 3, i am completely confused and wrong in my view of karma.
another example involving food of a less debatable form;
if i constantly over eat and eat poorly and i become a type II diabetic, would this be considered bad karma?
i am considering any of the options, really.
good luck to you! i hope you find it as enjoyable as i have. it's up to you how strict you want to be about it, but in my personal experience, i found it easier to relax a little bit (and eat marshmallows, for example). i felt like i was unnecessarily stressing myself (and others) out which is pretty counterproductive if part of the reason you are doing it is for health, lol.