If You Are What You Eat … ~ 17th Karmapa ~ Not only does the meat industry hurt the environment and the animals themselves, but our society’s “normal” levels of meat consumption hurt the human body, too. Many people expend a great deal of energy trying to stay healthy. People in the United States and other countries spend countless hours exercising, going to the gym, taking yoga classes, and so on. Yet how is it healthy to eat meat? When you eat meat, you are eating everything that went into the animal. You are eating their growth hormones and antibiotics and vaccinations. You are eating a lifetime of pesticides, since the feed given to animals raised for mass slaughter is hardly likely to be “certified organic”! This is unhealthy enough to begin with, even before you consider the impact of the way animals are killed. We know a lot about the physical effects of adrenaline, stress, and fear, and we can imagine the sheer terror and panic in the slaughterhouse as animals smell the blood of those who were killed before them. When you eat meat, you ingest not only the chemical substances that animals are full of, but also the emotional and physical stress that animals experience throughout their lives and at the moment of their slaughter. That stress is also part of your meat. […] Some people may tell you that you must eat meat for your health, for the protein. But this simply is not true. The millions of healthy vegetarians around the world are proof of that fact. Protein sources abound in legumes and other foods that are better for our body and for the environment. It really is just a matter of where we decide to get our protein. I think it is important to recognize that this is a choice we make every time we eat. (From: “The Heart is Noble. Changing the World from the Inside Out”, pp. 112-113)
Posted on: Sat, 08 Jun 2013 20:25:30 +0000
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