Considering the abstaining of taking life or participating in taking life.

Good for you! ;-)

I again am reminded of the countless thousands of worms, ants, beetles, grubs, slugs and other ground-dwelling lifeforms that I slaughtered daily as I cultivated the organic gardens at Gaia House for the vegetarian meals we had there that summer in 1999 when I did a work retreat there. We participate in the murder of beings on an unimaginably vast scale for even the simplest of foods. Not saying don't go vegan, just realize that just to ship the foods you eat in a truck involves mowing down countless insects as they splatter on its windscreen in the summertime. We are killers, us humans. It is how we live. Blood is on our forks, spoons and knives. Add in bacteria we kill, and my life on this planet has likely resulted in the death of billions of living things if not trillions and will continue to kill them at an incalculable rate. I leave death and destruction in my wake, truly. Such is our karma.

I think that Buddha said that it is volition or intenation that builds the karma.

There are people that die in car accidents on the roads, and we still have roads and cars. They are not built with the intent of killing people.

The same with animals. When I step or work in the garden or build a house I kill many sentient beings with no intent of doing that.

But when I do groceries and have the option on where I spend my money, I think it is in that moment that I can make a choice, knowing very well that the animal products on the shelf are products of extreme suffering. Those animals were tortured and killed by other people with the purpose of making money.

When I choose to pay for that I see it as paying a hitman to do the dirty job on my behalf.

I agree that there are many things that we have no control of and produce suffering for other sentient beings.

But there are many things we can do. And veganism is just a start. There are many other thing we can do on top of that to elliviate the suffering of other sentient beings.

But I was wondering if in this forum where people seek realization, what is your opinion on this matter and if some of you are not vegan, how do you reconcile this with your spiritual path.

Please don't take this as being judgemental. If it sounds like this I appologize, my writing is not very good as English is not my first language.

I am very happy to meet you all here, we share many common interests.

If I am asking this is based on genuine concern on the matter of morality and spiritual path. And how they relate. And what kind of insight each of you have.

It just so happens that I was a vegan long before having any spiritual interest. I just had that realization at that point in time and chose to change my life based on that insight.

Are you confident that Veganism isnt a form of rite or ritual for you? 

In my random internet crazy opinion, if it increases your feeling of well being and universal love - then go for it.  If you think it is somehow a moral requirement or makes you superior to meat eating vulgarians, then it probably is something you should tantricly explode by eating pork chops with extra pork sauce if you want to be free. I know this seems counterintuitive, but it is true. 

I see veganism as a way of being consistent with myself. As in when I say that animals matter than I should follow up on that.

I see it also as a form of justice.

Regaring your questions, I am not sure. Is someone that is not racist morally superior to one that is racist? Or is one that is not sexist morally superior to one that is sexist?

Do people that are not sexist have a sense of well being and increased universal love?

Would you recommend them to be sexist just to be liberated from these concepts?

Or it is different just because some matters are for people (therefore more important), while other matters are for animals?

Yeah, I am sorry for my response.  I didnt mean to be obnoxious, it just comes naturally. 

In my experience, believeing in an economy of suffering and moral responsiblity is a diificult web to let go of.  It seems so obviously true and close to love.  Freer states of mind reveal that no one is in control of her actions and that suffering itself is a mental formation and not something of actual consequence.  Wrapping yourself in doing good in the world is the right thing to do from a human ethics perspective, but is conditioned and delusional when you really inspect it.  It is hard to be free when holding on to ideas like superior and inferior and personal choice. 

Happily, you can know it is nonsense and still be a kind and open hearted person, infact you wont have a choice.  Really free people are also really free to love and to act.   

I think I understand what you mean.

In the large scheme of things nothing really matters in the way we think it does.

But still here and now we choose to do what we consider the right thing. We accept the moral percepts of non-violence and not harming other sentient beings, human or non-human.

I think non judgmental, non attached loving is the most effective way to navigate the world.  It leads to freedom and aligns with our most human intuitions.  If you can do it with out any expectations that your actions will have knowable results, you are already free. 

Vegan here. You could reframe it as.... "considering of lessening  my contribution to suffering by choosing an easy alternative to animal eating", and that would be indeed the most reasonable and ethical thing to do. There is really no argument that justifies animal eating and its associated torturing and killing (apart from some unimportant exceptions). 

Very well said jonjohn. Veganism is easy. And we cannot justify the exploitation of animals in the absence of necessity. And those situations are indeed very rare.

Apart from those situations we can live well as vegans reducing our particpation to this vast amount of suffering that we induce to animals.

With the same reasoning, some serial killer would justify killing children beacuse " We participate in the murder of beings on an unimaginably vast scale for even the simplest of foods. We are killers, us humans. It is how we live. ".

The fact that some killing is inevitable doesn't  justify much much more killing and sufffering than is inevitable, and that is exactly the unethical part of eating animals in the modern world.

I think that if we can morally justify the exploitation of animals, we can basically justify anything, anything that in this world we consider being wrong or immoral.

People far wiser than you, who would affirm that everything is predetermined, like the Ramana Maharishi, have emphasized the necessity of being compassionate toward living beings. He said, if they could speak they would demand their rights.

BTW, the Buddha himself held on to ideas like superior and inferior personal choice, hence all the sermons about what is skillful and what isn't. He also once prevented and spoke against animal sacrifice.

You gloss over the fact that living beings have differing levels of sentience and capacity to love and experience suffering. A grub is not the same as a dog. Those ukrainians who ate their children during the famine in the 1930s could justify themselves with the above.

Hi Patricia,

I recently went vegan, actually WFPB (whole foods plant based) which limits everything that's refined.
I did it for three reasons:
1.) My health. Watch 'What the Health' for an overview and check out nutritionfacts.org for the science. Cancers and inflammation can be reduced with intermittent fasting and WFPB, but all forms of heart disease can virtually be eliminated, by getting cholesterol levels under 150 and LDL levels under 100, according to some nutritional biologists that I've read anyway.  WFPB accomplishes this. 
2.) Our planet. Rainforests are being decimated for agribusiness, and it takes massive amounts of water to produce meat and dairy. These are limited resources. Factory farming is a top cause of ozone depletion and global climate change. Shit from the animals, on that industrial scale piles up as a major biohazard. See the doc 'Cowspiracy' for an overview. I don't think you can be an environmentalist, knowing the facts, and still eat meat and dairy in this day and age.
3.) The Animals.  The way the factory farms treat animals is unconscionable,  and I could no longer continue to support that. It's illegal to film those facilities, but if you investigate what's happening, with clear sight and any amount of compassion, it's just too much. I don't think you can call yourself an animal lover and still eat meat or dairy, without being willfully ignorant.

I'm 43 years old, and a bit amazed that it took me this long to make the change, but better late than never. As to Daniel Ingram's response, I agree that's the overall human condition, but that type of view is a defeatist one. As compassionate practitioners we do what we can to limit the suffering of the earth, and of other sentient beings. That same excuse could be used to justify all sorts of horrendous acts of violence and destruction.

Ah, apologies if I was unclear. I don't mean that as any sort of rationalization, just pointing out something that is true. It is definitely not the whole story. I point it out to remember how bad I felt about even killing all of those insects and other animals, much less those with more sentience. I feel bad about each butterfly that dies on the windshield of my car. It is easy to imagine that humans, being the hyper-dominant killing machines we are, are a plague upon the earth and that justifying being alive at all involves remarkable mental gymnastics, but then promoting suicide clealry must be unethical in at least most cases, yes?

While also a slippery slope argument, it is understandable to hold the view that killing bacteria is not at all the same as killing beings we believe to be more sentient, realizing that we have no idea how sentience arises, what it is, how to measure it, and now to prove that bacteria aren't particularly sentient except by secondary evidence filtered through our own biases based on our form of sentience and life.

Clearly, for the health of the planet, breeding less animals for food makes things more sustainable, unless you are looking at the planet from the point of view of some species that likes the atmosphere hot and the oceans acidic, such as jellyfish, which apparently can be turned into a nutritive meal, I mean deserve respect and shouldn't be eaten, I mean should be eaten as they are breeding out of control in some ecosystems and interfering with fish populations that appear more sentient to us than jellyfish and so should be preferentially protected, I mean...

Clearly, taking into account the feelings as we understand them of the animals means that breeding them for slaughter involves a painful death and sometimes a very painful life. Some might counter that providing more animal lives in which reincarnating beings are more likely to earn good karma by doing things like caring for their young, etc. than, say, if they were born as hungry ghost, hell being, or some jealous waring deva, is meritorious. In an optimal world, we might ask the animals themselves if they prefered to live for a while or never have lived at all, but we can't do that, so we have to take our best guess.

Clearly, there is good evidence to support some of the health-promoting benefits of veganism and vegetarianism.

Jellyfish seem pretty grotty to me to eat but yet might be sort of like tofu, meaning able to absorb the flavor of whatever you cook them in. Speaking of tofu: overconsumption of tofu for my 8 years of vegetarianism gave me a goiter and caused me thyroid problems that persist to this day some 15 years later. That said, for dinner I had beans, rice, kale and squash, and I sometimes go days without eating meat, unlike most omnivores.

Anyway, I totally get the ethics, aesthetic, and spirit of those who are vegan and vegetarian and might be that way again myself some day.

Yes, that might all be way overthinking it, but then again...

Lets imagine some situations 

There is fire in the house and one of the two will be burned to death, which one do we save? An anaesthetized human or an awake human? Because if with the injection of a simple chemical we can induse coma, we have far more reasons to thing that animals or organisms that don't have central nervus system at all, would not have santiense too. (let aside somthing that doesnt even have a body :-) reincarnation is deeply ungrounded. 

How about our ethical despotition to the cutting of a broccoli in to four peices and the act of cutting an old lady in to 4 peices. Because even if broccoli has sentiense, it is far more primitive and thus less importand in terms of suffering than that of humans (pain absense can be reasoned also because plants are imobile organisms and the function of pain is not important)

Even if plants had the ability to suffer and even if the suffewring of a plant was equaly important to an animal's (both of which are totaly unreasonable) the killing of animals would still be the imoral thing to do because animals have to be fed multiple times of greens to be raised. 

How about the farming of human children in order to later cut their throughts and eat them? Would it be better than not be born in the first place? 

As for suicide, in terms of suffering and its absense (which is the only  thing that matters in this world), to simply kill yourself doesn't leads to lessening of it. You could be living and be a positive force in the world instead of a dead with zero force. Even if it was inevitable to lead to more suffering (like the exceptions of being a bushman or a survivor in a deserted island with only animals to eat), which is not true for the 99,9999999999 percent of the situations humans are faced with, it would still be  a much more understendable choice ethicaly for there is their very sam life at stake and not like  the choices of modern human that contributes to animal torturing and killing simply because is to lasy to eat from the vast easily and accesible variety of plant products.

And then of course is the environmental and health reasons that can be added. 

All these seem to me that point to the simple and ethicaly powerfull truths of veganism :-)

https://youtu.be/bAF35dekiAY

Daniel san - you did the right thing.

I am also 43 years old  - I became a vegan when I was 28 back in my home country Romania.

It also seems to me that it took a long time to make the change, especially that I was spending my vacations as a child at countryside and I knew exactly what was happening to the animals and how they end up on our plates, and that in order to get the milk from the mother cow you have to sell the calf for meat and how the mother was crying for days for her baby, and how they were exploited to carry heavy weights. I knew all along it was wrong, but I did nothing for many years. I did not even know that I could do anything, I had no idea about veganism.

I think it takes so long because we have to break thorugh many layers of conditioning, very few of us were raised as vegans, so I think it takes a lot of both courage and tenacity to go against everything that you have been educated by your parents and by society in general, and break through and stand up for what you think is right.

I find some of the answers here a little surprising - and a little revealing about where the attachments of some posters lie on this thread. A fantastic opportunity to let go of some stuff, if you can see it!

The precepts are about helping to you stop creating karma, IMHO, so you can get these obscurations out of your way. If you feel guilt about what you eat due to the treatment or suffering of that substance before it comes to you then it might be an idea to stop if possible, or investigate that. If it's what you choose, despite your indifference, it's obviously nothing to worry about.

It isn't important that EVERYONE be vegetarian, and there shouldn't be the implication of anything of that nature in a dicussion of it. If the discussion makes YOU feel attachment to a position, or strong feeling, it's a pointer to something you should investigate. Otherwise, eat what you are driven to.

Ultimately what you eat is of no matter - nothing separate to eat, and no-one to eat it - all just emanations of the dharmakaya. Why not relax? 

Full disclosure: Vegetarian diet here... but I'm not bothered about what choices others make.

No spiritual belief that I know of requires veganism from their followers.

Not even jainism.

On another note Buddha lived on alms. None of us I think lives on alms.

Building on your idea.

Relax about everything.

Rape, child molestation, murder.

There is nobody to rape, and nobody to be raped. All is fine.

Namaste

By the way you seem atatched to your idea of relaxation and letting go.

I gradually went from full raving carnist 10 years ago to full vegan now (I try not to rave about it too much). Looking back, I'm amazed at how I was able to fool myself with arguements that in retrospect seem transparently self-serving. It took years of (intermittent) self-examination and reflection to drop each mistaken view. I'm sure in another 10 years I will see many of my current beliefs as similarly deluded!

Edit: here is a hint to anyone curious about taking a similar journey - try to refrain from abstract intellectual arguements, and instead practice mindfulness of the effect on the world and on your karma every time you make a decision about what food to purchase. After I did that for a few years I couldn't bring myself to buy non-vegan products any more, and I felt a lot better for it.

A very good point. I see veganism just as one layer of many other layers of conditioning that we carry with us thorughout life.

It's relative truth vs. ultimate truth. The relative truth is an obscured vs. of the ultimate. I appreciate that it's hard to see, which is why this discussion is even happening. 

Be careful about using your meditation or Buddhist practices to build "self" around. This is counterproductive, and includes ideas about the precepts and how your pursuit of them now colours who "you" are, or creating new attachements about what other people do. It's not what the precepts are for. I'm not suggesting this is problem for you, but pointing at something to watch out for.

YES! Relax about everything. What is in your power to act on (which is illusory) is present in every moment. If you feel driven to eat meat, not eat meat, stop a rape, or a murder or a chld molestation, "do" so. What's important is to notice where your resistance is - what there is about what is happening in this moment that is seemingly out of your control that you can surrender to. Moment to moment hypervilgilance about what is currently out of "your" control to impact is not mental health, it's clinging.

I can see that I pushed a button. Not intended, but an excellent opportunity to look at what is raw that has been touched.

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I think there are two views of the world that one can hold.

There is action. Or there is no action.

There is action: What we do matters, not just for ourself and our karma, but also for the rest of the world as nothing exists in isolation and everything is related. So morality is important when holding this view.

There is no action: Nothing matters, we can do whatever we want, there is nothing right and nothing wrong.

I hold the belief that there is action and what we do matters, and this is also part of the noble eightfold path which is the way to the ultimate liberation.

I am not sure what your beliefs are to make you cling to the wrong view that there is no action.

Also do not worry about my buttons

I came here to find likeminded people and I am open to discuss this matter.

I am glad to meet you here and you taking the time to discuss with me. If you did not consider this an important matter I don't think you would have taked the time to reply.

"I hold the belief that there is action and what we do matters, and this is also part of the noble eightfold path which is the way to the ultimate liberation."
I agree - this is a belief. Ultimately a relative truth.

"I am not sure what your beliefs are to make you cling to the wrong view that there is no action."
I am saying there is no DOER.

Further:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_marks_of_existence

The Three Marks of Existence are part of the Eightfold Path. 

I'm sorry if I have touched a nerve with you - not intended, but I suppose that how these things go. Are you working with a teacher yet? They can help you explore some of these initial ideas and the relative vs. ultimate with more depth.

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I agree with Stirling.

Humans cause animal suffering in practically all of their activities. Building stuff, travelling, cultivating cereals, bulding homes and cities, and so on --- all these activities kill animals either directly or simply through habitat exclusion. Where there is a city, there isn't a forest. Where there isn't a forest, there aren't wolves, deers, foxes, boars, bears, and so on. How many animals have been killed to build the laptop I am typing this message from? Just think about the release of toxic chemicals into rivers when mining the metals that go into manufacturing electronic devices.

Yet, while there is a strong political movement against killing animals to eat them, or even just against taking unfertilised eggs from chickens after feeding them, there really isn't an equivalent movement against any of the other human activities which cause animal suffering. Sure, many people try to reduce their ecological footprint by reducing those activities, but no-one rigidly eliminates any of these activities. Somehow, eating is seen as inherently different from everything else. Killing to eat is seen as absolutely wrong, something to be eliminated entirely. But killing for any other reason is seen as relatively wrong, something to be minimised if possible.

So there has to be some difference between how people feel about eating and how they feel about all other activities. What is this difference? You are what you eat. Purity and identity view. We attach huge emotional significance to the stuff we ingest, we tell ourselves stories about this stuff, and we use these stories to define a good chunk of who we are.

Tip: Try to look into the manner and extent to which by being a vegan (or a vegetarian, or a meat eater) you are reinforcing and restating an idea of who you are, of your worth as a person, and how it makes you feel good or bad about "your" "self". Your eating choices may or may not be changed by looking into this, of course. Many people see clearly through this process and remain, or maybe become, vegetarian or vegan, while others quit.

In the eaten, only the eaten.

I find these arguements really funny, bordering on the non-sequitur.

Vegan: supporting animal cruelty is bad for animals and the planet, choosing not to when possible is therefore preferable.

Arguement: what about laptops! what about bacteria! what about your ego!

Veganism is a very simple proposition - reduce as much as practical the amount you contribute to animal cruelty. Any arguements that don't address that proposition aren't relevant.

Of course reducing harm in other ways is good too, as is being realistic, as is being mindful of your intentions. But those can only be understood as seperate, bonus issues to the core point of reducing suffering - yet these arguements are usually made as if they refute the premise of veganism.

Yes, a belief. And I am aware of it.

While you seem un-aware of yours.

Anatta means there is no permanent self. It is not a pass for justifiying violence, in this case non-veganism.

Of those, right view is the forerunner. And how is right view the forerunner? One discerns wrong view as wrong view, and right view as right view. This is one’s right view. And what is wrong view? ‘There is nothing given, nothing offered, nothing sacrificed. There is no fruit or result of good or bad actions. There is no this world, no next world, no mother, no father, no spontaneously reborn beings; no contemplatives or brahmans who, faring rightly & practicing rightly, proclaim this world & the next after having directly known & realized it for themselves.’ This is wrong view.

I'm not worried, for sure. I don't worry. How many problems are their between thoughts? 

I am driven to help, so I do enjoy this sometimes - I am driven to teach, and I have experience with ideas around this question - something comes up to say, so I comment. 

There are some VERY realized people here, certainly a number who are above my pay scale. It's is fortunate that so many have congealed in one location and continue to visit and discuss here with the depth they bring.

My real interest in it isn't about vegan/vegetarian/meat eating, which I consider utterly peripheral, my interest is how these things become important identity construction points. I explored this early on and saw through it, thus my interest. It's a common trap I see in my students. They become "Buddhist" then build a whole new "Buddhist" self around things like the precepts.

Wecome to the board.

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Adam, you are misrepresenting my point.

Nice to meet you

I have been a vegan long before being a "Buddhist".

I take non-violence and non-discrimination serioulsy, that is why I am a vegan.

Sorry neko, I wasn't trying to represent you specifically (you just happened to be the last post in the thread to reply to), I was more referring to that kind of arguement which is very common in these discussions. I can see you are making an unusual, subtle and specific point about veganism as an identity trap, which is a good point - I didn't mean to impugn it or you.

Edit: though I would add that you misrepresent veganism somewhat, most vegans see it as a matter of minimisation, not elimination. So they prefer vegetables grown responsibly over alternatives. And they often also try to minimise consumption of other goods.

Another edit: Discussions about veganism tend to intermingle lots of distinct arguements, so end up very muddy, emotional and unhelpful, I think it'd be skillful all around if those kinds of points are clearly seperated from the core question of if veganism a good idea. That was my poor attempt at doing so.

I forgot to answer the question about the teacher: I don't have a teacher.

 



I agree that most vegetarians / vegans say that it is about minimisation. But someone who just "tries to minimise animal suffering" is not a vegetarian / vegan, there is a fundamental missing element.

In addition to minimising animal suffering, to qualify as vegetarian/vegan you also need to make a fundamental distinction between killing/exploiting to eat and killing/exploiting to (insert anything else).

* Kill/exploit to eat -> No way, never. If you kill to eat, you are not a vegan.

* Kill/exploit to (anything else) -> Bad, but just try to minimise.

What is it about eating that makes it intrinsically different from making an iPhone? I have never seen any logical explanation to that. Now, of course many vegans add additional "absolute nos" to the equation. The next common one to "absolutely no eating" is "absolutely no wearing" animal products. Again, the common element seems to be one of purity, proximity, visibility, so, ultimately: Identity.

You are what you eat.
You are what you wear.

You can easily choose cruelty-free food. You can't easily choose cruelty free devices necessary for modern life. Many vegans try to buy refurbished, or prefer to keep devices as long as possible to mitigate this issue.

Edit: to elabourate further, since the vegan mindset is commonly misunderstood - veganism is inherantly practical and pragmatic. The first step is to stop buying food that supports cruelty, since it has a very good cost-benefit ratio - you do some research on nutrition, learn a few recipes, and in one step you dramatically reduce the amount of suffering your actions cause for the rest of your life. Similarly, choosing not to buy e.g. leather goods. After that vegans tend to refine their appoach to suffering minimisation by learning about environmentalism, responsible furniture, how to optimise transport, use of electronics etc. Vegans are just flawed humans struggling to do their best to consciously minimise the harm they do to life on the planet in totality. Each vegan has a different path and makes different trade-offs. But surely you think it is worth trying even if you fall short of perfection?

Veganism is no more a matter of purity than any other moral stand against discrimination and injustice.

The term veganism was coined in 1944 by Donald Watson.

Veganism is defined as:

a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment.

1)i phone is to be bought lets say once in a year or two, instead of weekly or even daily consumption of animals.
2)i phone (or lap top or other piece of tecnology) plays more important role in the life of the individual than the specific animal taste arousal. If you dont use tecnology you go back centuries in time, if you instead switch to a vegan diet you just loose nothing. 

For the above reasons, the ethical dilemmas in stop using an i phone and stop eating animals are not at all equal, with the choice to continue animal eating being far the most unethical. 


Apart from these, to be a vegan does not require to be an ethical saint, and someone prog ess in the path according to its powers. 

Patricia i would like to suggest you not to quote the whole post when it is obvius who the poster and the post you are refering is, because it makes reading difficult

With the kindest intentions :-)

The best, simplest indicator of how much animal suffering we cause as humans is given by our carbon footprint. First of all, for the obvious reason that, if we fuck the climate up, that is going to cause animal suffering on an unprecedented scale, although very indirectly. Secondly because, either way, it is strongly correlated to our impact on the environment and hence, a great proxy of how much animal suffering we cause directly.

So how much does food and drink impact our carbon footprint exactly?

Answer: 5% of the total.

I think this is a tough problem to talk people out of.  Hanging on to morality seems so right and letting it go seems so wrong.  I think this is why guru yoga in tantric traditions is so effective and so necessary.  Only deep inisght into emptiness or surrender to a higher authority likely gives the human mind  a permission structure to release belief in personal responsibility in the face of apparent suffering.   When I try to express myself on the subject, people think I am arguing for nihilistic sociopoathy.

 

"Humans cause animal suffering in practically all of their activities. Building stuff, travelling, cultivating cereals, bulding homes and cities, and so on --- all these activities kill animals either directly or simply through habitat exclusion."

So you say that because all of these happen, there is no problem to go and kill further, lets say human beings. Right? That because elimination of suffering is not possible, there is no problem to make it worse, or that because no one is perfect, a serila killer is the same with the one that spoke unfairly harsh?  

Alternative graph with the main ways we can reduce our carbon footprint. You can see how a vegetarian or vegan diet really has a relatively small impact in the overall picture. If you are environmentally conscious, there are some actions which take a much higher priority. So the emphasis that is placed on eating is, in the big picture, grossly overstated. Which lends, in my opinion, credence to the idea that there is some kind of special, more symbolic than factual, value that we attribute to what we eat, as opposed to all other measures that we can take to mitigate our environmental impact (one in particular, see graph).

Not at all. Veganism wins in every way, AND OF COURSE environmentaly. If you care about environment, or ethics, you should study the subject a bit more. 

Please do not misrepresent people's points of view by strawmanning them. That is disingenuous and quite rude.

neko, who are you trying to convince of what? Vegans are onboard with environmentalism, and also think animal cruelty is bad!

I was providing data in reply to another user's unsubstantiated quantitative claims. (I edited the post to clarify this. Thanks for pointing it out, I see that it wasn't clear.)



I don't claim otherwise. Sorry again, I should have provided context.

"Please do not misrepresent people's points of view by strawmanning them"

So what was your point, and how did i mirepresnted what you said? To show the absurtity of the logical conclusions of a statment is not strawman.  

I explained it above in length, you can just re-read it if you are curious, or ignore it if you are not. Either way is fine by me.


If you meant to talk about the presumed consequences of my statements, that you were not doing a strawman, but an appeal to consequences, or a slippery slope argument. Either way, it is a logical fallacy by your own admission.

This view overlooks the fact that each non-vegan purchase is directly contributing to animal cruelty (to a lesser or greater extent). This makes abstaining from animal foods products the single simplest way an individual can reduce the harm they cause. Not everyone can understand abstract climate change arguements, especially when TV, friends and family may provide confusing counter-arguements. I'm not entirely convinced myself. But everyone knows when they eat a chicken, they paid someone to coop-up and then kill that chicken.

Also, since most vegans aren't enlightened, it is helpful to have a daily reminder to be conscious of the world beyond our selves, and to regularly renew our commitment to minimise suffering. So it is true that the action of eating vegan has an element of ritual/magic/identity-change (however you like to think about it) - but I don't see how that is a drawback or a mistake?

"I was providing data in reply to another user's unsubstantiated quantitative claims"

Sorry, but you provided nothing. Υοu have to study the subject a bit more if you are interested. Linking to some random images and making conclutions about some generalities that they supposed to be connected with the subject, this is not presenting data. You have to study what science says. 


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_production

http://science.time.com/2013/12/16/the-triple-whopper-environmental-impact-of-global-meat-production/

or any other of the handrends and handrends of mountains of data 


https://www.google.gr/search?q=world+health+animal+eating+environment&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjelfSm35vWAhVKFMAKHc1fAzcQ_AUICigB&biw=1088&bih=530

https://www.google.gr/search?q=animal+eating+environment&oq=animal+eating+environment&gs_l=psy-ab.3...578230.578420.0.578827.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..0.0.0.YirzgKp44nA

This argument is predicated on the assumption that directness of the consequence, rather than its magnitude, should be the main variable to take into account when deciding which action to take. I agree that this is how many pople think, but I find it inherently short-sighted and dangerous, since all the main ways we are fucking stuff up is through indirect effects!

(We could also discuss efficacy and efficiency of the actions we take to achieve our goals. That is, how much effort we have to put into the action vs. what is the outcome that we get.)


I guess we will have to open a separate thread on climate change then

But I was introducing the CO2 argument as a proxy for animal suffering, as an indicator of the magnitude of our interventions in the environment. Even if you do not believe that climate change is caused by human activities, when you see that a certain activity causes a certain % of the CO2 emissions, you can take it as a rough indicator of how much land use it involves, how many pollutants of different kinds it generates, and so on. So, ultimately, of how many animals it kills indirectly. It is unlikely that something causes 10% of the CO2 emissions will cause 0.2% of animal suffering. Of course it isn't a perfect indicator, or even a very good one, but it is a decent one, for which data is easy to find.


Going back to what Stirling said first... I think it can be tricky, and it can be good or bad.

From the strictly political / effective action point of view, it can be great if it is a reminder like you said, but harmful if it makes you think that you are doing enough, when not eating animals only contributes to a small share of the problem. If everyone were a vegetarian, no other change made we would still be fucking up the environent big time. So why the huge emphasis on what we eat specifically, again? I don't think it's wrong to be vegetarian or vegan, of course. I just think its impact is overstated / overrated.

Now, for the more important point given the forum we are in.

From the point of view of mindfulness, we have a similar ambiguity. If being veg* is a tool to be mindful of what we do in general, and to boost our practice, fantastic. But if it becomes a tool to embellish how we see our selves, to take a holier-than-thou stance, and so on, then it can be a huge hindrance to practice.

neco:
"I explained it above in length, you can just re-read it if you are curious, or ignore it if you are not. Either way is fine by me."

I reread it and still found your points erroneus. I am interested to point to the slippery slopiness of my responce.By eating animals we contribute to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2dGvZiHUJ0 What's really your point?

A vegan cares about suffering in general (be it for entertainment, or work mistreatment or whatever), not only that of eating , just it happens that animal farming is the biggest part of the problem. So whats your point? I'm interested really. 

And can you present me an argument for justifying the animal torturing and killing that usual animal eating entails?
Is it bad to torture animals just for the lazyness of not choosing a vigan pizza  instead of one that has pieces of pork, chicken and cow inside ? Would it be good if we stoped torturing animals for fun? Of course we wouldn't turned into saints by that choice, and there would still be bad actions to be discussed, but wouldn't it still be a great move forward? Think of it :-)

Ι really dont have something with you personaly, im just interested to show to everyone that is reading that the positions against veganism or even the neutral positions on the subject (<everyone may do as he pleases>), are totaly ungrounded. 

Agreed entirely! Fortunately I think this is probably a very small problem, much smaller than the problem of carnist meditators avoiding thinking about the suffering that their actions and consumption causes (speaking from experience as a former carnist meditator here!), both to their own practice and the wider world. I think on balance it is much better that a thread like this focus more on considering the ideas of mindful eating and mindful living, than concentrating on theoretical delusional vegans - perhaps the best message is that we could all do well to be a bit more mindful of our desires and aversions when considering skillful consumption!

I'm a bit confused about your other points - it's true that stopping hurting animals may not be the top priority for improving the world, I don't think anyone knows for sure. But it is certainly a good place to start, and easy way to spread a message of mindful living - alongside raising consciousness of climate change (don't forget that the animal industry is widely agreed to be one of the top contributors to climate change). And getting involved in the vegan world is probably one of the best ways to get encouragement to be more conscious of your environmental impact, so I don't think you need to worry about that. It also feels great! I'd recommend checking out some vegan resources and communities, most vegans are very nice people who try unusually hard to make the world better in all kinds of ways.

It is also frustrating how threads on veganism online typically end up debating very fine distinctions or very abstract ideas, conveniently ignoring the central message that you can take simple steps to reduce the harm you cause to animals right now, and that it feels great! To bring this thread back to it's roots, carnists may find it valuable to consider how these threads always end up bogged down in wierd philosophical sidetracks about laptops, bacteria and ego, instead of the concrete idea of taking responsiblity for one's actions directly causing harm to animals and the world, and how that may improve one's practice! Or maybe not, I certainly have my own bias

Very well put !!! 

This is a fun presentation of most of the arguments about justifying harming animals. Give them a look  

https://www.facebook.com/pg/vegansidekick/photos/?tab=album&album_id=909117325849391

I agree the modern world makes it hard to understand the impact of our actions, and that this is perhaps the greatest problem of our age. But without getting into the details of the effects of individual decisions on supermarket logistics, it is clear that lower aggregate demand leads to lower aggregate supply. Last year fresh meat sales in the UK alone were down £328 million - that is an awful lot of animals, all spared by individuals making individual decisions. I think I could make a solid case that even a single individual changing their habits in one shop would affect supply, but it would be a statistically-based arguement which would make most people fall asleep (tl;dr on average you'll save animals, but it is probabalistic), so I'll try to avoid that if I can!

Good point about minimising waste though, often overlooked, even in the vegan world (though the last time I ate in a vegan resteraunt, I was chastised by my server for getting a lid with my food because the other server mistakenly thought I wanted it to-go!). Certainly something I could do with being more mindful of

I would caution you not to overgeneralise based on your own experience. I stopped being a vegetarian, which I was for many years, shortly after Stream Entry, when the direct effects of my actions went into the background, and the interconnected, global, indirect effects of "my" actions went into the foreground. I know for others it has been the opposite, of course.



I agree with this, I must not have made my point clear above if you are telling me this. I agree that reducing animal suffering is one of the main priorities, perhaps the main priority.



This is incorrect. Food production accounts for about 5-10% of global CO2 emissions depending on the source (these calculations are very complicated, hence the variance in the number). So if we all stopped eating altogether, our carbon footprint would be reduced by 5-10%. It follows that the effect of the whole population stopping eating animal products would be a few percentage points tops. See for example:

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions

----

Take for example this link and let's do the maths:

http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-carbon-footprint-diet

* The average carbon footprint is 2.5 tons CO2 equivalent per year-person.

* The no-beef carbon footpring is 1.9 tons CO2 equivalent per year-person.

* The vegan carbon footprint is 1.5 tons CO2 equivalent per year-person.

* A U.S. American's average carbon footprint is 20 tons CO2 equivalent per year.

Putting these numbers together:

* By not eating beef (but eating chicken, eggs, milk, pork, and so on), you can reduce your carbon footprint by 3%.

* By becoming vegan, you can reduce it by another 2%.

So these are very small contributions, and there isn't much of a difference between a vegan and someone that only eats meat occasionally, maybe once a week. Perhaps a 1% difference? Not something to get very excited about.


----

Then, there is also the issue that not all environments can be farmed sustainably. Some environments do not lend themselves to agriculture, but can sustain livestock such as sheep or kangaroos indefinitely. See for example:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/7222088/Kangatarians-emerge-in-Australia.html

In some environments, eating the animals is the most humane thing to do, rather than driving the animals away to farm a land that cannot be farmed sustainably, eventually turning it into a desert.


I know about it, being a vegetarian was generating a lot of identification, attachment, and a feeling of superiority towards fellow human beings for me.

This is more strawmanning. We should all learn to steelman our interlocutors, rather than ridiculing their point of view by deforming it into a mockery of what they actually believe, putting ourselves on a moral pedestal.

neko:

"I stopped being a vegetarian, which I was for many years, shortly after Stream Entry, when the direct effects of my actions went into the background, and the interconnected, global, indirect effects of my actions went into the foreground. I know for others it has been the opposite, of course."


So after Stream Entry, and because "the direct effects of your actions went into the background, and the interconnected, global, indirect effects of "your" actions went into the foreground"...., you stoped being vegetarian and started to eat helpless human beings that they have been specificaly farmed, tortured and finaly had their throats cutted. 

Am i somewhere wrong?... Why don't you face the consequenses of your statements and prefer to play hide-and-seek about supposed fallasious reasoning of mine? Replace every <animal> word you use with the word <human> and see for yourself how it goes. 



 

This is a good point that bears repeating, I now wish I had initially been a bit more skillful in the conversation to hone in on this point of yours and avoid the diversion into talking generally about the wisdom of veganism and concentrate on the the idea of moral training for individuals. Guess I am a bit overly attached to ideas about defending veganism, a lesson to be learned for me.

Being overly pleased with, attached to, and eager to proselytise the wisdom of one's personal morality is a problem that I think is endemic to all sides of this conversation. I'm often reminded of Daniel's excellent point about morality as the "first and last training". This thread has been a good reminder that morality is a very tricky training that a requires a special level and kind of care.

Yes, but where does the "deformity" lies? My analogy is either grounded, or not. If it is, change your beleifs and adopt the new position, if not, point to the erronius step of the transition from one example to the other. You speak about animal eating, and i responde with human eating. What exactly is the problem with that shift apart from the obvius cognitive dissonance of having conflicting views? 

A few, small, practical victories for the vegan/vegetarian side, and bringing it down to simple acts inspired by this thread:

1) I need to replace my main daily pair of shoes, which have been Eccos which are made of leather, and, while they have held up well for 8 years, finally have blown out their heels to a degree that makes them need replacing. So, I am considering these: http://www.topsforshoes.com/shoes/men/mens-casual-shoes/mens-donner/ in hemp cloth and partly of recycled plastic.

2) Again, I ate no meat today, though I did have some cheese and yogurt, which, while grass-fed, organic and ethically farmed and all of that, still could be said to be exploiting cows which produce methane and thus are damaging the planet, though again, one could ask the cows if they prefer life in a safe pasture free from attacks by predators with guarantees of enough food while having their milk taken to either not living or living wild and being attacked by predators and see what they moo. Still, it is something.

Anyway, the debate is influencing my actions in what are likely positive ways, which I presume was part of the intent, so thanks for that.

Oh, yes. One thing I find tricky about even vegetarianism that I will put out to the vegans and vegetarians in the group for practical solutions, and that is protein. I have spent a ton of time studyng various diets, nutrition, recent nutritional studies, and thoughts on proper carb to fat to protein ratios for optimal health, and I still conclude that is it is pretty tricky to be vegan and get enough protein with getting a lot carbs in the mix.

Yes, one can eat mostly nuts, but, as one who gets kidney stones, I am moderately wary of the oxylates in those same nuts, as kidney stones suck.

My 8-year trial of vegetarianism lead me to the conclusion that if I didn't eat about a pound of tofu a day, I got these serious protein/meat cravings and found that driving by steak houses and smelling the burning flesh made my whole body cry out "Eat some friggin' cow, dude!" Those didn't get any better as the years of vegetarianism went on, but eating the tofu screwed up my thyroid gland, as I have already mentioned.

I personally find that the more fat, protein and vegetables I eat in comparison to carbs, the better I feel, and there is some good science to back up that point of view relating to insulin sensitivity and all of that.

While, with my wife's dietary issues, we often just makes beans and rice with some greens or the like for lunch and dinner, which we ate today, along with some hummus and romaine, I can tell the energy levels rise and crash as one would expect with that high carb load, and it feels viscerally like something bad to be doing. My wife avoids gluten, so that makes a lot of the typical wheat-containing protein products impractical. I avoid soy almost entirely due to what happened with me.

I get that one can try to live on cashews, avocados, and salads to try to balance more in the direction of proteins and fats. Still, the oxalate load is heavy, leading to questions of what to do with those, and, if I try to bind it with citrates, such as lemon, it tears my mouth up, so I often bind them with the calcium found in yogurt or cheese, which also are used to bind the phytic acids in foods like oatmeal, which I eat for the fiber and other cardiac benefits.

I don't believe the arguments that it is animal protein that causes a lot of kidney stones, as I ate very little animial protein at all for years and still had them. I drink a whole lot of water to try to prevent them, which helps moderately but isn't totally perfect. Yes, I avoid almost entirely high-oxalate foods such as almonds and spinach, as experiments have found that eating those basically guarantees kidney stones.

So, practical tips for a person who analyzes everything I eat and concludes that there is some dietary school that hates every single thing I put in my mouth except for greens?

Seriously, the Against the Grain people would hate many vegetarian and vegan diets and they are not entirely without their points. The Paleo people do have some reasonable arguments against the glycemic loading and lack of ketone production that occurs with many diets that are higher in carbs. I could go on and on with this sort of thing. Yet, clearly, as has been stated here, it is pretty hard to argue against many of the basic ethical points made by vegetarians and vegans.

Anyway, the protein to carb and the oxalate problems, anyone? These are on my mind daily as I ponder what to eat and why.

I have watched my sister, brother-in-law and neice gain too much weight on their vegan diet, and my sister is one who takes veganism extremely seriously. (My mom does better weight-wise than they do, but she is basically raw vegan and lives on a lot of elaborately crafted juices and sprouts and the like, which take her a lot of time.) Except for my mom, they clearly fail to get the carbs down to reasonable levels, which is part of what is killing people in these modern times, as one day in the emergency department shows all too clearly. Were we all doing hard manual labor all day and burning the carbs up as fast as we ate them, no problem. However, that is not what we generally spend out time doing as a society.

Practical thoughts on all of this?

Absolutely, I don't consider myself immune to that by any means. I will be on retreat for two weeks starting tomorrow, so this looks like a good point to stop the conversation. Thank you

I agree about the nutritional yeast. We call it "hippy crack"! ;)

I also eat a lot of beans, lentils and chick peas, but, gain, my body always seems to tell me, "Hey, dude, too many carbs!" Do you find it is easy to maintain a healthy slim waistline while eatint all of those?

Yes, peanut butter is rich and satisfying, true.

Thanks for the encouragement.

Good question, something that I think holds a lot of people back from cutting down on animal products. Its often the first thing someone says when they find out I'm vegan (I try to avoid bringing it up as long as possible, but eventually can't help it ).

What worked for me:
- make main meals that are primarily legumes (e.g. beans, lentils, chickpeas) and low in carbs like potatoes
(gradually reduce these carbs over time, they have an addictive quality but over time cravings will naturally go away)
- learn to cook different types of meals than you are used to - this is really important and the main reason people have bad experiences on vegan/vegetarian diet - they keep their old routine but replace meat with meat substitutes, which is fine in the short term, but not sustainable in the long term
- become aware of the protein/carb ratio in your carbs, prefer whole grain bread and rice, maybe try out other grain options e.g. quinoa
- avoid carb-based snacks and all kinds of empty calories
- eat a good serving of seeds every day as well as nuts (there are lots of ways to achieve this when you think about it)
- consume soy moderately, avoiding the more processed products, prefer e.g. tempeh or traditional tofu
- note that some veggies are high in protein (luckily I already loved broccoli!), every bit counts

All of this does mean moving outside the mainstream and making your own path, so it can be tricky at first, but I found it a fun and rewarding hobby until it quickly just became normal. It helps to join vegan communities online to get tips and tricks. I stopped consciouly counting breakdowns of macros long ago (actually before I went vegan, after I picked up the skill by dieting), but I'm pretty comfortable this this diet has plenty of protein - I don't feel the need for animal products at all. My weight didn't change at all (but that is perhaps because I learned that skill beforehand). I actually feel a lot better and lighter on this diet, not being weighed down (digestively and metaphorically) by meat and cheese. Personally, if I did feel that I couldn't make an all vegan diet work for my health, I wouldn't have any qualms about introducing as much animal products as I felt necessary for health.

On reflection, I probably underweigh the difficulty of switching from a standing start. When I stopped eating animal products I already had good dietary discipline and skills, and had been reducing animal products very gradually for years. There is nothing wrong with going at your own pace, taking a pragmatic approach. If all of the above is scary and confusing (as it would have been to me 10 years ago), much better to start small by changing one meal a week and trying new dishes when you have the chance.

Yes, though I suspect that comes largely down to two things, portion size, and (probably more importantly) that I'm still just shy of 30!

I'm inclined to thinking that vegetarianism may not be optimal for all people. And when I say not optimal I actually mean that it can really be a serious problem to health and functionality. Check out this text by Shenpen Dawa Rinpoche for more on this (I don't know the original source of the text unfortunately).

Personally I do not require meat in a diet, though.

I am Daniel Roundtree and I have been a Vegan for over a decade.

I have decided not to respond to what I am reading in this thread. The discusion is so chaotic that I simply can't make any real sense of it. Also, there are a few lines that are generating such extreme negative emotional responses that I will be of little use. I am going to give some effort not to get too deep into it. So, I have decided to simply introduce myself in some detail through the dark glasses of a vegan. The glasses are dark simply because of the reality of my view, nothing more.

My family and I have been pluaged with chronic illnesses since my birth. My brother is autistic with a mid levels of functional abilities. What he eats dirrectly affects his behavour in the extreme. It is far from the only factor, but is a sagnificant one that has given me great insite and confusion. My mother suffers from fibromyalgia for most of her entire life and has degenrative joint disorder. I myself have been stampped with many lables of disfuction that is heavily realated to my genetics. This was the catalyst that pushed me to veganism.

Now I can go into all the details of how Veganism has greatly improved my health and mental clarity, but that is very far off the mark. Instead I will state that there was a point in my life where the stress of my failing health became so extreme that it became clear that my entire concept of food was in grave error. Note, I was forced to become Vegan and only after a few years did I understand the ethical and moral aspects.

I am vegan simply because the food industry causes me to suffer. I didn't say meat or aniamal products. I must be very clear on this. There is a way to eat meat and stay healthy and even come to some kind of ethical balance. However, I found this way to be energy intesive, complicated, and impracital. I simply just seperated myself from all indrusties that processed animals because of trust issues. I have zero confidance that an indrusty rooted in profit by explotation will ever respect anything. At this point I still didn't care about the animal I ate. Yet, neither does the animal or industry that turned him/her into food. This is what broke me, I am an animal too in their eyes.

Veganism gave me almost complete control of my physical health. The price was very high, because eveytime I failed to pay attenion and focus on what I was acctually eating I suffered more not less than before. This is extremely stressful if you don't have the mental ability to focus. Also, there are other problems of being totaly accepted then rejected then accepted by your own family. Imagine healing someone in chronic pain for months only to watch the return to old habbits that caused the pain in the first place. This is serous fuel for rage. Being Vegan means you have to live with the habits of people that you completley reject with intensisty. It is maddening.

Also take note that I am not very fond of other vegans simply because I can't tollerate the insanity caused by hype. It really is a harmful thing, I think. What else is interesting is that I am less fond of vegetarians than people that eat animals. I keep this feeling because what sparked this emotion will not go away. It helps me to spot unstable vegans, I think.

So I personaly push to stop focusing on what Veganism is. All Vegans are drastricaly different from what I can see. Instead realise that the conversion to veganism is what I found to be most useful and never ending. For me it is all about leaving a horrible state behind, I don't know where I am going but I do know core of Veganisim is about preventing suffering and not food. Vegan or not I think we are on the same page here.

Buddah not a Vegan?? Seems silly to me. Don't know why yet. I can't get over the question that address if Buddah eats or not. Yes and no answers are not enough. Serously, I am not talking about the actual guy. What does Buddah eat? I mean the body eats right. Does the mind eat? I think there might be some use to push this line of thought. The line we use to determine if a food suffers or not keeps shifting and now I don't know who is eating what. But the concpet of food eating people seems valid for some crazy reason.

Hi Daniel,

when you say waistline you refer to gas or fat?

I wouldn't concern about protein intake for the reason that if the colories you are getting are enough, there can be no protein defeciency. So the most important thing i see is to find some easy combinations of healhty and nutritional foods to include in your diet that will provide the desired level of calories and taste. How about some good musli type of breakfast with oats and bananas and some nuts? Or making some ceral or sesame bars for cravings? You really don't have to think about restricting carbohydrates, if they are of good quality type.This is some general recomendation from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, if you are interested in something else please tell me:
http://www.pcrm.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/health/vsk.pdf



"I have watched my sister, brother-in-law and neice gain too much weight on their vegan diet, and my sister is one who takes veganism extremely seriously."

Maybe they are using to much oil in their diet or a lot of unhealthy (and fatty) cooking like frying? 

My diet today:

- Bowl of oats with cocoa powder and blueberry juice (7am)
- 200g blueberries + 1 banana (9am)
- Barley or quinoa with lentils, chickpeas or other legumes. With dried parsley, turmeric and some black pepper. And a strip of cooked kelp (iodine for the thyroid) (12pm).
No rice because of arsenic concerns.

- Another bowl of oats with cocoa powder and blueberry juice (5pm).
- 1 cup of natto (lots of K2 so the calcium goes where it has to go) (9pm).

Some days I replace some meals with veggies (sweet potato, broccoli, etc). I also add some days some nuts (cashews, almonds, etc). I also replace some of the fruits somedays.

7 or more cups of tea a day (mostly matcha and some hibiscus).

I supplement with B12 (1000mcg methyl), D3 and algae DHA, every other day.

Yoga (120 min a day) and 10k walking a day.

I look very skinny but I've never felt stronger or better. And it shows.

Lots and lots of carbs. Been doing for a while now (more than a year). Seems to be working fine.

That said, I'm very, very consistent. That consistency (as usual for most things) is the result of really annoying health problems.

When I eat some oily cheese in pizza from time to time (mostly to remember the flavor) I do get a "I feel really good" thing (calorie dense foods makes us really happy so we accumulate calories, but it doesn't last).

May not work for everyone, just my 2 cents .

What an awesome discussion! Really enjoyed following this through. Just to add my vote - I went vegan 2.5 years ago after seeing Cowspiracy, and have never enjoyed such damn good health and energy levels, which has buoyed my moods and made me fall in love with food all over again. Nowadays I get up early because I can't sleep in, and go for long walks every day just because I have all this energy! And I lost 25lbs of flab, and had to go buy new clothes. I can even sit in a half-lotus for the first time now that my legs are thinner ;-)

People say it's a restrictive diet and some of them love to pretend it's too hard - but in fact I look forward to every meal because the food is so damn colourful and enjoyable and tasty. And finally, I go to the doctor once to twice a year, for one reason only - to get a full bloodwork so I can show evidence to the doubters. High on all the stuff a healthy body should be high on, and low on the rest. No trouble with protein, iron, calcium, etc. And cholesterol down from dangerous to cool. I take a B12 supp, that's all. 

But there's one thing I want to point out, that the term vegan refers to an ideological position - boycotting a lifestyle based on animal exploitation. As a diet it doesn't tell us much - you can drink beer and eat potato crisps and still be vegan, and there's a booming market out there for unhealthy vegan indulgences like brownies and ice cream. The key term here should be "whole food plant-based," and as uncooked as possible. That means loads of salads and fruit, and as few processed goods as possible. In my view, that's where the goodness comes from - fresh unprocessed foods, cooked as little as possible, bursting with nutrients. I eat as much as I want of everything within the whole food plant-based circle, and maintain a steady weight and energy. 

Thanks everyone for sharing. And caring! ;-)

I have noticed that, so I will have to cut the quotes and just keep the actual part I am referring to.

The domesticated animals exist because we breed them for the sole purpose of exploiting them.

There is no ethical animal farming as well as there is no ethical rape or murder. The dairy cows are raped (please google if you are curios, google the termn "rape rack"), the baby calves are taken away from their mothers and most of them sent to slaughter for meat, considered to be "byproducts", so that we can take their milk. When no longer "productive" in a few years the dairy cows also end up in the slaughterhouse.

Regarding the shoes, I buy whatever is syntetic, I have learned to read all the labels, to see if they have or not any leather, as some shoes have leather just in some areas, making it more difficult to figure it out.

I find tempeh as a very satiating food. Most of them are very salty, but some have no salt at all, I just eat it as is especially when I pack lunch for work, but it can be cooked or grilled in various ways. I understand it is much healthier than tofu as the beans as not processed, and also is fermented so all the benefits of probiotics in it.

A place to start here:
http://www.howdoigovegan.com/

I would also highly recommend https://nutritionfacts.org/
Dr. Michael Gregor has been a pioneer in this field and there is no hidden agenda or funding.
Netflix: Watch 'Cowspiracy', 'What the Heath' and read 'How Not To Die' by Dr Gregor and I doubt you'll touch meat or dairy again.
Or start on this one:
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/dr-gregers-daily-dozen-checklist/

I really should confess tomorrow for reading this thread, as I reckon this is entertainment. I am a monk and I live off alms, so that gives me the right to judge all of you. Ha!

I am unsure why there aren’t any movements of self-sacrificing activists, who commits suicide en-masse, so as to save the Earth or animals, for I believe that it is a worthy cause that will bring about much reduced suffering and complete erasure of carbon footprint. But I suspect people do love themselves more than anything else, although they may not realize it. Anything else in the middle is simply self-justification for what one thinks is right. But I guess any positivity it brings, matters to no one, except myself. However, my decision to be or not to be, to judge or not to judge, will bring about a lot more suffering if it becomes a point for debate. E.g. I may easily shame another vegan for eating vegetables bought at the supermarket, as I plant my own. The only point where one can permanently (if one does not believe in reincarnation) outdo the other is to leave this world or become lil’ Kim and unleash atomic hell, for I suspect he is secretly a Nature lover.

My opinion is simply be whatever I want to be. To be a vegan for health, great! To eat meat for health (Dalai Lama for e.g.), great! To be whichever to feel good, great! However, I do not to get into such discussions with anyone, unless I think I can actually influence their decision (positively!) to be or not to be (but then again positively is my presumption). Otherwise, it is simply a case of creating unnecessary suffering on top of whatever unnecessary suffering there already is. Self-justification is huge suffering, even in its absence, I cannot imagine how it is possible for such discussions to have a positive outcome.

Deliberations such as to buy a leather product (wrong to wear a cow that had died to feed humans?) vs synthetic leather (unnecessary animals sacrificed in making PVC?) is self-created suffering. Why do such justifications have come to matter? Why not just go barefoot? (I go barefooted on alms round and FYI it is fantastic for quick entrances to Jhanic states, there is some sharp magic in those stones, I tell ya!) Say someone starts an ultra-low carbon footprint company, producing human leather from the throngs that die daily, will I switch to wearing human to reduce suffering? I guess I have to, if they are donated...

I ask myself what will I do or be able to do, to reduce suffering if, I replace the Donald tomorrow; I see that I cannot do much other than creating ripples in the short-term, even as the most powerful person in the world. Whatever policies I create will simply be replaced when I am replaced (if I can even get them passed), whatever animal-cruelty organizations I shut down, others will sprout elsewhere to replace them (Does Demand rule Supply?). I realize Humans are omnivores and is it akin to going against God if there is one, to think it possible to change a sizeable fraction of them to go against their genetic code, to make what I think is a difference to the grand scheme of things? What amounts to a difference? And what do the grand I have to do in the grand scheme of things? I noticed how grand these thoughts are… Or perhaps it is more fruitful to notice how small I am? Then maybe start to make real differences to reduce suffering where I can see or feel them manifest? Perhaps a phone call to my mom to apologize for being a total ass the past decade?

Talking about God… Say She pops out and in a loud, booming voice says, “Can all of you stop eating meat? I have been hearing too many complaints about unnecessary suffering!” I guess not much guessing is needed as to what will happen for the next millennia, ignoring the fact that God is a She…

I think the only difference such discussions make and if making such a decision, is to consider only myself, for otherwise, suffering is created not only for myself but for all others around me when such a discussion is to be had, where at least one or more gets into the mode of defensiveness or superiority, which brings nothing more to the table other than a plate of unappetizing fare (vegan or not).

P.S. If you like me, realize that being a monk/nun is quite savory, please drop the thought. If there are too many monks/nuns, then the question of who is going to give me alms will cause me huge suffering, considerably more than whether Aunt T is going to give me meat or vegetables tomorrow morning. All these ‘I’ thinking is causing me to fall back into Reobservation, "$#!+"!

There is some good information on having a healthy plant-based diet on that site, but I think it is a bit unfortunate it tries very hard to make it seem like animal-derived products will inevitably kill you. There is a very understandable tendency in the vegan world to demonise everything to do with animal industries, sometimes being over-confident in low-powered nutritional studies (or ignoring similar evidence that disagrees). Thinking strategically, the best way to persuade people to consider veganism is to stick to the moral arugment and well-established, undisputed facts (and also pictures of ripped vegan bodybuilders sometimes helps too ).

Don't forget your B12 and omega 3.

In matter of nutrition Dr. Joel Fuhrman "Eat to live" book is really good.

https://www.drfuhrman.com/

I, for one, have checked out those guys and books, The China Study, and loads of literature on the subject of diet, Andrew Weil's stuff, various diets, lots of perspectives, many videos including a bunch of Gregers, have Eat to Live, have How Not to Die, have watched Forks over Knives, Fat Sick and Nearly Dead, etc. as well as carefully following the medical studies that continue to come out on saturated fats (maybe better than we thought they were), carb to protein to fat ratios, supplements, omega-3s, and the like, and think that we know that we do not know the perfectly optimal diet for everyone, but eating a lot of fruits, nuts, and vegetables of lots of different colors is clearly a good idea, in general terms, that eating lots of fried/processed nutritionally empty callories is clearly bad, and this general advice must modified based on what is going on with you and your particular medical situation and body.

The ethics mostly align with those results as well. Still, as the monk above rightly pointed out, our carbon and enviromental footprints as humans in industrialized societies tend to be huge, our impact on the rest of the planet just by driving and flying and buying things that were manufactured and shipped and all of that is gigantic, even if we eat a vegan diet, and so, for those into such things, which some of the hippies from the 70's who raised me often were, an approach to treading lightly on this earth should reasonable encompass a vast range of consumer choices towards sustainability far beyond just our diets, some of which are pretty inconveinient and some very expensive still, though getting cheaper (such as solar and electric cars). I dream of a life where I can walk or bike most of the places I need to go, live in a house that is ultra-energy efficient, and reduce dramatically the waste I produce, and am working in my own small ways towards that dream from my hippy-influenced upbringing, though I admit my efforts are paltry in comparison to what might be done and what likely needs to be done for us to avoid radically screwing the planet's climate.

Sādhu! Sādhu! Sādhu!
For you and the monk Daniel, I forgot that you're a lot smarter than me ;)
Watch 'Cowspiracy' and 'What the Health' too while you're at it. That one-two punch may just put you over the top. Natalie Portman also just produced and narrated a new film on Jonathan Safran Foer's 'Eating Animals'. I read it years ago and it was excellent - very even handed and fair in it's style, I'm looking forward to the flick

Well......I agree with most of that.

One point I'd like to make is that it is not all or nothing.

We don't know all about health, or how to apply exactly what we know, but we do know a lot.

The fact that all the health studies don't deliver a simlpe, consistent message, doesn't mean they don't have value and that there is no use for them.

I guess the same apply to the moral of veganism and even meditation (even maps).

At some point, however, given contradictory or very limited information, constrained by resources (economic, personal, you name it) one has to make a decision. To make decisions and to live with the decisions we made is a way of learning.

And, at least for me, learning and understanding is an important part of living.

All tremble at violence; all fear death. Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill.

All tremble at violence; life is dear to all. Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill.

One who, while himself seeking happiness, oppresses with violence other beings who also desire happiness, will not attain happiness hereafter.

One who, while himself seeking happiness, does not oppress with violence other beings who also desire happiness, will find happiness hereafter.

Dhammapada 129-132

It is estimated that we kill 56 billion animals for food each year, this is not counting fish or any other sea creatures.

56 billion land animals each year that we breed and bring into the world with the purpose of exploting them, killing them, eating their bodies and their bodily secretions.

This does not include animals that are bred and killed for entertainment, fur, skin etc.

I think that says a lot about us as in where we are as a species, morally and also spiritually.

Because we can live healthy lives without producing this huge amount of suffering, but still we choose not to do so.

Thanks for this thread, I think the topic is important.

Thank you C P M.

Thich Nhat Hanh on veganism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gwOzzGibsg

Another vegan here. This lifestyle is beneficial all around, in my experience. One vain point is that people do not believe how old I am and same with my husband. We are not junk food vegans, however, and also exercise.

Best vegan meals are Buddha bowls, IMHO - just combining whatever you have on hand: some grains, some legumes, some greens, some colorful veggies. Yum! (this vegan doctor shares great combos)

I am happy that more people are waking up to veganism: google trends data.

And want to share this from my favorite book "May All Beings Be Happy" by Korean monk Beop Jeong:

The Greatest Vice

"A person who can always
munch on the roots of herbs
can accomplish anything in the world."
Though people who enjoy eating greasy foods
will until the day of their deaths
never know the meaning of this proverb,
those who eat simply
will quickly be able to comprehend its deepest meaning.

The food we eat
enters our body and becomes flesh,
becomes blood, becomes bone.
What more, though it may not be visible to the eyes of
common folk,
the karma imbued in that food is also eaten together with
the food itself transforming one's character and physical constitution.

Bringing pain to living things
or killing them,
of all the vices
these are the biggest.

If you want to see the spirit of truth
that completely fills the universe in all places and at all times
you must be able to value and love
even the most trifling of microscopic organisms, as if they
were your own body.

What a beautiful poem.

Which reminds me of:

A being who has not been your mother at one time in the past is not easy to find... A being who has not been your father... your brother... your sister... your son... your daughter at one time in the past is not easy to find.
Mata Sutta

ummm....

(just for the record i'm on a see-food diet)


i do gorw veg but can't boast as I'm not very good at it, as I'm plagued by vast hordes of slugs snails and caterpillars.
I've considered the classic tactic of 'throwing them over the neighbour's fence', but i decided that would attract the wrong king of karmic waves, i've tried moving them gently into the green recycling bin, but they don't like it, they try to get out. It's not easy!  If I want to eat the veg i'm trying to grow i'm going to cause suffering. Totally gave up on the courgettes this year, the plants did not survive getting munched.

Now, neko mentioned that one extra child has a vast environmental footprint so maybe in full consideration of the big picture food choices are less significant  But in terms of dharma, would that extra child not be perfectly placed to make good progress  in the human realm rather than animal or elsewhere?? If the human population increased from 1 billion to 10 billion does that not imply a vastly greater (potential) degree of enlightenment overall?  If we beleive in re-incarnation then those extra 9 billion humans have got to have come from somewhere!  So arguably factory farming has moved 9 billion animals to a better life ??? environmental impact notwithstanding??

Let me guess: extra 9 billion vegans might be better, but bad news for slugs. 9 billion vegan dharma parents even better.


It's beyond my pay grade to resolve all this, just thought to mention I'm struglling with it :-)

(not sure but I think neko doesn't subscribe to reincarnation so if so his original point stands)

What we do in survvival mode is one thing, people end up eating people (as somebody mentioned above) which does not mean that we eat people on a daily basis.

The same is true for animals. We should not eat them unless there is some form of necessity that requires that. This does not happen in our daily lives for most of us.

The fact is that over 99% of animals exploitation takes place in the absence of necessity. We do it out of convenience, habit, we like the taste of animal products etc.

My wife has a real allergy to the sugar alpha-galactose (often called "alpha-gal")which is found in the tissues of all non-primate mammals, so even gelatin capsules give her trouble, and much more so dairy and much more so mammal meat. So, yes, she could theoretically eat people or old world monkeys in a pinch (as somewehere along the way we lost whatever biological pathway leads to this suger being present in our tissues) though obviously she doesn't.

She got this allergy from the bite of a Lone Star tick. The story of how they sorted all this out medically makes for fascinating reading if you like medical mystery stories, but my point here is that she obviously avoids all of those things largely entirely except when they end up in her food from some restaurant that wasn't careful or didn't believe her. As she has gotten pretty tired of chicken and fish, means that we eat a largely vegetarian diet at home.

Thinking very magickally, I had pondered that perhaps the ticks were a ploy by nature to save mammals from consumption and were one small part of a much larger back-pushing against human behavior that included hurricanes, floods, mosquitos and mosquito-borne diseases, wildfires, jellyfish swarms, and all of that to try to get us to change our behavior to something more sustainable and much less massively destructive.

Great question!!! If that is true, it might be a good idea to go on an animal killing rampage?

I have some questions to add about how karma works (food for thought!); the conclusion might be found at the end of a possibly lengthy thought proliferation (feel free to add your own questions!) -

1. Does killing 1 ant equate to killing a blue whale? [by number of sentient beings]
2. If not, does it go by volume? 10 billion ants = 1 blue whale? [by body mass]
3. Or by amount of pain felt (suffering)? Which animals feel pain? e.g. How do I know how cruel a sport like fishing is (catch & release) when I have no definitive idea if caught fish on hook are in pain? If they are not in pain, does that make it ok to fish for fun? (am I putting my 'self' into situations e.g. imagine I am a hooked fish?) [by amount of suffering - what is suffering? Is it my definition of it?]
4. Is more suffering created when I walk into an ant nest and decide to not kill any,rather than to kill any numbers and get away? Can we equate killing x dumb animals/persons with killing an arahant? [by intelligence/importance/nobility/etc.] 
5. Is eating/killing x farm animals the same as killing/depriving the same numbers for sport/lifestyle? [what makes a difference?]
6. Am I creating bad karma for the animal when I endure it feeding on me or should I kill it to embrace the bad karma instead? [how does karma work in full circle?]
7. Is eating x no. of animals in my lifetime the same as killing the equivalent by your lifestyle choices? [am I going to go vegan or am I going to stop using the internet? If using the internet is twice as bad as eating 1000 farm chickens, and I decide not to stop surfing, what does that make me? (substitute your own what if's and questions)]

8. In my deepest conscience, why and how does karma/ other beings' suffering matter to me? 
9. What can/should I do about karma/suffering?
10. What do I do with people who do not have similar answers? 

It will be truly enlightening if anyone has an answer to any of these (1-7)!
It will be delightful to see agreement with people's answers (8-10) as I think they hold some useful insight.

Jilun Ong:  thank you and good to see you expressing great enthusiasm!

Points 1 & 2 .... I remember hearing the story of a tibetan monk who argued that it's better to eat Yak rather than Fish, as you can feed a lot of people with one yak and not so many with one fish, so that tradition appears to suggest that in terms of food it's efficacy that counts per living thing killed, and a good proxy for that would be weight, but that does not take into account vegetables eg rice. I'd factor in the fact that yaks are maybe easier to find in tibet than fish and the climate may be difficult for veg, ie it's a self serving argument.

7 was neko's point.


There was an old joke about the buddhist monk who walked up to a hot dog stall and asked the vendor ' will you make me one with everything?'   Sorry can't remember the punchline, maybe it was one of those japanese puzzles?  Yet it expresses a prioriy of enlightnement over food choice.

Sorry can't help with the rest (i'd have to become a monk and study for years) but maybe a kindergarten answer to 10: be tolerant and maybe learn something.



FWIW I didnt mean to suggest a killing spree but yes that's implied by my questions. I'd be more comforatble (after hindsight) with the statement that if you're alive then best to aim for enlightnement, I'm agnostic on rebirth/redeath at the moment, but it's in the tradition hence my OP.

...and sperm counts.

For me, the concept of an economy of suffering falls apart pretty quickly on inspection.  How can one know what real effect one's actions will have?  Killing this cow may save 10 billion humans in the future, who knows!  My every action has an unknowable effect on the gross amount of suffering experienced by all sentient beings across all of time.  I also see that my own suffering is nonsense.  It is literally just conditioned aversion to sensation that there is no reason to be averse to. 

Where I have come to is, I dont believe in a continuous self.  It just isnt a real thing, so why worry about what this conditioned reaction machine is up to.  Ironically, the less I worry, the more it behaves in a relaxed and loving manner. 

It isnt a call for nihilism, because, for me, love survives inspection.  It is beyond my ability to comprehend or transcend.  I dont even care if it is real.  When all else is gone, there it is in the mind.  I think it is the only motivation that exists beyond conditioning even if it is always expressed in a conditioned way (except in Nirvana, which I can't say I understand).  That's my best understanding, you?  

This is a good old "Desert Island" type of question.

But I have a real life vegan conundrum. Pet has to be on Rx food that contains meat. Hence, I can't wait for the day those lab grown meats get made into dog food.

Matthieu Ricard shares these thoughts about veganism, I think. His latest book, A Plea for the Animals is about this very subject.

I've been a vegetarian for about 25 years. I flirt with becoming a vegan from time to time, but this latest go around, it may stick. We'll see. I think it's important to examine our shared narratives about why it's okay to exploit or harm other living beings. Perhaps we'll decide it's not.

Precisely! So any argument of varying levels of veganism or the opposites based on assumptions related to the economy of suffering is akin to a vessel with holes trying to hold water. Whatever whomever thinks, supported by whichever article/study, is not definite, thus one should do what one can to the best of their capabilities, using sound rationalization with regards to feasibility and judge no one else. This change of lifestyle should include all other areas as a human consumer and not limiting oneself to food, as it will clearly be tunnel vision. If doing so for health and/or to feel good, by all means! However, to engage in any such debates using a subjective, leaking vessel theory is bound to inflict suffering. I will spend much less time on speculative 'education' and use common sense to lead a sensible life, never in judgement of others but through actions to make this a better world in ways I know will reduce suffering guided by 'effort vs definite result'.

I am passively seeking (I do not think I will find out) the truth with regards to a continuous self but I lead my life like it is the only lifetime I have, until proven wrong. Does anyone have any insight into this?

.

   Ι don't believe in reincarnation in the objective plane, it is full of holes and inconsistencies, and yes, an extra child can be rased with higher standards than the average of the present, and can be a positive force in the world. The case with the child or the children is that you can have such a crucial impact on them(better one hopefully) that there lies the possibility of planting in the world a compassionate critical thinker that will keep up with the positivity expodentialy, and this is preferable. There is also the option to  adapt  a child. 


Before i try to answer your questions i would like to give an importance principle that must be present whenever we feel critical to a specific action:

In order to judge something, we have to be in a greater position than the one which is judged 

As such we can not object to someone for being hypocrite because she saves the cat and not the human, when we are in a position that we save neither the cat nor the human. The same goes with the i phone and the internet and the likes. It is like saying to someone "why you give only 10% of your money to the poor and not more? you are a hypocrite " when we, instead, are not willing to give even a 1% of our money. Doesn't work like that.



To your questions

1) No, i would say blue whale matters much more based on their range of preferences and possibilities that are interacted by killing. If we add suffering before killing, then the case is even stronger. 

2) It doesn't go by volume. A fat person does not have more value than a thinner one.

3) Life matters too (see 1)) but suffering is the most important. We can say with some relative safety that suffering comes with the central nervus system in the evolution, and place it somewhere around the phylum of Platihelminthes, but we don't know for sure, maybe in cnidarians,  and even before that, there are feelings too (probably not painful though, because locomotive reactions are meaningless). Fish definately feel pain. Suffering is something we know experientially and by biological reasons (mirror neurons) and in conjunction with analytic thinking we relate directly to suffering of others (the suffering of others is in some degree part of the conciousness sphere)

4) The clearer the awareness of a bad intention, the greater the positive force that is interrupted, the more the importance of the organism, the worse the outcome accordingly would be for oneself and the others. 

5)It's the same, as it is made for the same reason: for fun. It is not the same when survival factors are involved. 

6) You are not creating bad karma for the animal (mosquitos i suppose), your intentions create bad karma just for you.

7) Τheoretically sounds equivalent, but it is not in the sence of immediacy: the person that refuses to give 0,01% of his money helping a starving kid that it is out of his door dying, does not generate the same karma as someone that refuses to give to another kid that dies somewhere far away(the first one being a really bad person ). But we have to make efforts to fight this intellectual numbness and make connections that plain emediacy cannot, so to be in a position to see the truth no matter if someone is far from us (africa kid)or has no facial expressions (crocodile) or whatever else irrelevant case may be. Only suffering matters.

8) Because others ARE part of you. (because when they are not, it means that the construct of self is limited to a contracted alienated state of separateness that causes suffering (which is the only thing that matters as we said))

9) What else, that path

10) Right speech and right action (the least amount of suffering nessery in a given situation)


Hope it helps :-)