Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Lifestyle as Direct Action

By Mickey Z.

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  1. Excellente.  Your February 11th, last, article here had a huge impact on me MZ.  I have slashed my animal products intake drastically, but not completely.

    Posted by Tracy McLellan from  on  12/01  at  07:40 PM

  2. I think part of the elitist spin comes from people’s personal experiences of visting specialty stores like Whole Oats Market and Whole Foods Market… comparing the prices there with the prices in Albertsons and Vons… and observing how many more gigantic SUVs are parked outside the specialty stores than are parked outside the regular ones.  I can easily see how that spin is created.

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  12/01  at  08:26 PM

  3. You are killing plants to live. Something must die for you to live. One can’t be smug; plants or animals, something is dying for you. Which life form that you kill is better than the other? Personal choice I suppose. Personally I prefer to eat meat,eggs,dairy; sounds like you enjoy killing vegetables.  Its ok with me.

    Posted by Dean Hughson from Arizona  on  12/01  at  09:18 PM

  4. Thanks, Mickey. Rex Bowlby dazzles in this interview. Sounds like the best book on the subject since To Cherish All Life: A Buddhist Case for Becoming Vegetarian by Philip Kapleau Roshi. As a long-time vegetarian (since 1978) and vegan (since 1991), who chooses, as well, not to partake of refined sugar, alcohol (any more), or coffee, I offer one word of caution. You’re asking for trouble if you try to raise a child on a vegan diet. We tried, he suffered, and we learned he thrives on fish.

    Which leads me to Dean Hughson’s comment. By your reasoning, Dean, if we all live by killing one thing or another, then I guess it’s okay to eat humans. (Hmmm, I knew carnivores were good for something. When the planet’s totally depleted from cattle raising, they can provide the answer to overpopulation by eating each other.)

    No one, however, even a vegan who refrains from taking vitamins in capsule form because the casing is made out of an animal product (gelatin), is immune from surviving at the expense of others. Though I wouldn’t dream of touching the stuff, I’ve come to believe fish, as well as vegetables, are the higher power’s gift for human sustenance. Absolute humanitarianism is a delusion—plants may be sentient and suffer, but not to the same degree as animals.

    Posted by Russ Wellen from Sleepy Hollow, New York  on  12/02  at  07:40 AM

  5. Well, in the scheme of things other animals did eat humans at one point but we became able to protect ourselves and that stopped.  Humans are able to eat a wide range of items to sustain life.

    Whether one likes it or not, our ability to produce food economically is helping feed the world. If vegetarian lifestyles were feasible for the world, we wouldn’t have people starving in Africa as now do.  The answers are easy: teach them to raise cattle,poultry,fish, and plants. Plants alone won’t sustain life and surely hasn’t been widely accepted; people want meat,eggs,fish when their quality of life gets better.

    Posted by Dean Hughson from Arizona  on  12/02  at  07:59 AM

  6. This might sound odd, but here goes ... I went through a lengthy militant vegan phase about ten or twelve years ago. I stopped all that by choice. (I followed a line of understanding similar to Dean Hughson’s above, something I had previous thought a philosophical impossibility.) Later, training qigong and martial arts significantly heightened my ability to sense the operation of my internal organs. I discovered that meat was more quickly assimilated by my body than vegetables. Still later, I learned to respect killing and eating fish. A spiritual tuning returned me to vegetarianism. Because I dislike monomaniacal strictnesses of all sorts in my lifestyle, I always cook vegan at home but, when out and about in the city or out with company, I choose to relax my personal standard. (Worrying about whether egg whites or whey or whatever has made its way in my meal just annoys me and causes me unnecessary anxiety. Lard’s an entirely different story.) Basically, I think that vegan cooking is cool and can be deliciously easy. Definitely better for the planet and good for one’s state of mind. Makes good qi.

    Posted by Theo from Greece  on  12/02  at  08:01 AM

  7. I just want to add that it was Dean Hughson’s first comment that was similar to my original understanding to abandon veganism (the identical nature of all life energy). My choice is to be a vegetarian, not a vegan, because I think animal husbandry is an important part of human culture. I, for one, want to learn to make goat cheese.

    Posted by Theo from Greece  on  12/02  at  08:11 AM

  8. The moral argument against eating meat is convincing but besides that there is the big safety issue. What about prions? What about the failure of the USDA to protect consumers? What about the lack of safety of other food products? Not everyone can afford organic vegetables. The food supply is just one part of our polluted environment. Better living through chemistry...remember that slogan? And, as someone else commented, it is almost impossible to avoid animal by-products. They are in medicines, soap, vitamin capsules, etc. It has been reported that fire retardants and other toxins in human breast milk are now possibly harming newborns.  This is a great big experiment and we are all part of it whether we like it or not.  I think that today is the anniversary of the Bophal-Union Carbide disaster. Those people are still suffering. Corporations such as Dow, Monsanto, and the rest will continue to do what corporations do.

    Posted by rosemarie jackowski from  on  12/02  at  10:38 AM

  9. Having had briefly lived in a monastic community in a former life of mine, I was a vegan for many of the reasons touched upon here.  And I vehemently advocated for the lifestyle, at the time, also.

    Until, that is, my path crossed the path of another monastic from a different spriritual path.  He said one thing that I will never forget.

    “The most beneficial food for your body… is the food that you give to a starving being.”

    ‘Nuff said, at least for me.

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  12/02  at  11:26 PM

  10. I appreciate the moral arguments here, but I’ll say again, having a native Canadian (or “Indian") as a significant other - that many thousand year old rituals involve hunting and eating animals.  Unlike corporate meat industries, tribal “spiritual” use of animal carcasses leaves no waste.  It was not the Natives who thinned out the Bison population...it was the overhunting of the White man.

    Posted by j cummings from  on  12/03  at  01:51 PM

  11. Re Comment 2- Whole Foods etc are NOT more expensive....the same products at Ralphs are
    twice the price, since they buy less quantity
    of the fake meats, soy chesses etc.  And most everything in Ralph’s other departments are unhealthy, except for the produce dept.

    Re Comment 3- Vegetables dont flinch or pour out blood when cut. Show me the heartbeat, the liver, the kidney, the terrified eyeballs, the crying voice on a vegetable. It’s incomparable.

    Re Comment 4- Thousands of extremely healthy children are raised vegan. Check the veg
    parenting bulletin board on http://www.vegsource.com Fish contains exhorbitant amounts of DDT, Dioxin, PCBs, mercury,sewage, tons of cholesterol & saturated fat, too much protein (which ruins the kidneys & bones) & zero fiber (an essential nutrient). The fish STIMULATES the human body
    (in a bad way), but is absolutely incapable of making it thrive.

    Re Comment 5- The reason we HAVE starving people in Africa is because 80% of our grains go to feed food animals. It takes 16 lbs of grain to create
    1 lousy lb of meat....16 lbs of grain can feed alot of people..what is more efficient?  It
    takes 5000 gallons of water to produce a lb of meat...takes 25 lbs to grow a bushel of potatoes.....what is more efficient?? If everyone on the planet reduced their meat consumption by only 10%, there would be enough food left over to feed the world.

    Re Comment 6- Whey is so toxic they can’t legally dump it...so they all but give it away to cracker & cookie manufacturers because it weighs alot & thus is cheap filler.

    Meat does NOT assimulate faster than veggies...it stays in your colon for about 36 hrs, if you are lucky.  Many people have meat bellies.  When John Wayne died & they did an autopsy, he had 32 lbs
    of impacted meat in his colon.

    Raw fruits digest within minutes; raw veggies within an hour.  Cooked plant foods take a few hours.

    Re Comment 7- Animal agriculture is tied with
    cars as the #1 most destructive industry on the planet.  Nothing noble about it. Goat cheese is exactly equal to cow cheese in it’s ability to create heart disease, stroke,cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes etc. So even if you raise your own, you are still going to destroy your own health with it.

    Re Comment 8- There are numerous soaps on the market w/o animal products, and vitamins in
    veggie caps.

    Re Comment 10- There is nothing moral about killing ANY being.

    Posted by Marr Nealon, Nutritional Consultant from Los Angeles  on  12/03  at  11:02 PM

  12. Marr...though I agree with much of what you said in comment # 11, I think that you trivialize the economics here.  Fresh vegetables have recently become so expensive that they now cannot be part of everyone’s diet… ex. I just paid over $2.00 for one green pepper, and it was not even organic. Soap that is labeled as containing NO animal by-products is also too expensive for many people. One small bar of olive oil based soap was selling for $2.99 in the local super market yesterday. To ignore the economics here is counter-productive. We should be working to make organic vegetables available to all and part of that is a political thing. We should be supporting small organic family farms and be giving them the subsidies that have been going to Monsanto and the factory farms.

    Posted by rosemarie jackowski from  on  12/04  at  09:07 AM

  13. I echo… echo… echo Rosemarie’s comments.

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  12/04  at  10:28 AM

  14. I think $2 green peppers are an anomaly probably due to the hurricanes in Florida.  That doesn’t deny the fact that organics are very expensive.

    Posted by Tracy McLellan from  on  12/04  at  05:42 PM

  15. Okay, since there is a limit on the amount of text to be posted, I will divide my comments into 3 parts, since I have a lot to say.

    Part One

    Rex Bowlby is indeed brilliant in the interview, concise and insightful. Can’t wait to get the book.

    Most of the comments I would have wanted to make have been said beautifully by Marr Nealon. Re the comments appearing after her post:

    Soap is irrelevant and caustic, just use hot water to wash. Same with brushing teeth, toothpaste is abrasive and redundant, just brush with water. Go raw vegan, shampooing becomes rarely necessary. Buy a crystal deodorant, it lasts for years. Use coconut oil to moisturize, it also last a long time. What more do you need? Grooming costs next to nothing.

    Do most of your shopping at local farmer’s markets, buying direct from the farmers. You can usually make fabulous deals by buying a whole box of produce rather than by the pound. And buying at the end of the day can get you bargains because the farmers don’t want to take the food back with them.

    When shopping at Whole Foods or other markets, buy produce, and other products, that are on sale. You can find good prices when you look for it--one can live on very little money if one does their homework.

    I too am a “militant vegan”, an unwavering one. But I have a very different viewpoint on the eating of plants than do most vegans. I do not defend the eating of plants--eating plants themselves is just as unconscionable as is the eating of animals. Plants simply have a different anatomical make-up than animals, but that does not make them any less sentient nor deserving of life. Plants do scream when hurt, the fact that we can’t hear them is a failing on our part, not theirs--all life forms communicate mainly telepathically, humans have lost that ability because we have come to rely on indirect forms of communication such as codes of language. Plants do indeed bleed when cut--the chlorophyll running through their stems and veins has been compared as being almost identical in structure to blood. And plants have complex brains--the root structure of the plant is the brain. No, there is no justification for killing plants any more than there is for eating animals.

    Posted by Zsuzsa Blakely from Los Angeles, CA  on  12/06  at  03:37 AM

  16. Part 2

    I guess most vegans defend the eating of plants because it would seem that there would be nothing left for us to eat otherwise. But the idea that something has to die in order for us to live is simply incorrect. We are originally and ultimately designed to eat the PRODUCTS of plants, not the plants themselves--in fact, all creatures were. When life appeared on Earth, our planet was covered with tropical rainforest, rife with fruits and nuts--the gifts of the plants to all life so that they could provide creatures with perfect and optimal nutrition in exchange for spreading the seed of the plants. And plants possess incredible intelligence and creativity in intentionally producing these foods in such a way that they will be maximally appealing. In fact, plants provide our matrix of life in so many other ways as well.

    What changed nutrition for most of the creatures on Earth was the necessity of eating whatever was available during the ice age(s). When primates first appeared, they ate exclusively nuts and seeds for the first 22 MILLION years. It was during the last, very extreme, ice age that they began eating other foods, and in order to be able to do so, they adapted. The non-human higher primates developed an omnivorous anatomy--take a look at the incisor teeth of a chimp or a gorilla, they are as long and sharp as those of a bear’s. Even despite this adaptation to omnivory, these higher primates always prefer the frugivorous diet when available. Now, the really interesting thing is that humans branched off from australopithecus without EVER having developed ANY adaptation to carnivory (or omnivory, a term which includes carnivory). Humans did not need to, because humans used artificial means--"tools"--to apprehend and process into edibility whatever was available. We humans have never “evolved”, we have always retained the original primate dentition and digestive anatomy--we have never significantly deviated from our original design.

    Other species did not “evolve” either, they simply adapted. Both creationism and evolutionism are simply efforts to impose bogus arbitrary ideas upon reality to suit agendas, and are equally unscientific. Species change temporarily in order to adapt to survival in their changed environments, but they revert to their original anatomical and physiological design over time, when the adaptations are no longer necessary.

    Posted by Zsuzsa Blakely from Los Angeles, CA  on  12/06  at  03:51 AM

  17. Part Three

    We are now in a thaw, heading back to more of the Earth’s original tropicality. For humans to continue as well as exponentially exaggerate the use of ice age survival mechanisms during a thaw is unnecessary and inappropriate, not to mention brutal and insane--in fact, since no controls are utilized, humans running amok, hanging on to bad habits acquired during the ice age, is destroying the planet and all life on it. We need to give up our bad habits. Giving up the eating of animals is the first and most vital step, followed by giving up the eating of all animal products.

    Then we give up the eating of plants when we are ready. One thing about eating plants is that we don’t have to kill the plant to eat part of it--we can pull off a leaf or cut off part of a blade of grass. We can plant lettuces or other leafy veggies and simply take off the bottom leaves as they droop to the ground. This hurts the plants but does not kill them, an adaptation while we transition to not eating them at all eventually. It’s amazing how filling and nutritious a few tips of blades of wild grass ("weeds") can be. We really don’t have to “cultivate” plants, which is equivalent to the enslavement of animals, and killing them as soon as they are considered edible.

    There is no need to eat starchy vegetables at all--they are indigestible in our systems without extensive processing. And many of the foods that people consider to be vegetables are actually fruits--avocados, tomatoes, peppers, cucumber, summer squash, young corn, young beans and peas. These fruits, together with the fruits we have always thought of as fruits, along with nuts and naturally edible seeds, constitute our optimal diet. BTW, grains are seeds, though they are not naturally edible by humans, and require processing for palatability.

    Some say that we are heading back into an ice age. That would be bleak news indeed, if true, especially since we have nowhere near completed thawing from the last ice age. We are just beginning to warm up, we are at the dawn of our re-awakening. We need to find our way back to the garden, to our ahimsa vegan fruitarian roots, while helping other species to do the same. (BTW, the oldest dog currently on record, a 29-year old Collie in the UK, is a lifelong vegan.) The question is, will humanity awaken from its ice age-acquired ignorance and brutality before it destroys all life on Earth?

    Posted by Zsuzsa Blakely from Los Angeles, CA  on  12/06  at  04:09 AM

  18. To the Militant Vegan...I admire your stance but it is counter-productive to ignore the fact that many people across the U.S. do NOT have organic foods available to them, either because of the cost or because of the time of year.  In parts of the northeast there are farmer’s markets only on a very limited basis and only during the growing season. The decrease in the number of family farms has been dramatic over the past few years. It seems to me that you are blaming the victim here. Most people that I know would love to live on organic, whole foods. Rice and beans are great but the issue of cost and availability of other whole, fresh foods is an important issue.

    Posted by rosemarie jackowski from  on  12/06  at  09:39 AM

  19. “Both creationism and evolutionism are simply efforts to impose bogus arbitrary ideas upon reality to suit agendas, and are equally unscientific.”

    I admired, if not always agreed with the above commenter, but this above statement is very, very rash.  The Christian Right wants to destroy any scientific concept of evolution, which while imperfect - (I read a recent excellent piece about Darwin’s racism) - is far more well-founded than some such “intelligent design” theories, a smokescreen for creationism.  Evolutionism can be advanced upon, perfected as the corpus of human knowledge.  Creationism is superstition.  Even a critic of orthodox Darwinian thought should think twice about equating Darwinism and Creationism as two peas in a pod.

    Posted by j cummings from  on  12/07  at  12:14 AM

  20. Your site is realy very interesting. http://www.bignews.com

    Posted by Pesho from France  on  08/19  at  02:26 AM

    21. Next entry: The Nation Magazine Cruise: Puuuke!

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