Thought for Food

Time and again, I hear people say that we're all one. The consciousness that views the world through my eyes is the same one that views it through yours. One consciousness shared between all of humanity. And this gives rise to thoughts and actions of kindness, brotherhood and compassion - all very good.

But how incredibly arrogant it is, to think that the one consciousness is segregated only to illuminating humanity. Hello? What consciousness do you think is viewing the world through the eyes of animals? What awareness do you suppose enlivens insects? How do you imagine plants know how to grow?

Yet the mantra rings out, far and wide, “Praise the Lord, and pass the pork!” Meat, flesh, muscle, the bodies of God's other children, our brethren. Hmmm. That's an unpleasant thought. “I'll just ignore and forget that one. It would take entirely too much adjustment to accommodate that into my beliefs and actions.”

Since my earliest memories, I've felt my direct relationship with all of the living world. Somehow, I didn't see the discordance between my feelings and my diet until I was 11. I had been brought up eating animals. It was culturally expected. So I dined on pork and beef and poultry and whatever manner of my kin landed on my plate. Then, like the sun breaking through the clouds, I opened my eyes and mended my ways.

Leaving attire, product testing and environmentally sustainable practices out of the equation, I understand that we have to eat to live. And, that we have to kill to do so. But, what or who are we going to kill? How should their lives be ended? And what kind of life should they be entitled to before we kill them?

People go to the store and find conveniently packaged and pre-cleaned pieces of skillet ready flesh. Quick and easy … and thoughtless. There's no consideration of where it came from, who it was, what it ate or what its life and death were like. And this thoughtless consumerism has invited an industry that breeds our brethren into lives of misery, where they're given chemicals to make them grow unnaturally huge and to counteract the consequences of their lives spent sleeping in their own feces. They're fed processed pseudo food. They can't find a mate and propagate. They don't get to move, because muscular development makes for tough meat. They're considered property, and get less respect and care than the forklifts that move their carcasses into the meat mills.

I'm sorry. I know this is all very unpleasant to consider. But if you eat meat, every time you load your shopping cart, that's exactly what you're supporting. Every time you prepare a meal, that's exactly what you're handling. Every time you sit down at the table, that's exactly what you're looking at. Every time you take fork to plate, that's exactly what you're eating. That anonymous slab of meat used to have a face; one, illuminated by the same spark that animates you and yours.

If you've made it to the end of this piece without tuning out, then there's a chance that you'll continue to chew on these ideas; and just maybe, have a change of heart and amend your choices and/or lifestyle.

All life is sacred. All beings deserve respect. All of us need to be conscious of our decisions, their implications, and the consequences of what we do.