Going Meatless

I was going through my regular blog reading this morning, when got to a post from Unlearned Hand about his decision to go meatless. I guess I find it heartening to hear that another person has decided to give up eating meat. (Hey the more vegetarians there are, the more vegetarian options there will be in grocery stores and restaurants across the country.) One thing in his post leapt out at me.

And yet even for a non-Buddhist, it would seem to me hard to deny that taking part in a consumer culture that devours meat without coming to terms with what that means is a willful blindness and ignorance that is an indictment all to itself. Many, perhaps most people get very uncomfortable at the dinner table if anyone starts a discussion of what they are actually eating, how it actually came to be on their plates. I was one such person. Yet how can we justify to ourselves that the only way to avoid losing our appetites or even vomiting at the dinner table is to pretend that we do not know or do not care where the food came from, how it got there, and whether the animal we're eating lived a pathetic and short life filled with little but pain and slaughter? Is this not evidence of at least a subconscious understanding of the wrong being committed, the suffering being encouraged? And if so, does it not reflect an internal hypocrisy, paradox, or at least guilt that can be ignored but never eliminated? Even outside a Buddhist tradition, I see no way to avoid the conclusion that the willfully ignorant consumption of livestock and associated products is planting the seeds of suffering, anger, and guilt inside the vast majority of Americans.

And I am absolutely included in that group. This was a dark little secret for me. Particularly as an aspiring Buddhist practitioner, it was incumbent on me to do my research, understand where my food was coming from, be thankful when it came from suffering-free sources, and avoid it when it did not. But instead, for years I have put my head in the sand. Vegetarianism and animal-friendly dairy and egg products have always seemed just a bit too inconvenient. Yet I knew that if I were confronted with the truth about the meat I was eating, I would never be able to eat it again.

I've often had people ask me how long I've been a vegetarian (over 10 years) and why I became a vegetarian. With the last question, they're usually attempting to get me to say something about the ethics of eating meat.

When I initially became a vegetarian, I have to admit it was mostly for health reasons. I'd seen a lot of diet-related health problems in my family—from obesity to heart disease to high bloodpressure to diabetes etc.) and I decided I wanted to avoid those problems as much as it was in my power to do so. At the time, I thought giving up meat would be a healthy thing to do. I avoided thinking about the ethics of eating meat at the time.

When I began studying Buddhism, and adopting it as my own personal philosophy and spiritual path (not one that I walk anywhere near perfectly, mind you) I found I couldn't ignore the ethical question any longer. For me, it became impossible to ignore the degree of suffering inflicted upon other living creatures when considering the process by which most meat ends up on many plates in Western culture; from how animals are treated in the meat industry to how they are slaughtered. For me personally, it was clear that for me to eat meat was to take part in creating unecessary suffering for other living creatures; unecessary because, as a vegetarian of several years by that time, I discovered that I could live a very healthy life, and still enjoy an abundance of delicious food, without eating meat. (At this point, I'm also partially into the process of eliminating leather from my wardrobe.)

Around that time I also picked up a book on two topics of interest to me: Buddhism and Food. In it I found a passage about the question of vegetarianism that warned against being judgemental of those who continue to eat meat. To paraphrase, it pointed out that every meal, whether it includes meat or not, involves the taking of life—whether livestock is killed, or the insects and animals of the field in which vegetable food is grown. Still, we must nourish ourselves or perish. (For that matter, everytime we brush our teeth, take a shower, or wash our hair we kill off thousands—if not millions—of microscopic creatures that live on our own bodies, that we never see.) It served as a reminder to me to retain a sense of humility about my own choice not to eat meat, and to be tolerant of the choices others make, for I may not know the reasons behind those choices.

Still, it's difficult not to look at a plate of meat now and not think of the kind of suffering UL references in his post. I've found, however, that it's more effective to simply set a quiet example of how one can live a life less involved in unecessary suffering. I've made it a point, as a vegetarian not to preach to people who aren't. (For that matter, I even married a non-vegetarian.) Yet, in my 10+ years as a vegetarian, I've had friends make the decision to become vegetarians themselves, and some have told me that they were at least in part inspired by my own practice of vegetarianism.

So, our decisions, however small they may seem can make a huge difference