The World Peace Diet: Eating For Spiritual Health And Social Harmony

202 / the world peace diet
Our understanding is so contaminated by our mentality of objectification
that we are killing off animals and destroying species and natural
communities at a rate unparalleled in history. When we look deeply we
see that understanding brings and awakens love, and that love brings and
awakens understanding. If our so-called understanding of animals does
not ignite within us a loving urge to allow them to fulfill their lives and
purposes, to honor, respect and appreciate them, then it is not true understanding.
Our science is in many ways incapable of this authentic understanding,
and, because it is also often a vehicle of corporate power, it is
best not to rely on it too heavily in our quest for wisdom or healing.
The Myth of Human Predation
A second objection to veganism raised by the herding culture is that eating
animal foods must be natural and right because we’ve been doing it
for such a long time. The first response to this objection is to question
its basic validity. We know as individuals that it is often counterproductive
and crippling if we carry into adulthood the same strategies and
beliefs we used as children. The fact that we’ve been doing something a
long time hardly makes it right or appropriate. The same defense of
human slavery was used here in the nineteenth century. How will we
progress or evolve if we continue to justify outmoded behavior and
obsolete beliefs by giving them validity they don’t deserve? War, genocide,
murder, rape, and human exploitation have been going on a long
time as well, but we would never dare to use their longevity to justify
them. That we would do so to justify the enslavement, exploitation,
murder, rape, and extinction of animals is telling, but completely specious.
It undermines our healthy yearning to grow in wisdom and to
strive to build a society that is more free, peaceful, and sustainable.
The second response to this objection is to question its veracity.
What is a “long time”? The ten thousand years we’ve been herding and
commodifying animals and the twenty to sixty thousand years we’ve
been hunting large animals 2 are very short compared to the three hundred
thousand years homo sapiens has been here and the seven to ten
million years that hominids have been here. Our closest living relatives,
supposedly sharing ninety-five to ninety-eight percent of our DNA, are