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

208 / the world peace diet
entation, it is easy for the country’s two largest industries—food and
medicine—to produce a steady stream of well-publicized articles, books,
public relations pieces, and scientific studies all distracting attention
from the role of animal foods in disease etiology, or proclaiming that
animal foods contain vital nutrients. Behind these two huge industries
lurks the banking industry, which has invested billions of dollars to
finance the high-tech meat-medical complex, and requires a reliable and
ample flood of demand for both animal foods and for medical treatment.
Veganism is profoundly dangerous to both of these, and to this
economic empire’s status quo. There is thus enormous pressure within
the research community to resist movement toward the evolution of
higher awareness and compassion that is embodied in vegan ideals.
Rather than relying on science to validate veganism and our basic
herbivore physiology, we may do better by calling attention to universal
truths: animals are undeniably capable of suffering; our physical bodies
are strongly affected by thoughts, feelings, and aspirations; and we cannot
reap happiness for ourselves by sowing seeds of misery for others.
Nor may we be free while unnaturally enslaving others. We are all connected.
These are knowings of the heart and veganism is, ultimately, a
choice to listen to the wisdom in our heart as it opens to understanding
the interconnectedness and essential unity of all life.
Deepening our understanding of these truths will give science the
guidance it so desperately needs. Einstein was both correct and prescient
when he wrote, “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology
has exceeded our humanity.” Disconnected from the direct intuitive
knowing of our interconnectedness with others, science can amplify our
mental delusion of separateness and bring us quickly to self-destruction.
We should by now be aware that conventional science is in actuality its
own mythology with a set of value-laden underlying assumptions that
are taken on faith like any religion, and that it is easily prostituted, as
other religions have been, by those with money and influence.
The Justification of Religion
Our religious institutions often preach that we’re spiritual beings and
animals are not, that we have souls and they don’t, that it’s all right to