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

Journey of Transformation / 249
ing the essential goodness and vast potential of human nature, and exploring
lifestyles of nonviolence, simplicity, and inner contemplation.
The American roots of deeply questioning food and developing the
philosophical foundation for a more compassionate relationship with
animals can be traced to the progressive writers clustered around
Emerson in Concord in the mid-nineteenth century. Thoreau wrote, “I
have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race in its
gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals as surely as the savage
tribes have left off eating each other when they came into contact with
the more civilized.” Emerson’s “You have just dined, and however
scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of
miles, there is complicity,” shows the esteemed Concord sage’s ability to
make the connections that elude most. Bronson Alcott’s daughter,
Louisa May, wrote, “Vegetable diet and sweet repose. Animal food and
nightmare. Pluck your body from the orchard; do not snatch it from the
shambles [slaughterhouse]. Without flesh diet there could be no bloodshedding
war.” She makes explicit the connection between the violence
inherent in eating animals, nightmares, and the nightmare of human
violence turned against ourselves.
Perhaps as a child, wandering through the forests and along the
streets of Concord and along the shore of Walden Pond, where I learned
to swim, I sensed the noble and courageous thoughts of these spiritual
pioneers. Though there seemed to be little in the outer world to encourage
questioning the cruel food customs I was born into, perhaps the
thoughts and feelings of these luminaries filtered through the inner
worlds that I was exploring along with the outer world. I am sure that
all of us have such memories of seed experiences, perhaps only dimly recognized,
that are now unfolding in consciousness. We learn from each
other and plant seeds in each other. Through examples, actions, words,
expressions, writings, and gestures, we touch each other, sometimes
deeply. As sensitive children, we can be blessed or wounded enormously.
Several other seeds stand out in shaping my journey. One was growing
up with a noble and gentle German shepherd. Our family got
Bismarck as a puppy when I, the oldest of three children, was about a
year old. He was my loyal friend until he passed away in my teens,