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

Our Culture’s Roots / 27
sitivity, and connectedness. Above all, this revolution must change our
relationship to our meals—our most practiced rituals—and to our food,
our most powerful inner and outer symbol.
There is no action that more profoundly, radically, and positively
embraces these revolutionary changes than adopting a plant-based diet
for ethical reasons. There is no action more subversive to the established
herding order than cultivating awareness in order to transcend the view
that animals are mere commodities.
We are waking up from the bad dream of commodifying and preying
on animals. The revolution of compassion that is growing in our
consciousness and culture requires that we stop eating animals not just
for self-oriented health or economic reasons, but also from our hearts,
out of caring for the animals, humans, and vast web of interconnected
lives that are harmed and destroyed by animal-based meals. The word
that sums up this underlying ethic and motivation is “vegan,” coined in
1944 in England by Donald Watson. Watson was dissatisfied with the
word “vegetarian” because it does not account for motivation and
refers only to the exclusion of animal flesh from the diet. He took the
first three and last two letters of that word, but wanted it pronounced
completely differently, “vee-gn,” to emphasize its revolutionary import.
Its definition in the Articles of Association of the Vegan Society in
England reads,
Veganism denotes a philosophy and way of living which seeks to
exclude—as far as is possible and practical—all forms of exploitation
of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose;
and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free
alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals, and the environment. 16
The word “vegan,” newer and more challenging than “vegetarian”
because it includes every sentient being in its circle of concern and
addresses all forms of unnecessary cruelty from an essentially ethical
perspective, with a motivation of compassion rather than health or purity,
points to an ancient idea that has been articulated for many centuries,
especially in the world’s spiritual traditions. It indicates a mental-