In regards to eating meat

[Monica]

This sounds to me exactly like the notion of taking on extreme ascetic practices in order to gain supernatural powers. This also gets back to some of that stuff in the Essene depictions of Jesus' words. I liked some parts, but as a whole, the document was riddled with behavior restrictions and "Thou shalt nots..."

Saying "don't murder humans" is a restriction, but to dismiss murder as being 'ok' because of it, would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. NOT saying you are doing that, just saying that the substance is more important than the form.

[Tenet Nosce]

This sounds to me exactly like the notion of taking on extreme ascetic practices in order to gain supernatural powers. This also gets back to some of that stuff in the Essene depictions of Jesus' words. I liked some parts, but as a whole, the document was riddled with behavior restrictions and "Thou shalt nots..."

Saying "don't murder humans" is a restriction, but to dismiss murder as being 'ok' because of it, would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. NOT saying you are doing that, just saying that the substance is more important than the form.

Right. But yet, most people don't murder because they don't desire to, not because it is restricted behavior.

[Monica]

Right. But yet, most people don't murder because they don't desire to, not because it is restricted behavior.

Well true, but we still need restrictions, at this point of human evolution. How many more murders would there be if it wasn't considered wrong, with threat of punishment?

[Tenet Nosce]

Right. But yet, most people don't murder because they don't desire to, not because it is restricted behavior.

Well true, but we still need restrictions, at this point of human evolution. How many more murders would there be if it wasn't considered wrong, with threat of punishment?

I dunno. Knowledge of human beings living free from the threat of punishment for certain behaviors appears to have been edited out of the collective memory and historical record. Our legal history books pretty much begin with the "Code of Hammurabi" and go from there. I will note that the time frame of this document coincides with the arrival of negative Orion beings to this sphere 3600 years ago.

As it currently stands, most of humanity remains under the strong impression that people need to be perpetually under control in order to live in peace with one another. Ironically, this is causing a certain level of tension among the populace.

[Zachary]

I have a way better energy level now. But I feel heavy and my thoughts seem more prone to becoming violent (in certain situations) now that I am eating all this meat again.

Interesting...

So right now since I dont see myself being able to pull off a proper vegetarian diet ANYTIME SOON in the future...I will strive (for now) to eat maybe 80% veggies 20% meat (possibly 70/30). My meat source would, ideally, only be fish...I might do chicken as well.

I've heard of a lot of people moving to Costa Rica because of the abundance or cheap, fresh fruits and veggies. Maybe there is a way to use some of that food budget to include more fresh produce...?

I think a good mindset is: if you can't kill the animal yourself...don't eat it.

That sounds like a great principle to live by! Thanks for sharing!

I left something out in my post, edited.

Thanks for commenting.

---

Talk about a dead diet right? not digging it too much but what I am digging is all the muscle I've put back on since eating meat. I have a way better energy level now. But I feel heavy and my thoughts seem more prone to becoming violent (in certain situations) now that I am eating all this meat again.

I mentioned this previously, but I have a friend who used to be a professional wrestler (WWF). He is a raw-fooder for many years. I was at the gym with him when everybody stopped to watch him bench press 300 pounds (I think that was the weight).

So it's not impossible to build muscle on a vegetarian diet. It may be due to individual requirements that we are different, but it also may be due to belief systems. If we believe that meat puts on muscle, then the body will follow. If we believe vegetarians are skinny and pale (I have heard this said--or something similar countless times) then the body will follow. Also, as you indicate, the meat comes with a vibration. There is a lot to consider.

And I remember the rice and beans, rice and beans, in Costa Rica, which I was grateful for being vegetarian. Beautiful country. I might suggest that you find a local farm, or just someone with a backyard coop, where you can get fresh eggs from free range chickens. There is a friend who lives near me who has just a few chickens that produce a lot of eggs. Eggs are a great, potent source of protein. The other suggestion is, you could pot some plants such as tomatoes and just grow them yourself to get some live food in your diet .

Yea I am not doubting the muscle that you can but on eating raw...I meant to say it must be done right...and I find it to be more costly.

I have alot to work out internally at the moment. I need to focus on that right now. I am very low on money..but I buy raw milk when I can...I am grateful for the food I am provided with.

Mod Note: Post edited to fix quotes

[Tenet Nosce]

I am very low on money..but I buy raw milk when I can...I am grateful for the food I am provided with.

I am not a raw foodie, but if I may, I would recommend dark leafy greens. Like kale, collards, turnip greens, mustard greens, etc. You can get these for around $1.50 - $2.00 a pound. $3.00 a pound for organic. Also, cabbage is a wonderfully cheap and nutritious food. About $0.30 - $0.50 per pound conventional, $1.00 - $1.50 organic. Beans are incredibly packed with nutrients and run about $1.00 - $2.00 a pound. You can sprout them in water before consumption if you are averse to cooking.

I've heard of a lot of people moving to Costa Rica because of the abundance or cheap, fresh fruits and veggies.

There are many reasons Americans move to Costa Rica. One is that you can become a citizen there without renouncing US citizenship. Another is that they do not have a military, and do not participate in war. Another is that their form of democracy is less prone to corruption by special interests than ours. Many people are now going to Costa Rica to receive medical care because you can get the same services there for a fraction of the cost, and with the same level of quality as here in the States. The list goes on and on...

But yes, as food is concerned, the populace is very much in support of fresh foods and sustainable agriculture. I have seen people who walk or ride their bike miles every day just to be able to bring fresh food home to their family. Sadly, in the inner city closest to me, many poor people consider anything over a mile away "too far" or "inconvenient" to travel for fresh food, and so eat mostly processed junk from fast-food chains or the corner liquor store.

Mod Note: Post edited to fix quotes

[Tenet Nosce]

Here is an interesting perspective. I found this while doing some further research on Yadda, which I have documented in the thread, Yadda Yadda.

Lecture by Yada di Shi'ite
Through Medium Mark Probert
November 21 1956
~ Detroit Federation of Women's Club ~

There is nothing holy about not eating this or that. The body is naturally a chemical body and it is therefore what you put in it. According to the nature of the chemical substance you will have that nature. If it displeases you to see others imbibing in alcoholic beverages, leave them alone, but do not try to force them to change. They, like you, will change when they are ready and not before, and all the talk, talk, talk, will not change them. Sometimes a man feels such great concern for his soul that he stops his excessive drinking and he says it is because he prayed to God and God released him, because he accepted the belief in Jesus Christ and redemption through His blood.

All right, very good. The idea is that he stopped drinking. It is of no use for anyone sneering at what he did to attain this condition. You may attain it by having faith in a stone! If I carry a stone in my pocket and pat it and rub it a little bit, I will not have to drink. That is simply transforming your desires from alcohol to stone belief. We can put our faith in anything and if we are sincere it will work for us great miracles, for God, or the Light, is also in the stone.

Some teachings say to abstain from every desire of the physical body. This leads only to frustration. The truth is, my friends, we have to live naturally, according to our, the individual's, particular inclinations and desires. But we have to train ourselves to curb some of our desires, so that we do not harm other people. And because we don't want it known by many other people in the social system that what we are doing is evil, is wrong, we acquire a deep seated feeling of guilt and shame. We may stop acting out our desire, but we are still living with it in the mind and sooner or later, because all thoughts must be given birth, or manifested in action, we blow up, the mind collapses.

[Monica]

But we have to train ourselves to curb some of our desires, so that we do not harm other people.

...or animals...

[Monica]

Got this as a Christmas gift!

Growing Green: Animal-Free Organic Techniques by Jenny Hall / Iain Tollhurst


From the back cover:

Growing Green introduces the concept of stockfree (animal-free) organic and shows that when growers abandon the use of slaughterhouse by-products and manures, as well as chemicals and genetically modified seed, they can be rewarded with healthier crops and fwer weeds, pests, and diseases.

In an age where dreams of self-sufficiency seem unattainable, Growing Green shows that making a living by growing organic vegetables can by achieved by anyone. Until now, there have been no comprehensive guidelines on how to follow organic practices at the different scales of vegetable production using tractors, small machinery, and hand tools...

This was a really cool gift because I hadn't even mentioned my previous conversation with abridgetoofar about this very topic, and had never seen this book, so what a nice surprise!

[Plenum]

Got this as a Christmas gift!

Growing Green: Animal-Free Organic Techniques by Jenny Hall / Iain Tollhurst

great gift!

my parents gave me 2 mangoes and some bananas for xmas

so you had a better haul than me lol.

In an age where dreams of self-sufficiency seem unattainable, Growing Green shows that making a living by growing organic vegetables can by achieved by anyone. Until now, there have been no comprehensive guidelines on how to follow organic practices at the different scales of vegetable production using tractors, small machinery, and hand tools...

to keep things on topic ... I've been quite taken with the idea recently of using one's balcony (if you live in an apartment) to grow one's own greens. Apparently it is quite doable, and even a small space can produce high yields if you use the right 'raw' materials. One can even compost one's own kitchen waste and make some very high quality fertiliser.

of course, it does take an initial investment in time and dollars, and you have to be attentive to the clime and the season. But there is nothing comparable to taking back your own power than having direct control over how the food that enters your mouth was grown from seed to the dinner table.

inspirational :idea:

[Monica]

my parents gave me 2 mangoes and some bananas for xmas

I hope you enjoyed them!

so you had a better haul than me lol.

Well, depends on how you look at it! I don't have parents so, you're ahead of the game there!

to keep things on topic ... I've been quite taken with the idea recently of using one's balcony (if you live in an apartment) to grow one's own greens. Apparently it is quite doable, and even a small space can produce high yields if you use the right 'raw' materials. One can even compost one's own kitchen waste and make some very high quality fertiliser.

of course, it does take an initial investment in time and dollars, and you have to be attentive to the clime and the season. But there is nothing comparable to taking back your own power than having direct control over how the food that enters your mouth was grown from seed to the dinner table.

inspirational :idea:

Oh yes! It can be done very cheaply! I just bought 25 small plastic pots for 15 cents each, at my local nursery. Then 1 40-lb. bag of cattle manure for $4, which I thought was a sweet deal, until I saw that Home Depot had 40 lbs of 'manure' (didn't specify what kind) for $1.40. So I picked up a couple more.

Then, I got packets of seeds at Wal-Mart for 20 cents each. They are hybrid seeds, but they'll do for 1 season!

All I need to do now is fill those pots 1/2 full of dirt from my back yard + 1/2 manure, mix the dirt a bit, and plant!

The pots are about 8 inches tall and 6 or so inches in diameter, just the perfect size for 1 lettuce or kale plant each.

So, I will sow several seeds in each one (soak in water first for a couple of hours to accelerate germination), and when the seedlings sprout, thin to the best one.

If it's cold where you are, keep the pots inside until the seedlings are about 4 inches high. Then move them outside. Greens do fine even in very cold weather, though the leaves might wilt if it's extremely cold. In that case, cover with a sheet if it's below, say, 25. You can harvest the outer leaves and they will just keep making more.

I currently have about 8 or 9 greens plants (lettuce, kale, spinach, beets, chard) and they are keeping us well supplied. And we even juice! which means we go thru a lot of greens!

We were having 80-degree weather until a few weeks ago, so my lettuces all bolted (meaning they went to seed, so I can no longer harvest from them) so that's why I'm planting more.

For under $5, one can get 10 plants going, more than enough to supply you with fresh greens all winter, and have lots of seeds left over. And they're ridiculously easy to grow! Just water them. It's a great deal since a single bunch of greens is several bucks at the store.

You could also grow 1 cauliflower or 1 broccoli in each of those small pots. But, those are harvested once and you're done, in contrast to the greens which keep producing for months. I still have chard plants that are producing, that I planted over a year ago!

[Monica]

Curried Tempeh Cutlets

[BrownEye]

Curried Tempeh Cutlets

My wife used to cook up something like this. It reminded me of bacon. I used it in an organic hotdog bun with a bunch of veggies, a lot like a subway sandwich.

It has been over a year since I have had any sandwiches, and its funny I started thinking about them today, then I see your pic.

[Oceania]

i dreamt of my long lost beloved friend yesterday and today is her birthday. syncs are upping.

[Diana]

I am inspired now to grow some leafy greens in pots. Thank you, Monica, for your ideas. We live in the desert, and do not have fences or walls, so the the animals all come around the yard. We are going to put up a greenhouse eventually, but I think I will start some pot gardening .

---

syncs are upping.

I agree. Either that, or we are changing and able to see them better.

[AnthroHeart]

[Diana]

Thanks Gemini. Your signature is perfect with this.

The cruelty KFC doles out, and most all fast food restaurants is appalling--just to make cheap food at the lowest price-point for the most profit as quickly as possible. Another aspect of the cruelty is that it hits the poor part of the population hard, as I can only assume that they eat more of this awful stuff, promoting more sickness and disease in people who are less likely to be able to deal with it financially.

[Monica]

5@5 - Eat more compassionately in 2012

---

And the following preview has been thoroughly reviewed and certified to be Oceania-safe!

Hilarious! people buying fresh meat

[Tenet Nosce]

I came across this info from the latest Cassiopaea transcript. I am simply sharing it here as channeled information that is on topic. As always, my posting a link to this information does not constitute a blanket endorsement, nor is it a personal statement that I agree with everything contained therein. Also- my posting of this is not meant to be a personal affront to anybody in particular. I am posting this simply as a viewpoint to consider.

20 Aug 11

Q: (Burma) I think that they're saying that schizophrenia could essentially be a way to be open to seeing other aspects of reality but diet can make it so it basically just makes you crazy without actually seeing anything.

A: Primitive societies that eat according to the normal diet for human beings do not have "schizophrenics", but they do have shamans who can "see".

Q: (Perceval) So a schizophrenic on animal fat is a shaman. (L) Well, wait a minute. There's something real subtle here. What I think you're saying is that when these genetic pathways are activated through wrong diet, it screws up the shamanic capacity?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) So, schizophrenia as we understand it or have witnessed it is a screw-up of something that could or might manifest in a completely different way on a different diet? Is that it?

A: Yes

Q: (L) And that's what you meant by not only a doorway, but also a barrier because the person who is on the wrong diet and has schizophrenia is barred from being able to be a bridge between the worlds. They kind of get lost. They're barred from having a normal life, and they're also barred from coming back from their delusions or whatever they're seeing even if they're not delusions. Maybe they’re seeing, but they're unable to help or do anything.

Okay. Now, you made a remark about the diet that is normal for the human being. And I know {name redacted} and a lot of people - not just {name redacted}, but a lot of people - have a problem with a diet that requires you to consume the flesh of other creatures. And I know that we've read what Lierre Keith has written about it, and it's a very moving statement about life and earth and so on and so forth. But I'd like to know if there's something a little more esoteric that we could understand about this? I mean, I don't understand why and how a person can achieve spiritual growth, which is what you seem to be implying throughout all of this stuff that we've been learning, from eating meat. How many other groups have taken a vegetarian pathway and said that this is... I mean, aside from the fact that we now know that agriculture and vegetables and the owning of the land is pure STS destruction... What about fruit? Well of course they didn't have fruit then. Like everybody, I'm having a little problem with this. So can you help me out here?

A: You know the saying: Only through the shedding of blood is there remission of sins?

Q: (L) Yes.

A: And what about: Take eat, this is my body?

Q: (L) Yes.

A: And: Take, drink, this is my blood?

Q: (L) Yes. (Burma) So it sounds like they're saying that there's a hidden thing in the whole resurrection or salvation by the blood thing. That agriculture is evil and we could return by going on an animal-based diet?

A: No not exactly. When humankind "fell" into gross matter, a way was needed to return. This way simply is a manifestation of the natural laws. Consciousness must "eat" also. This is a natural function of the life giving nature of the environment in balance. The Earth is the Great Mother who gives her body, literally, in the form of creatures with a certain level of consciousness for the sustenance of her children of the cosmos. This is the original meaning of those sayings.

Q: (L) So, eating flesh also means eating consciousness which accumulates, I'm assuming is what is being implied here, or what feeds our consciousness so that it grows in step with our bodies? Is that close?

A: Close enough.

Q: (Ailen) And when you eat veggies you're basically eating a much lower level of consciousness. (L) Not only that, but in a sense you're rejecting the gift and you're not feeding consciousness. And that means that all eating of meat should be a sacrament.

A: Yes

Q: (Burma) With agriculture, you're not only rejecting the gift, you're turning around and beating up the Mother. (L) Well that sure puts a whole different light on the whole Cain and Abel thing! {Interesting that the original “vegetarian” was the first murderer, too.}

A: Yes.

... and for reference here is a link to the first fourteen pages of The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice and Sustainability.

This was not an easy book to write. For many of you, it won’t be an easy book to read. I know. I was a vegan for almost twenty years. I know the reasons that compelled me to embrace an extreme diet and they are honorable, ennobling even. Reasons like justice, compassion, a desperate and all-encompassing longing to set the world right. To save the planet—the last trees bearing witness to ages, the scraps of wilderness still nurturing fading species, silent in their fur and feathers. To protect the vulnerable, the voiceless. To feed the hungry. At the very least to refrain from participating in the horror of factory farming.

These political passions are born of a hunger so deep that it touches on the spiritual. Or they were for me, and they still are. I want my life to be a battle cry, a war zone, an arrow pointed and loosed into the heart of domination: patriarchy, imperialism, industrialization, every system of power and sadism. If the martial imagery alienates you, I can rephrase it. I want my life—my body—to be a place where the earth is cherished, not devoured; where the sadist is granted no quarter; where the violence stops. And I want eating—the first nurturance—to be an act that sustains instead of kills.

This book is written to further those passions, that hunger. It is not an attempt to mock the concept of animal rights or to sneer at the people who want a gentler world. Instead, this book is an effort to honor our deepest longings for a just world. And those longings—for compassion, for sustainability, for an equitable distribution of resources—are not served by the philosophy or practice of vegetarianism. We have been led astray. The vegetarian Pied Pipers have the best of intentions. I’ll state right now what I’ll be repeating later: everything they say about factory farming is true. It is cruel, wasteful, and destructive. Nothing in this book is meant to excuse or promote the practices of industrial food production on any level.

But the first mistake is in assuming that factory farming—a practice that is barely fifty years old—is the only way to raise animals. Their calculations on energy used, calories consumed, humans unfed, are all based on the notion that animals eat grain.

You can feed grain to animals, but it is not the diet for which they were designed. Grain didn’t exist until humans domesticated annual grasses, at most 12,000 years ago, while aurochs, the wild progenitors of the domestic cow, were around for two million years before that. For most of human history, browsers and grazers haven’t been in competition with humans. They ate what we couldn’t eat—cellulose—and turned it into what we could—protein and fat. Grain will dramatically increase the growth rate of beef cattle (there’s a reason for the expression “cornfed”) and the milk production of dairy cows. It will also kill them. The delicate bacterial balance of a cow’s rumen will go acid and turn septic. Chickens get fatty liver disease if fed grain exclusively, and they don’t need any grain to survive. Sheep and goats, also ruminants, should really never touch the stuff.

This misunderstanding is born of ignorance, an ignorance that runs the length and breadth of the vegetarian myth, through the nature of agriculture and ending in the nature of life. We are urban industrialists, and we don’t know the origins of our food. This includes vegetarians, despite their claims to the truth. It included me, too, for twenty years. Anyone who ate meat was in denial; only I had faced the facts. Certainly, most people who consume factory-farmed meat have never asked what died and how it died. But frankly, neither have most vegetarians.

The truth is that agriculture is the most destructive thing humans have done to the planet, and more of the same won’t save us. The truth is that agriculture requires the wholesale destruction of entire ecosystems. The truth is also that life isn’t possible without death, that no matter what you eat, someone has to die to feed you.

I want a full accounting, an accounting that goes way beyond what’s dead on your plate. I’m asking about everything that died in the process, everything that was killed to get that food onto your plate. That’s the more radical question, and it’s the only question that will produce the truth. How many rivers were dammed and drained, how many prairies plowed and forests pulled down, how much topsoil turned to dust and blown into ghosts? I want to know about all the species—not just the individuals, but the entire species—the chinook, the bison, the grasshopper sparrows, the grey wolves. And I want more than just the number of dead and gone. I want them back.

Despite what you’ve been told, and despite the earnestness of the tellers, eating soybeans isn’t going to bring them back. Ninety-eight percent of the American prairie is gone, turned into a monocrop of annual grains. Plough cropping in Canada has destroyed 99 percent of the original humus. In fact, the disappearance of topsoil “rivals global warming as an environmental threat.” When the rainforest falls to beef, progressives are outraged, aware, ready to boycott. But our attachment to the vegetarian myth leaves us uneasy, silent, and ultimately immobilized when the culprit is wheat and the victim is the prairie. We embraced as an article of faith that vegetarianism was the way to salvation, for us, for the planet. How could it be destroying either?

We have to be willing to face the answer. What’s looming in the shadows of our ignorance and denial is a critique of civilization itself. The starting point may be what we eat, but the end is an entire way of life, a global arrangement of power, and no small measure of personal attachment to it. I remember the day in fourth grade when Miss Fox wrote two words on the blackboard: civilization and agriculture. I remember because of the hush in her voice, the gravitas of her words, the explanation that was almost oratory. This was Important. And I understood. Everything that was good in human culture flowed from this point: all ease, grace, justice. Religion, science, medicine, art were born, and the endless struggle against starvation, disease, violence could be won, all because humans figured out how to grow their own food.

The reality is that agriculture has created a net loss for human rights and culture: slavery, imperialism, militarism, class divisions, chronic hunger, and disease. “The real problem, then, is not to explain why some people were slow to adopt agriculture but why anybody took it up at all, when it is so obviously beastly,” writes Colin Tudge of The London School of Economics. Agriculture has also been devastating to the other creatures with whom we share the earth, and ultimately to the life support systems of the planet itself. What is at stake is everything. If we want a sustainable world, we have to be willing to examine the power relations behind the foundational myth of our culture. Anything less and we will fail.

Questioning at that level is difficult for most people. In this case, the emotional struggle inherent in resisting any hegemony is compounded by our dependence on civilization, and on our individual helplessness to stop it. Most of us would have no chance of survival if the industrial infrastructure collapsed tomorrow. And our consciousness is equally impeded by our powerlessness. There is no Ten Simple Things list in the last chapter because, frankly, there aren’t ten simple things that will save the earth. There is no personal solution. There is an interlocking web of hierarchical arrangements, vast systems of power that have to be confronted and dismantled. We can disagree about how best to do that, but do it we must if the earth is to have any chance of surviving.

In the end, all the fortitude in the world will be useless without enough information to chart a sustainable forward course, both personally and politically. One of my aims in writing this book is to provide that information. The vast majority of people in the US don’t grow food, let alone hunt and gather it. We have no way to judge how much death is embodied in a serving of salad, a bowl of fruit, a plate of beef. We live in urban environments, in the last whisper of forests, thousands of miles removed from the devastated rivers, prairies, wetlands, and the millions of creatures that died for our dinners. We don’t even know what questions to ask to find out.

In his book Long Life, Honey in the Heart, Martin Pretchel writes of the Mayan people and their concept of kas-limaal, which translates roughly as “mutual indebtedness, mutual insparkedness.” “The knowledge that every animal, plant, person, wind, and season is indebted to the fruit of everything else is an adult knowledge. To get out of debt means you don’t want to be part of life, and you don’t want to grow into an adult,” one of the elders explains to Pretchel.

The only way out of the vegetarian myth is through the pursuit of kas-limaal, of adult knowledge. This is a concept we need, especially those of us who are impassioned by injustice. I know I needed it. In the narrative of my life, the first bite of meat after my twenty year hiatus marks the end of my youth, the moment when I assumed the responsibilities of adulthood. It was the moment I stopped fighting the basic algebra of embodiment: for someone to live, someone else has to die. In that acceptance, with all its suffering and sorrow, is the ability to choose a different way, a better way.

The activist-farmers have a very different plan then the polemicist-writers to carry us from destruction to sustainability. The farmers are starting with completely different information. I’ve heard vegetarian activists claims that an acre of land can only support two chickens. Joel Salatin, one of the High Priests of sustainable farming and someone who actually raises chickens, puts that figure at 250 an acre. Who do you believe? How many of us know enough to even have an opinion? Frances Moore Lappe says it takes twelve to sixteen pounds of grain to make one pound of beef. Meanwhile, Salatin raises cattle with no grain at all, rotating ruminants on perennial polycultures, building topsoil year by year. Inhabitants of urban industrial cultures have no point of contact with grain, chickens, cows, or, for that matter, with topsoil. We have no basis of experience to outweigh the arguments of political vegetarians. We have no idea what plants, animals, or soil eat, or how much. Which means we have no idea what we ourselves are eating.

Confronting the truth about factory farming—its torturous treatment of animals, its environmental toll—was for me at age sixteen an act of profound importance. I knew the earth was dying. It was a daily emergency I had lived against forever. I was born in 1964. “Silent” and “spring” were inseparable: three syllables, not two words. Hell was here, in the oil refineries of northern New Jersey, the asphalt inferno of suburban sprawl, in the swelling tide of humans drowning the planet. I cried with Iron Eyes Cody, longed for his silent canoe and an unmolested continent of rivers and marshes, birds and fish. My brother and I would climb an ancient crabapple tree at the local park and dream about somehow buying a whole mountain. No people allowed, no discussion needed. Who would live there? Squirrels, was all I could come up with. Reader, don’t laugh. Besides Bobby, our pet hamster, squirrels were the only animals I ever saw. My brother, well-socialized into masculinity, went on to torture insects and aim slingshots at sparrows. I became a vegan.

Yes, I was an overly sensitive child. My favorite song at five—and here you are allowed to laugh—was Mary Hopkin’s Those Were the Days. What romantic, tragic past could I possibly have mourned at age five? But it was so sad, so exquisite; I would listen to the song over and over until I was exhausted from weeping.

Okay, it’s funny. But I can’t laugh at the pain I felt over my powerless witnessing of the destruction of my planet. That was real and it overwhelmed me. And the political vegetarians offered a compelling salve. With no understanding of the nature of agriculture, the nature of nature, or ultimately the nature of life, I had no way to know that however honorable their impulses, their prescription was a dead end into the same destruction I burned to stop.

Those impulses and ignorances are inherent to the vegetarian myth. For two years after I returned to eating meat, I was compelled to read vegan message boards online. I don’t know why. I wasn’t looking for a fight. I never posted anything myself. Lots of small, intense subcultures have cult-like elements, and veganism is no exception. Maybe the compulsion had to do with my own confusion, spiritual, political, personal. Maybe I was revisiting the sight of an accident: this was where I had destroyed my body. Maybe I had questions and I wanted to see if I could hold my own against the answers that I had once held tight, answers that had felt righteous, but now felt empty. Maybe I don’t know why. It left me anxious, angry, and desperate each time.

But one post marked a turning point. A vegan flushed out his idea to keep animals from being killed—not by humans, but by other animals. Someone should build a fence down the middle of the Serengeti, and divide the predators from the prey. Killing is wrong and no animals should ever have to die, so the big cats and wild canines would go on one side, while the wildebeests and zebras would live on the other. He knew the carnivores would be okay because they didn’t need to be carnivores. That was a lie the meat industry told. He’d seen his dog eat grass: therefore, dogs could live on grass.

No one objected. In fact, others chimed in. My cat eats grass, too, one woman added, all enthusiasm. So does mine! someone else posted. Everyone agreed that fencing was the solution to animal death.

Note well that the site for this liberatory project was Africa. No one mentioned the North American prairie, where carnivores and ruminants alike have been extirpated for the annual grains that vegetarians embrace. But I’ll return to that in Chapter 3.

I knew enough to know that this was insane. But no one else on the message board could see anything wrong with the scheme. So, on the theory that many readers lack the knowledge to judge this plan, I’m going to walk you through this.

Carnivores cannot survive on cellulose. They may on occasion eat grass, but they use it medicinally, usually as a purgative to clear their digestive tracts of parasites. Ruminants, on the other hand, have evolved to eat grass. They have a rumen (hence, ruminant), the first in a series of multiple stomachs that acts as a fermentative vat. What’s actually happening inside a cow or a wildebeest is that bacteria eat the grass, and the animals eat the bacteria.

Lions and hyenas and humans don’t have a ruminant’s digestive system. Literally from our teeth to our rectums we are designed for meat. We have no mechanism to digest cellulose.

So on the carnivore side of the fence, starvation will take every animal. Some will last longer than others, and those some will end their days as cannibals. The scavengers will have a Fat Tuesday party, but when the bones are picked clean, they’ll starve as well. The graveyard won’t end there. Without grazers to eat the grass, the land will eventually turn to desert.

Why? Because without grazers to literally level the playing field, the perennial plants mature, and shade out the basal growth point at the plant’s base. In a brittle environment like the Serengeti, decay is mostly physical (weathering) and chemical (oxidative), not bacterial and biological as in a moist environment. In fact, the ruminants take over most of the biological functions of soil by digesting the cellulose and returning the nutrients, once again available, in the form of urine and feces.

But without ruminants, the plant matter will pile up, reducing growth, and begin killing the plants. The bare earth is now exposed to wind, sun, and rain, the minerals leech away, and the soil structure is destroyed. In our attempt to save animals, we’ve killed everything.

On the ruminant side of the fence, the wildebeests and friends will reproduce as effectively as ever. But without the check of predators, there will quickly be more grazers than grass. The animals will outstrip their food source, eat the plants down to the ground, and then starve to death, leaving behind a seriously degraded landscape.

The lesson here is obvious, though it is profound enough to inspire a religion: we need to be eaten as much as we need to eat. The grazers need their daily cellulose, but the grass also needs the animals. It needs the manure, with its nitrogen, minerals, and bacteria; it needs the mechanical check of grazing activity; and it needs the resources stored in animal bodies and freed up by degraders when animals die.

The grass and the grazers need each other as much as predators and prey. These are not one-way relationships, not arrangements of dominance and subordination. We aren’t exploiting each other by eating. We are only taking turns.

That was my last visit to the vegan message boards. I realized then that people so deeply ignorant of the nature of life, with its mineral cycle and carbon trade, its balance points around an ancient circle of producers, consumers, and degraders, weren’t going to be able to guide me or, indeed, make any useful decisions about sustainable human culture. By turning from adult knowledge, the knowledge that death is embedded in every creature’s sustenance, from bacteria to grizzly bears, they would never be able to feed the emotional and spiritual hunger that ached in me from accepting that knowledge. Maybe in the end this book is an attempt to soothe that ache myself.

[Tenet Nosce]

Carnivores cannot survive on cellulose. They may on occasion eat grass, but they use it medicinally, usually as a purgative to clear their digestive tracts of parasites. Ruminants, on the other hand, have evolved to eat grass. They have a rumen (hence, ruminant), the first in a series of multiple stomachs that acts as a fermentative vat. What’s actually happening inside a cow or a wildebeest is that bacteria eat the grass, and the animals eat the bacteria.

Lions and hyenas and humans don’t have a ruminant’s digestive system. Literally from our teeth to our rectums we are designed for meat. We have no mechanism to digest cellulose.

This statement is not entirely correct. Humans, also, have bacteria that live symbiotically in their digestive tract which can digest cellulose, and other forms of fiber. I wouldn't characterize humans as carnivores, but omnivores. The rest of the argument appears sound, according to my own biased opinion.

This following thought falls under the "pure speculation" category... but we do know that the human body is associated with three distinct gut enterotypes. I wonder: what if one of them required grains, and one of them required meat, and one of them neither. Other possibilities than these three, of course, could exist.

[Diana]

I am posting this simply as a viewpoint to consider.

A: You know the saying: Only through the shedding of blood is there remission of sins?

Q: (L) Yes.

A: And what about: Take eat, this is my body?

Q: (L) Yes.

A: And: Take, drink, this is my blood?

Q: (L) Yes. (Burma) So it sounds like they're saying that there's a hidden thing in the whole resurrection or salvation by the blood thing. That agriculture is evil and we could return by going on an animal-based diet?

A: No not exactly. When humankind "fell" into gross matter, a way was needed to return. This way simply is a manifestation of the natural laws. Consciousness must "eat" also. This is a natural function of the life giving nature of the environment in balance. The Earth is the Great Mother who gives her body, literally, in the form of creatures with a certain level of consciousness for the sustenance of her children of the cosmos. This is the original meaning of those sayings.

Q: (L) So, eating flesh also means eating consciousness which accumulates, I'm assuming is what is being implied here, or what feeds our consciousness so that it grows in step with our bodies? Is that close?

A: Close enough.

Q: (Ailen) And when you eat veggies you're basically eating a much lower level of consciousness. (L) Not only that, but in a sense you're rejecting the gift and you're not feeding consciousness. And that means that all eating of meat should be a sacrament.

A: Yes

Q: (Burma) With agriculture, you're not only rejecting the gift, you're turning around and beating up the Mother. (L) Well that sure puts a whole different light on the whole Cain and Abel thing! {Interesting that the original “vegetarian” was the first murderer, too.}

A: Yes.

I must say that this offends my intellect--no offense to TN and his disclaimer.

---

This was not an easy book to write. For many of you, it won’t be an easy book to read. . . .
. . . I want a full accounting, an accounting that goes way beyond what’s dead on your plate. I’m asking about everything that died in the process, everything that was killed to get that food onto your plate. That’s the more radical question, and it’s the only question that will produce the truth. How many rivers were dammed and drained, how many prairies plowed and forests pulled down, how much topsoil turned to dust and blown into ghosts? I want to know about all the species—not just the individuals, but the entire species—the chinook, the bison, the grasshopper sparrows, the grey wolves. And I want more than just the number of dead and gone. I want them back.

. . . Despite what you’ve been told, and despite the earnestness of the tellers, eating soybeans isn’t going to bring them back. Ninety-eight percent of the American prairie is gone, turned into a monocrop of annual grains. Plough cropping in Canada has destroyed 99 percent of the original humus. In fact, the disappearance of topsoil “rivals global warming as an environmental threat.” When the rainforest falls to beef, progressives are outraged, aware, ready to boycott. But our attachment to the vegetarian myth leaves us uneasy, silent, and ultimately immobilized when the culprit is wheat and the victim is the prairie. We embraced as an article of faith that vegetarianism was the way to salvation, for us, for the planet. How could it be destroying either?
. . .

And on and on with this entire quote. There are some good points here . . . for the ignorant masses (not meant derogatorily, rather describing people consuming unconsciously). I have never said that "vegetarians are right" and "meat-eaters wrong." (Not that I think this was directed at me.) But some of this--such as soybeans. I think we can all agree that any commercial farming which destroys habitat is not good. We need to evolve past destroying life (in my opinion). I don't know what other vegetarians are about because I don't see myself so much as a vegetarian, but as a respecter of life.

This is not about making somebody wrong (as the author seems to want to do in spite of caveats about good intentions). This is about discussing a topic that is integral to our evolution, a complex, many-faceted issue which deserves the best minds, hearts, and spirits trying to understand it.

---

But one post marked a turning point. A vegan flushed out his idea to keep animals from being killed—not by humans, but by other animals. Someone should build a fence down the middle of the Serengeti, and divide the predators from the prey. Killing is wrong and no animals should ever have to die, so the big cats and wild canines would go on one side, while the wildebeests and zebras would live on the other. He knew the carnivores would be okay because they didn’t need to be carnivores. That was a lie the meat industry told. He’d seen his dog eat grass: therefore, dogs could live on grass.

Okay, we are describing vegans with 2-digit IQs here.

[unir 1]

Maybe humans seeking a compassionate will, yet not accepting the slaughter or cruelty of animals, should find it in their hearts to accept their other self whether this other self be human or animal-carnivore to do as they will, then accept them as part of their whole self, for without them their would be no lesson learned of Love; the carnivorous thus serve as a catalyst. This supposition may be flawed and misconceived in parts, but I wanted to bring it out here, maybe it could be refined.

[BrownEye]

The meat supply is dying - plain and simple. It is no longer the will of the animals to feed your insatiable hunger and submit any further to human abuse, which is why they have collectively committed to serving your awakening by leaving the planet in droves.

You hear daily warnings about the tremendous diseases appearing in cows, sheep, pigs and let us not forget the disease carried in poultry ranging from various cancers to the deadly influenza virus that was first identified in the poultry markets of the Orient. Aside from the metaphysical question of the taking of meat into your bodies, or the environmental aspects of such global consumption of animal flesh, there is an ever-increasing risk associated with the ingestion of meat. See if you can let it go and release from the darkness of dead animal flesh for once and forever (No More Secrets, No more Lies, pp. 127-128)

As one attains Full Consciousness, the body ceases to produce the "death hormone" in the pituitary. As this occurs, it not longer is suitable to eat anything that has died that is animal in nature. All dead flesh contains the death hormone in small amounts, which will kill the cells in a form that have transcended death internal to itself. The dead flesh also re-introduces the thought-form of death and warfare, which one transcends in full as they attain a state of full consciousness.

Consumption of flesh was not a part of the original red dance. The red race ate of the fruits of the Garden of Eden, as there were an abundant supply of fruit and vegetables available in a tropical environment that earth was at such a time in her history (approximately 48,000 years ago). As this thought-form became prevalent, the need to consume flesh followed. This occurred as the lush vegetation burnt up in the nuclear annihilation at the end of the war between Innana and Merduk. At such a time, humans resorted to eating of flesh to survive. However humans became so accustomed to this that the consumption of flesh never stopped even when there was adequate food again from vegetable and fruit sources, in particular this occurred for those humans related to the slave race.

Such is the nature of a fall in consciousness, one may not ascend out of the dance unless one so consciously intends it so. Consuming flesh is the result of a fall in consciousness from the nuclear explosions. The slave race that remained were not prepared for evolution, as this is the manner in which they had been constructed in the laboratory, to be of a nature that would not seek to evolve. Alas, such a nature also then was unable to repair a fall in consciousness as it occurred as they lacked the very information that would allow them to repair the DNA and restore their original level of awareness.

---

I must say that this offends my intellect--no offense to TN and his disclaimer.

Laura is a mind controled gov op.

Not sure how you end up chosen in this way, it isn't like they really had any special info. I bet what happens is they snooped in the wrong place and became "latched". I have seen others this has happened to.

[Diana]

Maybe humans seeking a compassionate will, yet not accepting the slaughter or cruelty of animals, should find it in their hearts to accept their other self whether this other self be human or animal-carnivore to do as they will, then accept them as part of their whole self, for without them their would be no lesson learned of Love; the carnivorous thus serve as a catalyst. This supposition may be flawed and misconceived in parts, but I wanted to bring it out here, maybe it could be refined.

The problem I have with that idea is this: it is completely passive. I'm not saying passive is not okay. But for me, I do not want to just exist. I want to live my "path" so to speak. I want to actively participate in my own evolution, rather than just being. I do not want to infringe on others' free will, and yet, I personally don't think it's okay to let everything just be--war, habitat destruction, starvation, cruelty, no respect for life. This is not to say I want to control others' freedom to experience these things, but in a general sense I would like to help the world evolve. In this, my first duty is to evolve myself. Then service to others.

[Tenet Nosce]

Here is another interesting viewpoint. I like the term "flexitarian"! Never heard that before...

We’re Eating Less Meat. Why?

Americans eat more meat than any other population in the world; about one-sixth of the total, though we’re less than one-twentieth of the population.

But that’s changing.

Until recently, almost everyone considered their dinner plate naked without a big old hunk of meat on it. (You remember “Beef: It’s What’s for Dinner,” of course. How could you forget?) And we could afford it: our production methods and the denial of their true costs have kept meat cheap beyond all credibility. (American hamburger is arguably the cheapest convenience food there is.) This, in part, is why we spend a smaller percentage of our money on food than any other country, and much of that goes toward the roughly half-pound of meat each of us eats, on average, every day.

But that’s changing, and considering the fairly steady climb in meat consumption over the last half-century, you might say the numbers are plummeting. The department of agriculture projects that our meat and poultry consumption will fall again this year, to about 12.2 percent less in 2012 than it was in 2007. Beef consumption has been in decline for about 20 years; the drop in chicken is even more dramatic, over the last five years or so; pork also has been steadily slipping for about five years.

Holy cow. What’s up?

It’s easy enough to round up the usual suspects, which is what a story in the Daily Livestock Report did last month. It blames the decline on growing exports, which make less meat available for Americans to buy. It blames it on ethanol, which has caused feed costs to rise, production to drop and prices to go up so producers can cover their increasing costs. It blames drought. It doesn’t blame recession, which is surprising, because that’s a factor also.

All of which makes some sense. The report then goes on to blame the federal government for “wag[ing] war on meat protein consumption” over the last 30-40 years.

Is this like the war on drugs? The war in Afghanistan? The war against cancer? Because what I see here is:

a history of subsidies for the corn and soy that’s fed to livestock
a nearly free pass on environmental degradation and animal abuse
an unwillingness to meaningfully limit the use of antibiotics in animal feed
a failure to curb the stifling power that corporate meatpackers wield over smaller ranchers
and what amounts to a refusal — despite the advice of real, disinterested experts, true scientists in fact — to unequivocally tell American consumers that they should be eating less meat

Or is the occasional environmental protection regulation and whisper that unlimited meat at every meal might not be ideal the equivalent of war? Is the U.S.D.A. buying $40 million worth of chicken products to reduce the surplus and raise retail prices the equivalent of war?

No. It’s not the non-existent federal War on Meat that’s making a difference. And even if availability is down, it’s not as if we’re going to the supermarket and finding empty meat cases and deli counters filled with coleslaw. The flaw in the report is that it treats American consumers as passive actors who are victims of diminishing supplies, rising costs and government bias against the meat industry. Nowhere does it mention that we’re eating less meat because we want to eat less meat.

Yet conscious decisions are being made by consumers. Even buying less meat because prices are high and times are tough is a choice; other “sacrifices” could be made. We could cut back on junk food, or shirts or iPhones, which have a very high meat-equivalent, to coin a term. Yet even though excess supply kept chicken prices lower than the year before, demand dropped.

Some are choosing to eat less meat for all the right reasons. The Values Institute at DGWB Advertising and Communications just named the rise of “flexitarianism” — an eating style that reduces the amount of meat without “going vegetarian” — as one of its top five consumer health trends for 2012. In an Allrecipes.com survey of 1,400 members, more than one-third of home cooks said they ate less meat in 2011 than in 2010. Back in June, a survey found that 50 percent of American adults said they were aware of the Meatless Monday campaign, with 27 percent of those aware reporting that they were actively reducing their meat consumption.

I can add, anecdotally, that when I ask audiences I speak to, “How many of you are eating less meat than you were 10 years ago?” at least two-thirds raise their hands. A self-selecting group to be sure, but nevertheless one that exists.

In fact, let’s ask this: is anyone in this country eating more meat than they used to?

We still eat way more meat than is good for us or the environment, not to mention the animals. But a 12 percent reduction in just five years is significant, and if that decline were to continue for the next five years — well, that’s something few would have imagined five years ago. It’s something only the industry could get upset about. The rest of us should celebrate. Rice and beans, anyone?

---

I must say that this offends my intellect--no offense to TN and his disclaimer.

None taken!

I think we can all agree that any commercial farming which destroys habitat is not good.

By "we" do you mean those of us participating here in this forum? Or people in general?

I don't know what other vegetarians are about because I don't see myself so much as a vegetarian, but as a respecter of life.

According to my take on the matter, vegetarians are like any other group of people. There are a small core who are intelligent, educated, and conscientious. And then there are the "ignorant masses" who would probably just as well become pig-itarians if it were en vogue, and then there are the extremist zealot-types who tend to speak the loudest and most idiotically with all the concomitant absolutism and dualistic thinking. Unfortunately, the "ignorant masses" tend to side with whomever is the most flamboyant and/or popular, rather than who is the most educated.

This is not about making somebody wrong (as the author seems to want to do in spite of caveats about good intentions). This is about discussing a topic that is integral to our evolution, a complex, many-faceted issue which deserves the best minds, hearts, and spirits trying to understand it.

Yes- this piece appears to be quite reactionary. However there is truth to her depiction of certain ideas and attitudes that run through the vegetarian community. What the actual prevalence is of these, I wouldn't know.

Okay, we are describing vegans with 2-digit IQs here.

Yes, well that pretty much sums up not only this issue, but every issue, as approximately half of any given population has an IQ below 100.

[Diana]

I think we can all agree that any commercial farming which destroys habitat is not good.

By "we" do you mean those of us participating here in this forum? Or people in general?

I refer to the individuals on this forum.

I don't know what other vegetarians are about because I don't see myself so much as a vegetarian, but as a respecter of life.

According to my take on the matter, vegetarians are like any other group of people. There are a small core who are intelligent, educated, and conscientious. And then there are the "ignorant masses" who would probably just as well become pig-itarians if it were en vogue, and then there are the extremist zealot-types who tend to speak the loudest and most idiotically with all the concomitant absolutism and dualistic thinking. Unfortunately, the "ignorant masses" tend to side with whomever is the most flamboyant and/or popular, rather than who is the most educated.

Ha! That's good!

Okay, we are describing vegans with 2-digit IQs here.

Yes, well that pretty much sums up not only this issue, but every issue, as approximately half of any given population has an IQ below 100.

Is that true? Scary.

[Diana]

I would like to address this issue from a different angle.

I am positing:

It occurred to me when I was reading a thread on the commonalities of the STS and STO paths, that eating at all where life is taken, and particularly the eating of animals, because of the suffering involved and at the least, the fear of death, that this is an STS event. STS, with the possible exception of fruit, which is naturally meant to be eaten; but even that would qualify if it was commercially farmed.

The STS individual would necessarily have to keep his/her focus on the one point (his/her own self) in order to ignore that life is being taken and the implications thereof. The STO individual would have an open heart to all "others" and necessarily have to consider the taking of "others'" lives.

So, the STO individual would be acting STS by ignoring the suffering of "others." This is probably mitigated somewhat by an individual who truly thanks the life given. Still, being STO, wouldn't it be more in line to do the least harm rather than follow one's inclinations and impulses using "free will" as the reason?

No judgments here. Just my rational mind analyzing the subject. Any thoughts anyone?

[BrownEye]

I think it best to ask your Soul and/or Guides what is best.

Most people think "gut feeling" is somehow a guide. Well, belief causes gut feelings a lot of the time. Fear of something will cause a reaction in the gut, and fear is based on the belief that something will "hurt" you in one way or another. Many other "feelings" that we get just from belief.

[Plenum]

Hi Diana! for the sake of discussion, we'll try to leave the egos at the door because this can be a very touchy subject. I think we have both made clear decisions as to our personal diets, but the general discussion can go beyond just 2 individuals

for a starting point, let us leave human beings out of the picture entirely, and just look at how the animal and vegetable kingdoms interact by themselves.

1) there are plants

2) there are animals that eat plants

3) there are animals that eat animals that ate the plants

now, from what you wrote above - " that eating at all where life is taken, and particularly the eating of animals, because of the suffering involved and at the least, the fear of death, that this is an STS event."

would this apply to carnivores in the animal kingdom? (lions, sharks, polar bears?). From what I understand of Ra, one cannot have STS/STO without at least reaching 3rd density and gaining a small measure of free will. The majority of animals don't have a choice as what they eat; they can only digest what they are built to digest (take a cow for example).

so when a lion hunts down and kills its prey, it would be unduly harsh to place that event in a karmic framework.

human beings are an entirely different matter because we can CHOOSE.

but do you agree on this analysis for the animal kingdom?

ie a lion is not STS in its eating because that is just what it is.

[Diana]

now, from what you wrote above - " that eating at all where life is taken, and particularly the eating of animals, because of the suffering involved and at the least, the fear of death, that this is an STS event."

would this apply to carnivores in the animal kingdom?

Hi Plenum, and thanks for responding.

No. I was referring to humans only. But as a larger category, any beings of 3rd density that have the choice.

I agree that one could not categorize animals, or 2-density beings, as STS or STO, since they are not choosing in a conscious way yet, rather responding to environment through instinct for survival.