Starve.Org White Noise Usenet Archive: "045 Posting"

Namaskar

Consciousness exists everywhere and all things have some consciousness. In
inanimate things the consciousness is dormant. In animate life forms the
degree of consciousness various: so that lower life forms are governed by
instinct; developing life forms (eg animals) are mainly instinctual but some
can have a semblance of intelligence (eg as found in dogs and apes); higher
life forms have instinct, intellect and intuition - but these are not
necessarily used or properly developed. Human beings with spiritual
inclinations or who are motivated by service and exploring the unknown tune
into their intuition. Otherwise, human beings are good at using their
intelligence, but technical intelligence (as compared to higher
intelligence) is not always used for the greater good, or even one's own
elevation. It is also true that some human beings do still tend to be
dominated by their instinctual minds and animal proclivities alone.

As spiritual aspirants we want to expand our mind by developing our higher
intellect and intuition. This gives the greatest happiness. Reliance on
instinctual inclinations narrows the mind and mere technical intelligence
does not necessarily give rise to noble endeavours.

Once the higher inclinations of mind are opened up, a person feels oneness
and sympathy for all and that includes for the animal (and plant) life
forms. They recognise animals have some emotions.

Regards

Dharma

---

Understanding and Working with Karma

In meditation we make a sincere effort to expand our mind and connect it
with the thought of infinite love or infinite consciousness. In the course
of this effort we soon experience limitations - shortness of concentration,
unseen barriers limiting our horizons and conscious experience, distraction,
uncertainty, lack of mental penetration. Where do these limitations come
from. Why is it so difficult to expand our consciousness? And most
importantly, how can we free ourselves from this experience of bondage and
limitation?

Yoga explains the source of these limitations through the concept of karma.
Actually the word karma means action. The word sam'skara means the reaction
in potential form and the word karmaphala means the result of action.
People often use the word karma when they really mean sam'skara. Yoga
provides specific practices for getting rid of the limitations caused by
'old karma' - strictly this should read sam'skara - and, even more
importantly, preventing the formation of new sam'skara and new limitations.

As stated, the word karma means action and it is commonly used in the sense
that all actions cause reactions, either immediate or delayed. It is the
delayed reactions which concern us here (the sam'skara). For it is the
stored up potential reactions (sam'skara) to previous actions (past karma)
which create the distortions, distractions and disturbances to our
consciousness that prevent from enjoying a tranquil condition. As
mentioned, the proper Yogic term for these delayed reactions to past karma
is sam’skara.

How Are Sam’skaras Created

Sometimes when we perform a good or bad action we get the reaction in the
form of reward or punishment, happiness or suffering, straight away. Often
however, we may perform a good or bad action and circumstances will delay
the reaction. For example, we steal something and are not discovered or we
help someone and the deed is neither acknowledged nor returned or we
encounter some object which we desire but are unable to obtain it. These
actions or karmas leave a vibration in the mind which disturbs our
consciousness. This disturbance can only be removed or cancelled out when
the reaction to the original action occurs. For a few days, weeks or months,
we may remain conscious of or bothered by this unrequited action, but
eventually, in the constant flow of new experiences, it submerges beneath
the surface of everyday memory and we no longer are conscious of it. The
disturbance however, has not disappeared, nor been forgotten. It is stored
in the deeper layers of the unconscious mind, where it remains as a kind of
weight which contributes unconsciously to our general sense of unease or
unfulfilment. Its presence mars the clarity of our mind and the accumulation
of many such disturbances is what creates the sense of mental darkness and
agitation which blocks our ability to experience infinite love.

Getting rid of Old Sam’skaras

In the normal course of events a person will accumulate many sam’skaras or
potential reactions to past karma, during a lifetime which are stored deep
in the unconscious mind. The actual reactions to these sam’skaras do not
emerge because they are suppressed by the activity of the conscious and
subconscious mind. At the time of death, when the conscious and subconscious
minds cease to function, the stored sam’skaras steer the person towards a
rebirth which is suitable for the sam’skaras to get expressed. The person
lives their life experiencing events dictated by his or her good and bad
sam’skaras but at the same time is busy creating many new sam’skaras which
in turn get stored deep in the unconscious and act as the cause and
determining factor of the persons next rebirth.

When a person gradually tires of this cycle and seeks to be free of the
bondages created by the sam’skaras he or she must find a way to consciously
get rid of the sam’skaras rather than waiting for their natural emergence at
the time of death. This can be done through meditation which helps a person
stop or transcend the activity of the conscious and subconscious mind - thus
creating space for the contents of the unconscious or superconscious mind to
come to the surface. Sam’skaras which normally would not have been expressed
till the next life, thus get an opportunity to be experienced in this life.
The more the weight of these stored sam’skaras is removed the lighter, more
free and more clear the person begins to feel, though naturally the
intensity of life may seem to increase as one is virtually fitting two lives
into one.

In this way, through the practice of meditation, a person can speed up the
expression of his or her sam’skaras and move more quickly towards the bliss
of pure consciousness. A problem occurs, however, in that while expressing
sam’skaras one may also create new ones. Thus it is also important to learn
the technique of not creating new sam’skaras.

Preventing the Creation of New Sam’skaras

Sam'skaras are created when the interaction between the ego and an object
creates a disturbance in the mind. Yoga deals with this problem in two
beautiful ways.

First by training oneself to duck the incoming vibration of the object by
learning to see all objects as expressions of God - “This too is God”, that
is, as an expression of that One Infinite Consciousness. Thus the imprint of
different objects and interactions is not left on the mind because one sees
all objects as One. The impression left on the mind is one of wholeness
from the spiritual vision, not of multiplicity and separateness experienced
by the ego. By seeing all things as God one can escape the turbulence
created by attraction and repulsion. One learns to see beneath surface
differences and relate to the Infinite within.

Secondly, if one interacts with an object, or walks into a situation,
thinking “I am doing this” one will certainly acquire the sam'skara of that
action. But if one pauses, taking a deeper look, and endeavours to feel that
one is merely an instrument and that the whole show is really the unfolding
play of divine consciousness, then, as one acted without the sense of “I”,
the potential results of the action have nowhere to stick. Everything done
is already transformed into higher expression, rather than limited
expression by the ego.

We get stressed and bound up because we interact with people and things, ego
to ego. If these reactions are not played out immediately they become stored
as sam’skaras (potential reaction to actions). By using the above techniques
we can interact with people and things spirit to spirit, escaping
superficial entanglements and their associated sam’skaras. Through this
practice and the steady practice of meditation we can gradually become
sam'skara free.

---

From the New York Times Bestselling Author of Dogs Never Lie About Love
,When Elephants Weep and The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats

THE PIG WHO SANG TO THE MOON
The Emotional World of Farm Animals

Jeffrey Moussiaeff Masson

Advance Praise for Jeffrey Masson's, The Pig Who Sang the Moon

"Wrenching, yet vitally important--at last a voice for the domestic animals
who need it most. While every attention is paid to wild animals and to pets,
farm animals are systematically ignored because the fact that we kill and
eat these sentient beings is almost unbearable to acknowledge. Yet if that
is what we are doing, we must acknowledge it. We must understand our
actions.
This powerful, excellent book is not for cowards."
--Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, author of The Hidden Lives of Dogs

"For years now, Jeffrey Masson has been illuminating the emotional world
of animals, and helping to restore the beauty of the human-animal bond.
I've wondered if he might ever turn his extraordinary gaze to the
animals we eat. In this book he has done just that, and it is a whopper!
The Pig Who Sang to the Moon will forever enrich, deepen and make real
your relationship with extraordinary beings we farm for their meat,
eggs, and milk. This is a great book!"
--John Robbins, author The Food Revolution and Diet for a New America

"At last, we have a book that treats farm animals as individuals, with
emotions just like those that dogs and cats have. Masson is a fine
writer, and this is his most important book yet. I hope everyone reads
it. It will change the way people think about the animals they
encounter every day--on their plate."
--Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation, Ira W. DeCamp Professor of
Bioethics
University Center for Human Values, Princeton University

"In this latest leg of Jeffrey Moussaieff's journey through the animal
kingdoms, this perceptive writer peels back our prejudices to reveal the
depth of feeling and thought in animals' minds and the leap we must make
to be worthy of understanding them. Eye-opening, warm, thoroughly engaging."
--Ingrid Newkirk, President of PETA

"Jeffrey Masson has written another winner. He skilfully juxtaposes
fascinating facts with moving tales about the amazing ways in which farm
animals show us how they feel--and rounds off with a forceful ethical
challenge to the reader. The days when farm animals were categorized
simply as 'products' must surely now be over. This is, without doubt, a
vital book of our times."
--Joyce D'Silva, CEO, Compassion in World Farming

Review of the Book

In his beloved New York Times bestseller Dogs Never Lie About Love,
former psychoanalyst Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson navigated the inner
landscape of man's best friend. His groundbreaking book When Elephants
Weep explored the emotions of animals in the wild. His most recent book,
The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats, brought new insights into the
mysterious, playful world of cats. Now this New York Times bestselling
author reveals fascinating and controversial evidence about the feelings
of our barnyard friends in THE PIG WHO SANG TO THE MOON: The Emotional
World of Farm Animals (Ballantine Books Hardcover; $25.95; November 4,
2003).

THE PIG WHO SANG TO THE MOON is the first book about the emotional
makeup of farm animals. Farm animals have been with us for 10,000
years, yet no one has ever studied their emotions, only their behavior.

"Is it because their main purpose is defined by their death or
exploitation until they cease to be of any economic benefit to us?
Should it matter to us that a chicken may be capable of great joy but
will never experience it because it's kept in a cage?" asks Masson. He
maintains that we rarely try and get to know these animals precisely
because of what we do to them; it's easier to distance ourselves, he
says, and pretend they have nothing to do with us. And yet Masson
concludes that "if you eat these animals, wear their skins as shoes or
belts, then their lives must be of concern to you. It has something to
do with you, because you have something to do with them."

In THE PIG WHO SANG TO THE MOON, Jeffrey Masson draws from literature,
history, and philosophy, as well as studies and stories from
neurobiologists, behaviorists and other scientists, farmers and animal
welfare activists. His research took him to ten countries, four
continents, and fifteen animal sanctuaries. In addition, he had scores
of conversations with people who have devoted their lives to changing
the way we think about these misunderstood animals. Through studying
chickens, cows, sheep, pigs, ducks, geese, and goats, Masson discovered
they have a wide array of emotions similar to those of dogs and cats,
among them: love, loyalty, friendship, sadness, grief and sorrow.

He asks readers to ponder: "From a philosophical, scientific, or moral
point of view, how can animal happiness be trivial?" Does the average
dairy cow lead a happy life? Her calves are removed shortly after birth
so she never sees them again, she is milked intensively for a few years,
kept permanently pregnant, then, old before her time, is killed before
her natural lifespan has been reached. Masson asks, "If we were made
pregnant against our will, our child taken from us and served the next
night for dinner, would we be happy?" He reminds us that each and every
animal who is slaughtered for food had a mother, probably siblings, and
likely was mourned by a parent or missed by an animal friend.

Masson shows that there is a lot that we as human beings can learn from
farm animals. He believes we can look at the fidelity in geese, the
playfulness in lambs and goats, the need to cuddle in cows (they also
apparently enjoy music), to see that animals not only have specific
behaviors but also specific emotions associated with these behaviors.
Masson is not saying that animals think as we do, but does say that they
feel as we do--for example, like humans they derive pleasure from
eating, being stroked, and playing. He also shows that farm animals
have very individual personalities and this is not just anthropomorphism
at work. One can see an animal's stance, posture, gait, demeanor, and
even expression all change when an animal bonds with another animal or
with a human being.

In THE PIG WHO SANG TO THE MOON, Masson weaves wonderful, true stories
of farm animals who have shown extraordinary behavior and emotions
towards and for their caretakers as well as for other animals. He also
looks at the dark existence that almost all of these animals live. He
takes readers into slaughterhouses and chicken coops, where cows are
terrified and chickens are caged in unduly cruel ways. He enlightens
readers on exactly what is done to ducks to make foie gras and how sheep
are really sheared. Then he takes them to the sanctuaries where these
animals are respected, cared for, and loved. In addition, he suggests
actions that can be taken by anyone individually to help farm
animals--other than becoming vegetarian or vegan.

Masson says that most animal behaviorists and biologists consider the
question of animal happiness to be pointless and say we can never know
what makes an animal happy. He and other animal advocates disagree. He
says "an animal is happy if he or she can live in conformity to his or
her own nature, using to the maximum those natural traits in a natural
setting." Unfortunately, it is only at farm sanctuaries that these
animals are able to live out their lives without fear of being exploited.

THE PIG WHO SANG TO THE MOON will captivate readers with its surprises
and insights, offering a new perspective on the lives led by farm
animals that we rarely see or even think about, and their rich inner
world.

About the Author
Jeffrey Moussiaeff Masson, former Sanskrit scholar and former projects
director of the Sigmund Freud Archives, has written more than a dozen
books. A longtime resident of Berkeley, California, he now lives in New
Zealand with his wife, two sons, and five cats. A film entitled The
Emotional World of Farm Animals, based on his new book, will be released
this Fall.

---

HUMAN EXPRESSIONS AND HUMAN MOVEMENTS

Human Expressions

First, human expressions. Each and every living entity expresses something
from its central point. Human expressions are, in that respect, many in the
physical stratum: you sing, you laugh, you work, you do so many things. But
all these expressions come from a single entity and a single controlling
point. There are several sub-stations, but the controlling station is the
same.

I said in Timmern [Germany] that the controlling one is called the noumenal
entity and the expressed ones are the phenomenal entities. You are one boy,
Liila'nanda -- Liila'nanda speaks, he dances, he jumps, he swims, he rolls
on the ground -- all those expressions are his phenomenal expressions. But
his entity, the controlling entity, the entity from which so many actional
waves emanate, is what? In this respect, in the small world of Liila'nanda,
Liila'nanda is the noumenal entity.

In the sphere of criminology the noumenal entity is falsehood, and all other
corrupt practices, all other criminal activities, are phenomenal
expressions.

In the case of falsehood [as the noumenal entity], sin and crime coincide.
In all other cases there are two different entities.* That which is not
supported by the law of the land is called crime, and that which is not
supported by cardinal human principles is sin. But you know, the law of the
land is a creation of certain persons of the land, that is, of those who are
elected or selected, representative or king. There are so many people who
create the law of the land. Their decision may or may not be correct, but
the definition of crime varies from country to country, locality to
locality. In America, in the USA, the definition of crime varies from state
to state, even in the same country.

* Some words that were unclear in the original 'Ba'ba' in Fiesch'
publication of this discourse omitted here. --Eds.

You know in Japan, to commit suicide is neither a sin nor a crime. In India
to commit suicide is a sin under certain circumstances, not always: when one
commits suicide for the welfare of a large number of the populace, then it
is not treated as sin; when it is a personal issue, it is treated as sin.
And so far as crime is concerned in India, it is a crime to try to commit
suicide, but it is not a crime to commit suicide. If one is trying to commit
suicide, he or she can be punished by the government. In Britain if one
tries to commit suicide, it is a crime, and if one commits suicide, even
then it is a crime, and in that case also the person will be punished -- his
or her property will be forfeited. Do you follow?

The definition of crime varies from land to land, but the cardinal human
values are the same, not only for this planet but everywhere in the
universe.

Just now I said that it is falsehood [a noumenal cause] where sin and crime
coincide. Now in the case of human expressions, a single entity, a person,
is the noumenal cause, and there are so many phenomenal expressions. All
those phenomenal expressions depend on the single noumenal entity and on the
standard of the noumenal entity. If a person is good, his or her expressions
are also good. So what we require is that the standard of each and every
human being be raised. If all the bricks of the room are strong, the room
will also be strong; so if all the individuals are strong, if at least they
are moralists, all humanity will be benefited by it.

(1) Now there are so many human expressions in the physical stratum. We do
so many things, and for these human expressions in the physical stratum we
have got a physical body. A human body is the most complicated biological
structure. There are so many propensities in the human mind, and for
expression of many propensities in the psychic stratum there are so many
nerve cells, so many centres of activity, so many nuclei in the realm of the
mind. And for outer expression and for reception of waves from outer worlds,
human bodies have got so many nerve fibres -- a human body is the most
complicated biological structure.

(2) And humans have been blessed with certain excellent structures. There is
a heaven-and-hell difference between an animal body and a human body. The
most developed animal bodies -- those of apes of certain groups -- are very
developed, but there is a heaven-and-hell difference between their bodies
and a human body, and it is not very difficult to find the difference
between the most developed animal and the most undeveloped human being. So
the human body is not only physical but is an excellent medium of higher
psychic expressions.

(3) And the third human expression which is lacking in other animals is the
spiritual expression. A person who has high taste in the aesthetic sphere
may forget eating and drinking, and a person who has developed deep love for
the Supreme Being forgets all his psychic pursuits even. If you insult a
dog, and the next moment call the dog to take food, it will accept that food
from your hands. But if you insult a person and ask that person to take
food, even a very delicious food, he or she, in order to maintain prestige,
or save himself or herself from humiliation, will not accept. Human beings
even commit suicide due to psychic pressure.

Animals, low-grade animals, also sometimes commit suicide. Certain aquatic
animals commit suicide. But that is not due to psychic pressure, it is due
to inborn instinct. Whales of certain groups and mice of certain groups do
commit suicide, collective suicide.

Now human expressions are trifarious -- physical expression, psychic
expression and spiritual expression. The spiritual expression is the highest
and subtlest expression of human existence. And here lies the speciality of
humans. In the physical stratum each and every human being is a species.
Nobody is just like others. Even in a small family, brothers and sisters
vary from one another. No two face-cuttings are the same. On the psychic
level humans are divided into several kinds of ideologies, and they fight
amongst themselves, just for ideology, and ideology remains in some sphere
of abstraction, and they quarrel amongst themselves. They quarrel regarding
religion, regarding different isms with different views, regarding sports.
One person will say, "My team will win", while another will say, "But my
team can fight" -- in football or any other sport. And there was one very
important play in Spain, toros or something like that -- "bullfighting".
People were very much interested in it, and they [the fans] used to fight
amongst themselves, and it is not a physical fight, it is a psychic fight.
But in the realm of spirituality there cannot be any fight, because the
Supreme Goal is one, a singular entity.

So spiritualism, rather spirituality, is not only the highest and noblest
human speciality, but is the only unifying point, the only unifying
platform, for the entire human society. There may be so many human races —
Negroid, Austric, Mongoloid, Caucasian. Amongst Mongolians there are so many
Malays, Japano- and Sino- blendings, Tibeto-Indians, so many of those.
Amongst Caucasians there are Nordics, Scandinavians; Alpines in middle
Europe; Mediterraneans in Italy, south France, Spain and Portugal. But human
society is a singular entity -- humans belong to the same society. So here
the Supreme Noumenal Entity is the spiritual nave. Now humans of this last
portion of the twentieth century should strengthen that nave, should
strengthen that Supreme Noumenal Entity, and on the basis of this Supreme
Noumenal Entity lies their universal fraternity -- they are children of the
same Supreme Father.

The Supreme Progenitor is one; His children are many in number. If the
children quarrel amongst themselves on petty affairs, this will certainly
not satisfy the Supreme Father. He has given humans, that is, the human
body, a developed cranium, a developed brain, developed nerve cells and
nerve fibres. Humans should utilize them properly. There should be maximum
utilization of all your assets, and by utilizing your assets, you, in your
individual and collective capacities, will be assets to human society.

Human Movement

Now, human movement. What is movement? Movement means change of place. This
bolster is here; I bring it here. There is change of place. So I have done
some work; some action has been done. Insofar as actions and expressions are
concerned, that is, human approaches are concerned, they are four in number:

(1) Regarding human existence in the physical stratum, whatever you do in
the physical stratum is your physical activity. Whatever you do to maintain
your body, to maintain your life, to maintain proper security of individual
and collective life, is your physical action.

(2) Then again, you are not merely an animal: simply eating, drinking and
sleeping is not everything for a human. A human has a subtler life, a more
charming life, a more fascinating life, so your physical existence moves
towards your psychic existence, and this movement is your quest for higher
life, your quest for subtler life, that is, your physico-psychic movement,
starting from the physical level and moving towards the psychic level. Your
physico-psychic activities are architecture, literature, dance, music --
they are all your physico-psychic movement. And this movement is from crude
to subtle, starting from the cruder arena and moving towards the subtler
arena. That's why in Ananda Marga I encourage this physico-psychic movement:
because it will help you in moving towards the subtler world, in moving
towards the supreme spiritual goal.

(3) Then the third human movement is on the pure psychic level. Your
thought-waves, your subtler thoughts, your aesthetic tastes, they are all
your psychic movement. For physico-psychic movement, I encourage boys and
girls to start work in the RAWA [Renaissance Artists' and Writers'
Association] movement. You know, to work in RAWA, high-grade intellect is
not necessary. But for pure psychic movement, pure psychic development,
higher intellect is necessary. And in that realm also humans are to be
encouraged, because it is even subtler than physico-psychic movement -- it
is pure psychic movement. And for that I encourage the intellectuals of
Ananda Marga to form RU [Renaissance Universal] Clubs. Let there be psychic
development, let there be clashes and cohesions in the realm of intellect.
This will help a person to move from crude to subtle. This is the third
expression of the human actional faculty.

(4) And the last one is psycho-spiritual movement. In psycho-spiritual
movement, the action starts on the intellectual level and ends on the
spiritual level. And when this movement, this psycho-spiritual development,
crosses the last boundary of the sentient principle, that intellectual
movement, that is, that intellectual-spiritual progress, is converted into
intuitional progress -- that is, you come within the arena of intuition. For
intuition you do not require any brain, any nerve cell or any nerve fibre.
Where intuition is developed, you become one with Supreme Consciousness
[Parama Purus'a in Sanskrit], you become omniscient, that is, all-knowing;
you do not even require any physical body. You need not go through so many
books; the universe is within you, you are all-knowing. You will know the
history of Spain without going through books; you will know the geography of
Italy without going through books. That is, when your existence comes in
close proximity to the existence of Parama Purus'a (Supreme Consciousness),
the two nuclei coincide, you get what you want, and that is called
salvation.

Shrii Shrii Anandamurti
31 May 1979 evening, Valencia
A'NANDA VACANA'MRTAM PART 30

---

Why vegans were right all along

Article at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/famine/story/0,12128,865087,00.html

Famine can only be avoided if the rich give up meat, fish and dairy

George Monbiot
Tuesday December 24, 2002
The Guardian

The Christians stole the winter solstice from the pagans, and capitalism
stole it from the Christians. But one feature of the celebrations has
remained unchanged: the consumption of vast quantities of meat. The practice
used to make sense. Livestock slaughtered in the autumn, before the grass
ran out, would be about to decay, and fat-starved people would have to
survive a further three months. Today we face the opposite problem: we spend
the next three months trying to work it off.

Our seasonal excesses would be perfectly sustainable, if we weren't doing
the same thing every other week of the year. But, because of the rich
world's disproportionate purchasing power, many of us can feast every day.
And this would also be fine, if we did not live in a finite world.

By comparison to most of the animals we eat, turkeys are relatively
efficient converters: they produce about three times as much meat per pound
of grain as feedlot cattle. But there are still plenty of reasons to feel
uncomfortable about eating them. Most are reared in darkness, so tightly
packed that they can scarcely move. Their beaks are removed with a hot knife
to prevent them from hurting each other. As Christmas approaches, they
become so heavy that their hips buckle. When you see the inside of a turkey
broilerhouse, you begin to entertain grave doubts about European
civilisation.

This is one of the reasons why many people have returned to eating red meat
at Christmas. Beef cattle appear to be happier animals. But the improvement
in animal welfare is offset by the loss in human welfare. The world produces
enough food for its people and its livestock, though (largely because they
are so poor) some 800 million are malnourished. But as the population rises,
structural global famine will be avoided only if the rich start to eat less
meat. The number of farm animals on earth has risen fivefold since 1950:
humans are now outnumbered three to one. Livestock already consume half the
world's grain, and their numbers are still growing almost exponentially.

This is why biotechnology - whose promoters claim that it will feed the
world - has been deployed to produce not food but feed: it allows farmers to
switch from grains which keep people alive to the production of more
lucrative crops for livestock. Within as little as 10 years, the world will
be faced with a choice: arable farming either continues to feed the world's
animals or it continues to feed the world's people. It cannot do both.

The impending crisis will be accelerated by the depletion of both phosphate
fertiliser and the water used to grow crops. Every kilogram of beef we
consume, according to research by the agronomists David Pimental and Robert
Goodland, requires around 100,000 litres of water. Aquifers are beginning
the run dry all over the world, largely because of abstraction by farmers.

Many of those who have begun to understand the finity of global grain
production have responded by becoming vegetarians. But vegetarians who
continue to consume milk and eggs scarcely reduce their impact on the
ecosystem. The conversion efficiency of dairy and egg production is
generally better than meat rearing, but even if everyone who now eats beef
were to eat cheese instead, this would merely delay the global famine. As
both dairy cattle and poultry are often fed with fishmeal (which means that
no one can claim to eat cheese but not fish), it might, in one respect, even
accelerate it. The shift would be accompanied too by a massive deterioration
in animal welfare: with the possible exception of intensively reared
broilers and pigs, battery chickens and dairy cows are the farm animals
which appear to suffer most.

We could eat pheasants, many of which are dumped in landfill after they've
been shot, and whose price, at this time of the year, falls to around £2 a
bird, but most people would feel uncomfortable about subsidising the
bloodlust of brandy-soaked hoorays. Eating pheasants, which are also fed on
grain, is sustainable only up to the point at which demand meets supply. We
can eat fish, but only if we are prepared to contribute to the collapse of
marine ecosystems and - as the European fleet plunders the seas off West
Africa - the starvation of some of the hungriest people on earth. It's
impossible to avoid the conclusion that the only sustainable and socially
just option is for the inhabitants of the rich world to become, like most of
the earth's people, broadly vegan, eating meat only on special occasions
like Christmas.

As a meat-eater, I've long found it convenient to categorise veganism as a
response to animal suffering or a health fad. But, faced with these figures,
it now seems plain that it's the only ethical response to what is arguably
the world's most urgent social justice issue. We stuff ourselves, and the
poor get stuffed.

---

Title: What's New.
Source: Natural Life, Sep/Oct2002 Issue 87, p24, 1p, 4bw

Introduction of 'The Jumbo Vegetarian Cookbook';

What's New

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Veggie Food for Kids

The authors of The Jumbo Vegetarian Cookbook (2002, Kids Can Press) were
introduced to vegetarianism when their daughters announced they were giving
up meat. Both moms were concerned that their growing teens' nutritional
needs wouldn't be met, but a little research taught them differently. So
they have created this book with more than 125 nutritious and delicious
meatless dishes, designed to appeal to people of all ages, but especially
kids, whether they're eating or cooking. The wonderfully illustrated book
includes an introduction to vegetarian foods, basic cooking terms, helpful
hints, safety tips and great menu ideas.

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