[Buddha-l] on eating meat

[Joy Vriens]

Alberto Todeschini wrote:

> If you have never bought meat in your life and you have never visited a 
> supermarket and then, for the first time, you buy meat, perhaps you are 
> justified to think that that meat wasn't prepared for you. But the 
> moment you buy meat (or indeed anything else) you are as a matter of 
> fact asking your shop to stock up so that more meat will be ready for 
> your next visit. Instead of killing the animal by yourself when you need 
> it, you are paying someone to kill it and ship it to the store ready for 
> you to be bought again.

I don't mean to engage in casuistry, but I was just wondering how far 
the economic/consumerist argument goes up for eating meat. Suppose that 
one could get hold of meat with a passed sell by date (e.g. of the day 
of the sell by date) that a supermarket wants to get rid of. I expect it 
is simply destructed, but imagine for a second it isn't. Would it be 
acceptable to eat that meat? I believe I read there was a period in 
Gandhi's life where he only ate overripe of rotten fruit that had be 
thrown away, but I could be wrong.

Joy