[Buddha-l] Re: on eating meat

[Michael Paris]

Replies below.

--- "Richard P. Hayes" <rhayes at unm.edu> wrote:

> On Tue, 2005-10-18 at 16:15 -0700, Michael Paris wrote:
> 
> > Whilst mall-walking today, I noted another fast-food establishment
> > (Cajun something-or-other) that now has vegetarian offerings. 
> 
> Damn, Michael, you made me drool on my mouse pad.

I'm impressed my message had such an effect. You like that sort of
food?

> > Oddly, after I started practicing meditation (finally got a
Vipassana teacher - hard to find around here), I lost my taste for red
meat. I used to love a lean, juicy sirloin. Not anymore. 
> >

> That was also my experience. One thing led to another and before long
> I was a vegan. Following a vegan diet had a very bad effect on me.
The
> rigors of following the diet made me fanatical (by which I mean even
> more fanatical than I usually am). The day I found myself chiding a
> gentle vegetarian student and accusing him of murder for putting a
> dab of milk in his tea was the day I knew it was probably time to go 
> back to
> eating live chickens, just until I could handle a vegetarian diet
> without harboring murderous resentment of those who had made other
> choices than I.  
>
Veganism does take things rather far. 

So how do live chickens taste? 

 
> A couple of years ago I discovered that my triglyceride and HDL
levels
> were way out of whack. Both are symptoms of getting too little
> exercise,
> but both can be exacerbated by eating too much carbohydrate. I also
> had high uric acid levels, probably from eating too many legumes. I
> resumed
> an exercise program and that helped quite a bit, but the HDL was
> still
> too low and the triglyceride levels still too high. A doctor quietly
> suggested that eating fish once a week and a small amount of chicken
> once a month might help. I hesitated and then remembered that the
> Buddha recommended eating meat or meat broth when one is ill, so I 
> abused that
> piece of advice and ate some fish for the first time in about twenty
> years. After a few months of doing that, I found my blood chemistry
> approved again. Damn!

Improved, I assume you mean. Interesting, isn't it? I suspect some
people tolerate vegetarian or vegan diets better than others.
Metabolically we seem to differ somewhat.

 
> So this left me having to figure out whether my health is worth more
> than the health of the fish whose death seems to promote my
> well-being.
> Clearly to me, the answer is no, but I can see how one might offer a
> different answer. Even though I have thought this through to my own
> satisfaction, my behaviour has not caught up to my thinking. (I'm an
> intellectual, not a practitioner.) 

This nicely dovetails with the discussion on animal rights on tonight's
No Dogs Or Philosophers Allowed TV show. Serendipity...


Michael



		
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