MEAT EATING CAUSES WARS​

[kudzu]

AND THE MIDDLE EAST IS ALL THE RAGE!

You plagiarized pages of someone else's work.. That makes you a dirtbag.

[bhaktajan]

I don't have a problem with a vegetarian diet.. I just can't stand these religious vegans..

"religious vegans"

Who are these religious vegans?

Your son will wank off less; your daughters will be less good-looking and less loose by being a vegetarian.

Vegetarian [like most poorer people that eat less blood laden foods] are handsome.

The bigger a meat and pork and frog and squirrel and snake meat eaten in youth the more handsome you will be.

I have rarely found a Buffalo faced person that didn't evolve his looks by eating veggies.

The factor for converting into a vegetarian is to miss the chewing texture of the meat.

Without spices added to meat ---it would be tasteless.

NEXT someone will post that Lions and birds don't put salt and pepper on their meat and worms

[USFREEDOM911]

1] I am not a vegan. I am a vegetarian. I eat no meat, fish nor eggs.

2] You dont get anything from eating meat that the body requires. Junk food is mafia food. And a great earner for mutual funds.
99% of prescription medications are actually supplements to stay healthy.
No vitamins nor minerals are derived from cadavers.

My comment was about supplements to stay healthy, not PRESCRIPTION medication.
You don't need a prescription for Vitamins D or B-12.

I found a picture of your last family outing.

[kudzu]

AND THE MIDDLE EAST IS ALL THE RAGE!

The Bible you were quoting is from the Middle East, dimwit.

[bhaktajan]

Sybill Shepherd, best known for her role starring alongside Bruce Willis on the ABC 80s drama Moonlighting, agreed to promote eating meat for the Beef Industry Council in back in 1987.

The slogan was “Real food for real people!”

Cybill was removed from the campaign after she admitted she was a vegetarian.

Hello? Why do the campaign to begin with?
Written by Vegetarian Star on February 10th, 2009 in Actresses, Food & Drink, Not So Vegetarian.

[bhaktajan]

The Bible you were quoting is from the Middle East, dimwit.

Yes since 2001 we have all been forced to study the way the Middle East behaves ---and we are forced to change our ways as a result.

[bhaktajan]

He's an idiot.. People in the Middle East really do eat locusts and feed them to their livestock.. I never at them, but my brothers did.. roasted on a metal tray behind the taxi stand.. Locust beans, indeed.

So this nomrod calls me an idiot [

So I googled this:
Locust beans in the middle east

and I got nothing but links to what John the Baptist....

...understanding of John the Baptist's time in the wilderness is that, though the text says he ate “locusts and wild honey,” he actually ate locust bean pods, not insects. This has become such a part of Christian mythology that the carob tree, which produces edible bean pods and is native to the Middle East, ...


John The Baptist survived on the edible fruit of the locust TREE year-round! ... John The Baptist did NOT survive YEAR-ROUND by eating bugs, ... It is sometimes known as locust, or "Saint John's Bread", in the belief that the "locusts" on which John the Baptist fed were carob pods.

Ceratonia siliqua, commonly known as the carob tree or carob bush, from Arabic خَرُّوبٌ (kharrūb) and Hebrew חרוב (haruv), St John's-bread,[1] or locust bean[2] (not to be confused with the African locust bean), or simply locust-tree,[3] is a species of flowering evergreen shrub or tree in the pea family, Fabaceae. It is widely cultivated for its edible pods, and as an ornamental tree in gardens. The ripe, dried pod is often ground to carob powder, which is used to replace cocoa powder. Carob bars, an alternative to chocolate bars, are often available in health-food stores.
The carob tree is native to the Mediterranean region, including Southern Europe, Northern Africa, the larger Mediterranean islands, the Levant and Middle-East of Western Asia into Iran; and the Canary Islands and Macaronesia.[4][5] The carat, a unit of mass for gemstones, and of purity for gold, takes its name from the Arabic word for a carob seed kīrāt via the Greek keration.

The carob tree ( Ceratonia siliqua ) from which Locust Beans are obtained is a species of flowering evergreen shrub or tree in the pea family, Fabaceae, that is native to the Mediterranean region, as well as Iran and the Middle-East, Portugal and probably the Canary islands. It is cultivated for its edible seed pods.

and

Have you ever wondered how John the Baptist survived in the desert eating locusts and honey? I bet you thought he ate insects and dined on honey comb. Well, I thought so too, until the Seventh IIFWP (Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace) pilgrimage to Israel in September, 2004. On that trip I learned that his honey was date honey crushed from dates, and that the flour for his bread came from grinding the bean of the locust tree. Yes, a personal visit to the Holy Land can dispel misconceptions.
https://www.tparents.org/Library/Uni...tts-041200.htm

WHERE SHALL I SEND MY BILL FOR TUTORING YOU MASTER KUDZU?

[bhaktajan]

During thousands and hundreds of years,
the hatreds and viciousness in meats
in people's dining utensils,
are as deep as sea,
and are hardly to cease.
If one wants to know why there are wars in the world,
just listen to the thrilling screams
from a slaughter house

This is a well-known Buddhist poem, which reveals the connection between Meat-eating and War.

Meat-eating causes hatred, and hatred may cause war.

The hatreds arouse when an animal is killed, and when someone eats that animal's meat, the hatreds,
and the thoughts of vengeance, will enter the eater's body together with the meat.

Those hatreds and thoughts of vengeance can accumulate in one's body, making him become more
and more depressed, dislike others, easy to be angry, easy to conflict with others, etc. and when a
large number of people (e.g. people in a nation) are dominated by these emotions, that may cause war.

Those hatreds and thoughts of vengeance will pollute and block one's heart, make his heart closed,
as hard as stone, and become a great obstruction against enlightenment. A philosopher with evil inclination,
who preaches the doctrines that supports violence, massacre, and anti-religion behaviors, may emerge under such a circumstance.

If one can renounce meat-eating, those pollutions will not continue to accumulate in his body and on his heart,
but those pollutions will not be cleansed automatically. One also need to renounce killing, and practice some
Dharmas (e.g. some Dharanis, mantras, repentances, etc ) which can cleanse those negative karmas.

For example, the Vajra-sattva Heart Mantra, Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva Sutra, Great Compassion Dharani,
Great Compassion Repentance, Shurangama Mantra, Six Words Great Enlightening Dharani, etc. are very
powerful and efficient for bad karma cleansing. Their Dharma-streams can wash your heart, soften your heart,
make your heart open for enlightenment, and make you an inartificial virtuous person.

http://www.fodian.net/world/meat.war.html

[Jade Dragon]

[bhaktajan]

Consequences of Meat Protein on Human Behaviour
Armando D'Elia
Naturalist, chemist, expert in vegetarian dietetics. Honorary President of AVI Scientific Committee
Human beings use large numbers of animals for the food value of their meat proteins.
The effects of these proteins can undoubtedly be seen in aggression, violence, hatred
and moral insensitivity: we can therefore say that meat has a negative effect on human
behaviour. The vegetarian, on the other hand, builds the foundations for an attitude of tolerance,
gentleness, sociability and a spirit of sharing. Experts speaking out against the use of meat
proteins can now call on support from the chemistry of neurotransmitters and from neurobiology,
two scientific disciplines that explain how such foods cause certain human behaviours.
As a result we can now act with greater certainty in our food choices, which to prefer and which to avoid.
Among other things, we should reject the idea that violence is innate in humans: no-one is born aggressive or evil, but we can become so by eating meat.

Consequences of Meat Protein on Human Behaviour
Animal proteins listed on labels as "meat" come from the muscular tissue of land-based
vertebrates, whose carcasses are used by human beings for food. To be specific, the animals are:
cattle (oxen, buffalo, bison); deer (including roebucks, fallow deer, reindeer); camels, elks,
dromedaries; goats, sheep; donkeys, horses; hares, rabbits; hedgehogs, hippopotamuses, kangaroos;
and swine (pigs, wild boars). Humans also eat the flesh of marine vertebrates: fish - we should not
forget that fish is really a kind of meat - and other aquatic animals (whales, frogs). And there is also
meat from different types of birds (poultry, ducks, turkeys, ostriches, various gamebirds).
But the meateater also cruelly kills and eats many invertebrates such as: molluscs (octopuses, cuttlefish,
squids, limpets, snails, oysters, mussels, razor and other clams, etc); shellfish (freshwater crayfish,
European lobsters, lobsters, Dublin Bay prawns, crabs, squills, spiny spider crabs); echinoderms (sea-urchins, holothurian trepangs).

All these proteins taken from the animal world means an absolute bloodbath, and it is not only
unnecessary and morally repugnant, but also responsible for physical diseases brought on by toxaemia,
even including cancer, and psychological disorders brought on by the influence towards aggression.
What we understand by the word "meat" is muscle tissue, which always contains saturated fats,
the worst for human health. Meateaters also eat liver, pancreas, thymus, saliva glands, kidney or brain -
organs not made up of muscle tissue; additionally meateaters eat tripe, which is part of the
complex stomach of ruminants; also many types of sausages, such as cooked pressed pork, spiced pork,
baloney, ham, salami, frankfurters, stuffed pig's trotters, and so on. And meateaters eat tongue
or bovine tail muscles, or sausage or dried salted beef or bacon, and so on, not to mention caviar,
mullet roe, or, as in China, dogmeat, or offal or calf's intestines.

In short, a terrible massacre, a real holocaust
Eating such enormous quantities of animal proteins has a profound effect on human behaviour.
Generally in nature carnivorous animals are fierce and aggressive, while non-carnivorous ones are peaceful
and sociable. Another thing that can easily be seen is the gradual reduction in aggression in human
beings as they move from a diet containing large amounts of meat towards one excluding high protein foods,
especially meat. It is also well known that dogs, although carnivorous in nature, keep guard and
attack strangers more effectively if they are fed larger than normal meat rations.

Similarly, in wartime, when men are to take part in highly risky military action, they have to be given
large meat rations, so that the meat is used as a drug to develop aggression, violence and moral insensitivity.

In Homer's Iliad, for example, the warriors have meat-based banquets between one battle and the next.
Seneca used to point out that among the big meateaters you could find tyrants, organisers of massacres,
feuds and fratricidal wars, instigators of murder, slave-traders, while those who fed on the fruits of the
earth behaved gently. Liebig tells how the bear in Giesen zoo became extremely restless and dangerous
if forced to eat meat instead of vegetable food.

We can say, then, that physical hygiene means mental hygiene, as J. Dalemont maintains when describing
the history of human diet in his work A Manual Of Mental Hygiene.
The slogan "meat means energy" is used by those who want to justify meateating, because this society,
based on competition, free and unfettered competition and social climbing, demands we wear an aggressive
scowl which will help us get on in the world, win our life struggles.

These brief sociobiological references already allow us to state with certainty that meat has a negative
effect on human behaviour. We can say this because, as everyone can see, human beings are readily
influenced by environmental factors, especially diet, an important truth encapsulated by the great Ludwig
Feuerbach way back in 1855, when he famously said, "Der Mann ist vas er isst." ("Man is what he eats.")
But, more than a century earlier, in 1728, a distinguished Italian expert, Bartolomeo Beccari (doctor, chemist,
and chemistry teacher at Bologna University) delivered the judgement, "Quid alius sumus, nisi it unde alimur?"
("What else are we, if not what we eat?") so expressing what Feuerbach would say much later.
It was not by chance that both these great thinkers were vegetarians. Beccari, among other things,
discovered gluten and isovalencies between animal and vegetable proteins. Man is not just an alimentary
canal to fill with various foods, but a thinking being
hose brain, like any other part of the body, must be nourished with the material necessary for
its metabolism that is delivered by the blood stream. And since most of the food we eat is
produced by a food industry concerned only with profit, without regard for our real dietary needs,
we can say that, just as orthodox medicine is conditioned and financed by the
pharmaceutical industry, so what is referred to as "the science of nutrition" is very much in the hands of the chemicalised food industry.

This is an industry that mainly seeks to sell "junk foods", especially those based on meat proteins,
with the powerful assistance of the media. Uncritical acceptance of the activities of the food industry
eads inevitably to violent behaviour towards our fellow humans and other living creatures because of
the aggression induced by carcass food. As far back as 20 centuries ago, the great Juvenal (Satires X, 512),
had pronounced on the close link between health of mind and body, with his eternal saying,
"Mens sana in corpore sano." ("A healthy mind in a healthy body.")
A healthy mind, then, requires a healthy body, which means that we should make bodily health a priority.

Much later, in the 17th century, another authoritative voice, the British philosopher, John Locke, in his work
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693), stressed the validity of Juvenal's saying about the health of the mind depending on that of the body.

So it is that we see the great importance of vegetarianism, which detoxifies the body and purifies the blood supply to the brain.
Consequently we are capable of more lucid and penetrating thought, leading to a real opening of the mind,
with increased powers of self-control and ability to withstand intellectual and physical work, initiating an attitude
of tolerance, gentleness, openness to peaceful dialogue and solutions of disputes, to love, sociability and sharing.

Electrical activity in the brain as shown by EEGs has shown that the vegetarian diet induces alpha waves,
which indicate a state of neuromuscular relaxation not just of the brain but of the whole body.
Leadbeater maintains that this scientific research proves the beneficial action of vegetarianism on behaviour,
in that it promotes a sense of wellbeing "analogous to the state of meditation on the most profound truths".

This is why through the centuries the most intelligent, the most cultured, the most open, the most
tolerant people in the world have been vegetarians, in all fields of knowledge: in science, philosophy, art, literature, medicine, and so on.
It is clear, then, that the blood supply to the brain carries with it the meat catabolites, the brain's
physiology is affected, and in the behaviour we will note -
I repeat - intolerance, the tendency to quarrelsomeness and aggression: hatred instead of love;
separation, antisocial behaviour and violence
instead of convivialityand togetherness. In this way humans get stuck in antisocial attitudes
and fierce individualism, and those who want power need only divide and rule.

Those in power know how to use the weapon of food to influence human
behaviour towards what is most convenient for their purposes, and so
they do all they can to encourage us to eat dead, poisoned, intoxicating foods, especially meat.
Ultimately the target is the brain, which they want to render incapable of
understanding. In conclusion, while vegetarianism favours the highest cognitive faculties, carcasses
depress them, encouraging behaviours damaging to the individual
and society, and reduce serotonin levels. A meal high in meat proteins reduces tryptophane levels
in the brain, and so leads to aggression, anxiety and propensity to fighting;
whereas the more we rely on the fruits of the earth and follow vegetarian principles,
the more positive our behaviour. Our choice of food, then, influences our behaviour and emotions.

This is what Dr Rossi says, and experimental confirmation for this has come from John Fernstrom
and Richard Hurthman, biologists in the Department of Nutrition and Dietary Sciences at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Serotonin in fact has a particular capacity to cause sleepiness.

Some "nutritionists" against vegetarianism (for various reasons, permissible or secret) maintain
that aggression is not caused by meat proteins, but rather innate in humans, a ridiculous
assertion, since no-one is born aggressive and bad, but may become so under the influence of meat.
The well known anthropologist, Luigi Lombardi Satriani, says that it is just an excuse for us to blame
aggression on nature, an excuse we as a society use to escape our responsibilities. No-one is born bad,
otherwise aggression would be universal, which anthropology shows to be wrong. In fact, societies
with absolutely non-violent cultures have existed and still do. For example, certain tribes in
Africa or groups of Indians in north-west Brazil or the Piaroa Indians in Venezuela, have built
very peaceful societies, based on cooperation, without a trace of aggression in their children's upbringing,
and the children's games reflect the balanced lifestyle, since they consist of dancing, singing and love.
Hatred is unknown, and it is common knowledge that these people are vegetarians.
Do we need better evidence that diet influences the character?

We should not forget that the powerful used to like to flaunt their supposed superiority by
ostentatiously eating meat, since they believed that meat, a dietary symbol of violence,
was a badge to show that they belonged to the strong. But in order to eat meat
there needs to have been an earlier violent act, culminating in the killing of an animal,
so that meateating, based on murder as it is, is inevitably associated with violence
and brute force, whereas vegetarianism is based on the stability, tranquillity and serenity
of the vegetable world which, in its powerful nobility, draws life and strength from
Mother Earth to give it to humanity. Professor Carlo Sirtori, a distinguished clinician and
scientist, has brought to light how meateating leads to aggression in humans, because
phosphorus and calcium are to be found in meat in a ratio of 50:1. Meateating leads to
a phosphorus excess which is not natural for humans, whose milk has a 1:2 phosphorus-calcium ratio.
Sirtori comments that this fact leads to a fall in calcium levels, leading to irritable and aggressive behaviour,
and sometimes convulsions in small children.

During the Gulf War in 1992, US marines getting ready to go into action were supplied with
50,000 turkeys in addition to the normal, abundant meat rations. The reason:
"They are soldiers and have to eat a lot of meat." In other words: "They have to attack, and meat helps make them aggressive."
I will end my speech by quoting the well-known words of the philosopher, Jacopo Moleschott, which confirms meat's aggressive influence:
"As long as the Irishman is fed with potatoes, he will be subjugated by the Englishman eating steak and roast beef."

- translations by Hugh Rees, Milan - commissioned by Associazione Vegetariana Italiana (AVI)
http://www.purifymind.com/MeatProtein.htm

[bhaktajan]

HEY IT'S NOT JUST ME!

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Meat-eating Christians are like white supremacists! Let me show you what I mean:

In a 1989 interview with the now-defunct Animals' Agenda, Reverend Andrew Linzey, an Anglican priest and the foremost theologian in the field of animal-human relations, drew a parallel between animal and human slavery, saying that history is repeating itself with regard to animals:

"Now, just think of the difficulties that those early Christian abolitionists had to face. Scripture defended slavery. For instance, in Leviticus 25, you're commanded to take the child of a stranger as a slave...St. Paul simply said that those who were Christian slaves should be better Christians.

"Almost unanimously, apart from St. Gregory, the church fathers defended slavery, and for almost 1800 years, Christians defended and supported slavery."

On the other hand, in a 1991 essay, "The Bible and Killing for Food," Reverend Linzey writes:

"...it often comes as a surprise for Christians to realize that the modern vegetarian movement was strongly biblical in origin. Inspired by the original command in Genesis 1, an Anglican priest, William Cowherd, founded the Bible Christian Church in 1809 and made vegetarianism compulsory among its members.

"The founding of this Church in the United Kingdom and its sister Church in the United States by William Metcalfe, effectively heralded the beginning of the modern vegetarian movement.")

The church of the past never considered human slavery to be a moral evil. The Protestant churches of Virginia, South Carolina, and other southern states, actually passed resolutions in favor of the human slave traffic.

Human slavery was called "by Divine Appointment," "a Divine institution," "a moral relation," "God’s institution," "not immoral," but "founded in right." The slave trade was called "legal," "licit," "in accordance with humane principles" and "the laws of revealed religion."

New Testament verses calling for obedience and subservience on the part of slaves (Titus 2:9-10, Ephesians 6:5-9, Colossians 3:22-25, I Peter 2:18-25) and respect for the master (I Timothy 6:1-2, Ephesians 6:5-9) were often cited in order to justify human slavery. Some of Jesus’ parables refer to human slaves. Paul’s epistle to Philemon concerns a runaway slave returned to his master.

Quoting Isaiah 61:1, Luke 4:18, Colossians 3:11 or Galatians 3:28 as verses in favor of abolition in the 18th or 19th century would have been met with the kind of reaction animal activists receive today when citing biblical verses in favor of vegetarianism and the compassionate and humane treatment of animals.

The Quakers were one of the earliest Christian denominations to condemn (human) slavery.

"Paul's outright endorsement of slavery should be an undying embarrassment to Christianity as long as they hold the entire New Testament to be the word of God," wrote Quaker physician Dr. Charles P. Vaclavik in his 1986 book, The Vegetarianism of Jesus Christ: the Pacifism, Communalism, and Vegetarianism of Primitive Christianity.

"Without a doubt, the American slaveholders quoted Paul again and again to substantiate their right to hold slaves.

"The moralist movement to abolish slavery had to go to non-biblical sources to demonstrate the immoral nature of slavery. The abolitionists could not turn to Christian sources to condemn slavery, for Christianity had become the bastion of the evil practice through its endorsement by the Apostle Paul.

"Only the Old Testament gave the abolitionist any Biblical support in his effort to free the slaves. ‘You shall not surrender to his master a slave who has taken refuge with you.’ (Deuteronomy 23-15) What a pittance of material opposing slavery from a book supposedly representing the word of God."

In 1852 Josiah Priest wrote Bible Defense of Slavery. Others claimed blacks were subhuman. Buckner H. Payne, calling himself "Ariel," wrote in 1867, "the tempter in the Garden of Eden...was a beast, a talking beast ... the negro."

Ariel argued that since the negro was not part of Noah’s family, he must have been a beast. Eight souls were saved on the ark, therefore, the negro must be a beast, and "consequently he has no soul to be saved."

I commented in a letter to my local newspaper, The Tri-Valley Herald, in early 1992 that it remains to be seen if organized religion will support animal rights or simply remain an obstacle to social and moral progress.

"Simply!" say conservative Christians.

I point out, that was George Wallace's philosophy, too, proclaiming, "Segregation Now. Segregation Forever," in 1963.

"Forever!" they respond.

But when I put two and two together, and say offhandedly, "Meat-eating Christians are like white supremacists," suddenly their "tough" veneer and thin veneer of religiosity disappear, and their feelings are hurt!

http://www.all-creatures.org/murti/a...remacists.html

[bhaktajan]

Some other people advocate similar calculus....

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
MEAT: Root Cause of Endless War, Distinct Threat to Humanity

It takes nearly one gallon of fossil fuel and 2,500 gallons of water to produce just one pound of conventionally fed beef. (Mother Jones)

The Worldwatch Institute estimates one pound of steak from a steer raised in a feedlot costs: five pounds of grain, a whopping 2,500 gallons of water, the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline, and about 34 pounds of topsoil.

Thirty-three percent of our nation's raw materials and fossil fuels go into livestock destined for slaughter. In a vegan economy, only two percent of our resources will go to the production of food.

One-third of all raw materials in the U.S. are consumed by the livestock industry and it takes thrice as much fossil fuel energy to produce meat than it does to produce plant foods.

A report on the energy crisis in Scientific American warned: "The trends in meat consumption and energy consumption are on a collision course."

Livestock production affects a startling 70 to 85 percent of the land area of the United States, United Kingdom, and the European Union. That includes the public and private rangeland used for grazing, as well as the land used to produce the crops that feed the animals.

By comparison, urbanization only affects three percent of the United States land area, slightly larger for the European Union and the United Kingdom. Meat production consumes the world's land resources.

Half of all fresh water worldwide is used for thirsty livestock. Producing eight ounces of beef requires an unimaginable 25,000 liters of water, or the water necessary for one pound of steak equals the water consumption of the average household for a year.

"It seems disingenuous for the intellectual elite of the first world to dwell on the subject of too many babies being born in the second- and third-world nations while virtually ignoring the overpopulation of cattle and the realities of a food chain that robs the poor of sustenance to feed the rich a steady diet of grain-fed meat."

--Jeremy Rifkin, pro-life AND pro-animal author, Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture, and president of the Greenhouse Crisis Foundation

**

I'm wary of the claim by many on the political left that we'd all be at peace, holding hands, singing "Kumbaya," etc. if it weren't for the terrible world leaders plotting to wage war at every turn, and using innocent citizens as pawns in a global chess game. War and abortion are the karma for killing animals.

The institutionalized killing of billions of animals has led to global hunger, global warming, the energy, environmental, population and water crises. Why is it so hard to accept that there's a slippery slope, a connection between the killing of animals and the killing of human beings?

"Who loves this terrible thing called war?" asked Isadora Duncan. "Probably the meat-eaters, having killed, feel the need to kill... The butcher with his bloody apron incites bloodshed, murder. Why not? From cutting the throat of a young calf to cutting the throats of our brothers and sisters is but a step. While we ourselves are living graves of murdered animals, how can we expect any ideal conditions on the earth?"

"I personally believe," wrote Isaac Bashevis Singer, "that as long as human beings will go on shedding the blood of animals, there will never be any peace. There is only one little step from killing animals to creating gas chambers a' la Hitler and concentration camps a' la Stalin -- all such deeds are done in the name of 'social justice.' There will be no justice as long as man will stand with a knife or with a gun and destroy those who are weaker than he is."

In his 1979 book, Vegetarianism: A Way of Life, author Dudley Giehl writes:

"Competition for food has inevitably led to conflict and this struggle for survival has been a significant factor in the history of organized warfare. In this respect, meat-eating may be regarded as either the underlying cause of armed conflict or at least one of several factors contributing to the exacerbation of a pre-existing problem. The reason why meat, in particular, has created such problems is that the practice of raising livestock requires a much greater use of resources. The basic problem is simply that people are forced to compete with animals for food--a most precarious situation when food is in short supply."

Many of us believe that hunger exists because there's not enough food to go around. But as Frances Moore Lappe and her anti-hunger organization Food First! have shown, the real cause of hunger is a scarcity of justice, not a scarcity of food.

In country after country the pattern is repeated. Livestock industries are consuming feed to such an extent that now almost all Third World nations must import grain. Seventy-five percent of Third World imports of corn, barley, sorghum, and oats are fed to animals, not to people. In country after country, the demand for meat among the rich is Squeezing out staple production for the poor.

The same trend can be found in the Middle East and North Africa--increases in grain-fed livestock require more imported feed. Twenty years ago, Egypt was self-sufficient in grain. Then, livestock ate only 10 percent of the nation's grain. Today, livestock consume 36 percent of Egypt's grain. As a result, Egypt must now import eight million tons of grain every year.

Twenty-five years ago, Syria was a barley exporter. But in the intervening years, livestock has consumed increasing amounts of the country's grain. Now, despite a phenomenal 1,000 percent increase in the land area devoted to producing barley, Syria must import the cereal.

Because of its reliance on livestock agriculture, Israel's economy depends heavily on groundwater use. You can't make the desert bloom through sheer hard work; it requires water. Today Israel is heavily dependent on water from the West Bank, and the Israeli press is full of talk of retaining the West Bank in order to protect water supplies from encroaching Arab wells. One analyst gloomily concludes that the water in the West Bank region--which the Israelis captured from the Arabs in the 1967 war--is "fast becoming the most ominous obstacle to any peaceful settlement in the region."

Any economy that relies on meat production is in serious trouble. Any social system which persists in putting an emphasis on meat production will be progressively weakened until it as destroyed or until its policies are changed. The amount of time which will pass before a serious social disaster sets in, of course, will vary from region to region. In the case of the United States, which still has abundant agriculture resources, there are probably many decades left. In the case of Africa, the disaster is there today.

Regardless of social system or ideology, any country that emphasizes meat production is going to make its food situation worse. In the richer nations, food may simply become somewhat more costly. If the livestock industry is subsidized by the government--as is the case in both the United States and the former Soviet Union--then other areas of the economy may suffer, as they are sacrificed go keep agriculture afloat. In the poorer nations, food may become unavailable to many and starvation may result.

In Ethiopia and Mozambique, we have two cases of very poor countries which have relied heavily on livestock agriculture with tragic results. In both countries, thousands have died and tens of thousands more are in danger of dying. In both countries, livestock agriculture has played a key role in crippling the ability of the food system to produce food. Ecological disaster is not new in Africa. Northern Africa, once the granary of the Roman Empire, was reduced to a barren wasteland by the pastoral nomads which entered the area after the Empire's collapse. The march of the Sahara desert southward, preceded by large herds of livestock animals, has been observed for decades. Numerous independent observers have confirmed that soil erosion today is rampant in Africa. The destruction has been savage. Fifty years ago, 40% of Ethiopia was covered with trees, while only 2% to 4% is covered with trees today.

So the famine in Ethiopia during the 1980s should not have been a surprise. Many blamed the drought, the civil war, or governmental incompetence in pushing the country over the edge into starvation; and certainly these factors played a role. but we cannot ignore the ecological realities which are the underlying conditions responsible for Ethiopia's getting to the brink of disaster in the first place. Overgrazing by cattle has played a key role in Ethiopia's decline.

Incredibly, while the people are starving, Ethiopia today has a larger livestock population than any other country in Africa, though it is only ninth in total land area!

Similar problems have affected Mozambique. Here we have a country which recently liberated itself from colonialism. Yet Mozambique then proceeded to import beef from abroad to satisfy the demands of the urban elite for meat. Perhaps even worse, they are intensifying their production of corn--one of the most erosive of all plant foods--and feeding it to their cattle! This is a recipe for disaster and a most depressing pattern throughout many third world countries. They throw out colonialism, but they keep or even intensify the colonial system of food production.

Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are also experiencing serious problems related to meat production. In Poland, prior to the worker's riots in 1979 over rising meat prices, the per capita meat consumption was nearly as high as it was in the United States. In 1979 the government allowed the price of meat to rise, and the workers expressed their intense dissatisfaction.

Meat consumption has placed a severe strain on the Polish economy; the Polish economy simply cannot sustain the level of meat consumption which approaches the "American" level. The Commonwealth of Independent States' well-publicized agricultural difficulties only arise because it tries to feed its citizens a Western-type diet high in meat and animal products. The former Soviet Union would not have the slightest difficulty in feeding itself from its own resources, but grain has to be imported for their cattle.

Most news reports on shortages and hunger in the former Soviet Union emphasize the lack of meat, which is really an unnecessary luxury and not a necessity. Meat consumption has severely aggravated the country's problems. In 1991, Worldwatch noted: "Since 1950, meat consumption has tripled and feed consumption quadrupled. Use of grain for feed surpassed direct human consumption in 1964 and has been rising ever since. Soviet livestock now eat three times as much grain as Soviet Citizens. Grain imports have soared, going from near zero in 1970 to twenty-four million tons in 1990, and the USSR is now the world's second largest grain importer."

Development funds have irrigated the desert in Senegal so that multinational firms can grow eggplant and mangos for air-freighting to Europe's best tables. In Haiti, the majority of peasants struggle for survival by trying to grow food on mountain slopes of a 45 degree incline or more. They say they are exiles from their birthright--some of the world's richest agricultural land. These lands now belong to a handful of elite; cattle are flown in by U.S. firms for grazing and re-exported to franchised hamburger restaurants.

Throughout Latin America, land availability is a prominent social issue. Revolutionaries as well as reform-minded moderates have made land reform a major issue. Yet in many Latin American countries, forests are being leveled in order to create pastures for cattle grazing land. In a region where land availability is a central social issue, existing land is being gobbled up by livestock agriculture. The resulting social tensions have resulted in civil wars, repression and violence.

And what about the United States? Half the water consumed in the U.S. goes to irrigate land growing feed and fodder for livestock. Huge amounts of water are also used to wash away their excrement. In fact, U.S. livestock produce twenty times as much excrement as does the entire human population, creating sewage which is ten to several hundred times more concentrated than raw domestic sewage. Animal wastes cause ten times more water pollution than does the U.S. human population; the meat industry causes three times more harmful organic water pollution than the rest of the nation's industries combined.

Meat producers are the number one industrial polluters in our nation, contributing to half the water pollution in the United States. The water that goes into a thousand-pound steer could float a destroyer. It takes twenty-five gallons of water to produce a pound of wheat, but twenty-five hundred gallons to produce a pound of meat. If these costs weren't subsidized by the American taxpayers, hamburger meat would be $35 per pound!

The burden of subsidizing the California meat industry costs taxpayers $24 billion. Livestock producers are California's biggest consumers of water. Every tax dollar the state doles out to livestock producers costs taxpayers over seven dollars in lost wages, higher living costs and reduced business income. Seventeen western states have enough water supplies to support economies and populations twice as large as the present.

Overgrazing of cattle leads to topsoil erosion, turning once-arable land into desert. We lose four million acres of topsoil each year and eighty-five percent of this loss is directly caused by raising livestock. To replace the soil we've lost, we're destroying our forests. Since 1967, the rate of deforestation in the U. S. has been one acre every five seconds. For each acre cleared in urbanization, seven are cleared for grazing or growing livestock feed.

One-third of all raw materials in the U.S. are consumed by the livestock industry and it takes thrice the fossil fuel energy to produce meat than it does to produce plant foods. A report on the energy crisis in Scientific American warned: "The trends in meat consumption and energy consumption are on a collision course."

According to Howard Lyman, former senior lobbyist for the National Farmers Union, "Family farmers are victims of public policy that gives preference to feeding animals over feeding people. This has encouraged the cheap grain policy of this nation and has made the beef cartel the biggest hog at the trough."

The Bible contains numerous examples of conflict situations that are directly attributable to the practice of raising livestock, including contested water rights, bitter competition for grazing areas, and friction between agriculturalists and nomadic herdsmen. The more settled agricultural communities deeply resented the intrusion of nomadic tribes with their large herds of cattle, sheep, and goats. These animals were considered a menace. Aside from the threat to the crops themselves, large herds of livestock caused much damage to the general quality of the land as a result of over grazing.
Continued....

[bhaktajan]

It was ostensibly for this reason that the Philistines, whose primary agricultural pursuits were corn and orchards, sought to discourage nomadic herdsmen from using their territory by filling in many of the wells in the surrounding area. One of the earliest accounts of strife among the herdsmen themselves is found in the story of Lot and Abram:

"And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and herds, and tents. And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together; for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together. And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle." (Genesis 13:5-7)

Abram moved Westward to a region known as Canaan, while Lot journeyed to the east, finally settling in Sodom. Such peaceful agreements, however, were not always possible. There are several references in the Bible to clashes between the Israelites and Midianites. The Midianites were wealthy Bedouin traders who owned large numbers of livestock, as did the Israelites, who brought their herds with them when they left Egypt.

Livestock require vast areas of land for grazing. They also need water, which has never been abundant in that region of the world. The strain thus placed on the land's resources is mentioned in Judges 6:4: "And they encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth."

The depletion of resources created by the people arid livestock moving into this territory is described in Judges 6:5 by a singularly appropriate simile: "For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers." Another passage informs us that after a particularly vicious battle with the Midianites the Israelites augmented their herds with the livestock of their slain captives. This included 675,000 sheep and more than 72,000 beeves.

A strikingly frank reference to the casual relationship between flesh eating and war, in terms of land use, is found in Deuteronomy 12:20: "When the Lord thy God shall enlarge thy border, as he hath promised thee, and thou shalt say, 'I will eat flesh,' because thy soul longeth to eat flesh; thou mayest eat flesh, whatsoever thy soul lusteth after."

A similar straightforward reference to the relationship between flesh eating and war can be found in Plato's Republic. In a dialogue with Glaucon, Socrates extols the peace and happiness what come to people eating a vegetarian diet: "And with such a diet they may be expected to live in peace and health to a good old age, and bequeath a similar life to their children after them."

Glaucon remains skeptical that people would be satisfied with such fare. He asserts that people will desire the "ordinary conveniences of life," including animal flesh. Socrates then proceeds to stock the once ideal state with swineherds, huntsmen, and "cattle in great number." The dialogue continues:

"...and there will be animal's of many other kinds, if people eat them?"

"Certainly."

"And living in this way we shall have much greater need of physicians than before? "

"Much greater."

"And the country which was enough to support the original inhabitants will be too small now, and not enough?"

"Quite true."

"Then a slice of our neighbor's land will be wanted by us for pasture and tillage, and they will want a slice of ours, if, like ourselves, they exceed the limit of necessity, and give themselves up to the unlimited accumulation of wealth?"

"That, Socrates, will be inevitable."

"And so we shall go to war, Glaucon. Shall we not?"

"Most certainly," Glaucon replies.

Critics of Plato, reading the rest of the Republic, have complained that what Plato gives us is a militaristic or proto-fascist state, with censorship and a rigidly controlled economy. Plato would hardly disagree with these critics; what they have overlooked is that the state which he describes is not his idea--it is merely a consequence of Glaucon's requirements which Socrates himself disavows. Greed for meat, among other things, produced the character of the second state Plato describes.

The history of the European spice trade would seem to suggest that there is indeed a relationship between war and large-scale consumer demand for foods not required by what Plato refers to as "natural want." Spices were of vital importance to meat preparation before the process of mechanical refrigeration was developed in the 20th century, meat was usually preserved by the process of salting. Using various combinations of spices to offset the saltiness of meat, thus making it palatable, became a popular practice in medieval Europe.

The demand for spices was a significant factor in European colonial endeavors. Competition intensified, contributing to the exacerbation of serious disputes that already existed among various European nations. Efforts in the 17th and 18th centuries by the Dutch, Portuguese, English and French to expand their spice trade resulted in warfare, as well as the subjugation of native peoples by these imperialist powers.

Shepherds have traditionally been depicted in both art and religious and secular literature as a peaceable lot. However, there were inevitable disputes between farmers and shepherds over territorial rights. This situation was aggravated by the fact that sheep posed an even greater threat to the land than cattle because they clipped grass closer to the ground, sometimes tearing it out by the roots. The Spanish sheepowner's guild known as the Mesta dominated Spain's political affairs for several centuries (AD 1200-1500) and was the source of much internal strife within that country.

The Mesta's sheep not only destroyed pastureland by overgrazing but were also allowed to rampage through cultivated fields. The peasant farmers could hardly expect the monarchy to rectify this injustice since sheep raising dominated medieval Spanish commerce and was the government's principal source of revenue during this period.

There was considerable animosity among shepherds, cattlemen and crop farmers in 19th-century America. The Homestead Act of 1862 encouraged more people to settle in the West. The very nature of livestock raising in the United States at that time required vast areas of land for grazing and moving the animals along designated trails to their final destinations. Hence the proliferation of farming communities became a serious threat to the livestock industry. This situation became worse when the farmers put up barbed-wire fences, a practice that began in the 1880s.

Aside from the conflict between livestock herders and farmers, there were bitter feuds between cattlemen and sheepmen, including such conflicts as the "Tonto Basin War" in Arizona, the "Holbrook War" in Montana, the "Blue Mountain War" in Colorado and the "Big Horn Basin Feud" in Montana.

We are presently confronted with a rather precarious situation in which a few select regions of the world are the principal suppliers of various commodities that are essential to the entire process of food production. The Middle East region, for example, dominates the world petroleum market. Petroleum is needed to power farm machinery in addition to its use as a fertilizer base. Despite the relatively large amount of petroleum produced in the United States, this country is, nonetheless, highly dependent on Middle East oil.

U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger commented in 1975 that military intervention "could not be ruled out" in the event of another Arab oil embargo. His comment indicates the extent of American dependency on Arab oil and the desperate lengths the U. S. government will go to obtain it. The "Carter Doctrine" of 1980, concerning the use of tactics nuclear weapons in the Middle East by the United States and the Persian Gulf War of 1991 reiterate American dependence upon a highly unstable part of the globe.

Morocco is the leading producer of phosphate, an important element in fertilizer production. Within the period of a few years in the early 1970s, Morocco more than quadrupled its price for phosphate. The large world demand for phosphate prompted Morocco to invade the Spanish Sahara when the Spanish relinquished control of the region in 1975. A guerilla force of Saharan nationals found themselves battling the Moroccan aggressors, whose sole interest in the region was its phosphate reserves.

The United States is fond of using its position as a major food exporter to manipulate the policies of foreign governments. The most striking example of this practice is the successful American "destabilization" effort in Chile in the early 1970s. A project initiated by the American Central Intelligence Agency to create dissatisfaction among Chilean truckers resulted in widespread food shortages. The Allende regime was then rebuffed in its attempts to make a cash purchase of vitally needed U S wheat. However, in less than a month after a successful Chilean coup that was abetted by the U S government, the new fascist regime was given a large shipment of American wheat on generous credit terms despite Chile's unstable economy.

A report prepared in August, 1974, by the American Central Intelligence Agency cites several ominous trends in weather conditions and population growth.

The authors of this report indicate there is substantial evidence to support the belief that food shortages will become more acute as the result of a major cooling trend. As a result, such a situation "could give the United States a measure of power it had never had before--possibly an economic and political dominance greater than that of the immediate post-World War II years." The study warns, however, that countries adversely affected by these weather changes may resort to desperate measures, including "nuclear blackmail" and "massive migration backed by force."

The report concludes that we have the potential to compensate for future large-scale famines that may be far worse than the present food crisis. It is duly noted that if the anticipated marked and persistent cooling trend occurs there would not be enough food to feed the world's population "unless the affluent nations make a quick and drastic cut in their consumption of grain-fed animals."

Vegetarian author Laurel Robertson writes that "The relationship between meat consumption and available grain is...more sensitive than we might think... In 1974, when the market for meat did fall, the grain that was so unexpectedly released actually did find its way to poorer countries."

Vegan author John Robbins writes in his 1987 Pulitzer Prize nominated Diet for a New America:

"Meat-eating contributes to the fear in the world by putting us in a position in which there is not enough to go around (half the world's grain is fed to livestock). But that's not all. Meat-eaters ingest residues of the animal's biochemical response to the horrors of the slaughterhouse.

"Programmed to fight or flee when in danger for their lives, the animals react to the slaughterhouse in sheer terror. Powerful biochemical agents are secreted that pump through their bloodstreams and onto their flesh, energizing them to fight or flee for their lives. Today's slaughterhouses virtually guarantee that the animals will die in terror."

The Maoris would eat the flesh of a slaughtered enemy in order to possess the enemy's courage and strength. The people of the lower Nubia, likewise, would eat the fox, believing that by so doing, they would be possessed of his cunning. In upper Egypt, the heart of the hoopoe bird was eaten in order to acquire the ability to become a clever scribe. The bird would be caught and its heart would be torn out and eaten while it was still alive.

John Robbins notes, "certain Native American tribes would not eat the flesh of an animal who died in fear, because they did not want to take into themselves the terror of such an animal. When we eat animals who have died violent deaths we literally eat their fear.

"We take in biochemical agents designed by nature to tell an animal that its life is in the gravest danger, and it must either fight or flee for its life. And then, in our wars and our daily lives, we give expression to the panic in which the animals we have eaten died."

Vegan author John Robbins writes in his Pulitzer Prize nominated Diet for a New America (1987):

"The way we treat animals is indicative of the way we treat our fellow humans. One Soviet study, published in Ogonyok, found that over 87% of a group of violent criminals has, as children, burned, hanged, or stabbed domestic animals. In our own country, a major study by Dr. Stephen Kellert of Yale University found that children who abuse animals have a much higher likelihood of becoming violent criminals."

A 1997 study by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA) reported that children convicted of animal abuse are five times more likely to commit violence against other humans than are their peers, and four times more likely to be involved in acts against property.

Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, which launched the modern day environmental movement, wrote:

"Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is whether its victim is human or animal we cannot expect things to be much better in this world. We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing we set back the progress of humanity."

In a December 1990 letter to Eric Mills of Action For Animals, vegan labor leader Cesar Chavez similarly wrote:

"Kindness and compassion towards all living things is a mark of a civilized society. Conversely, cruelty, whether it is directed against human beings or against animals, is not the exclusive province of any one culture or community of people. Racism, economic deprival, dog fighting and cockfighting, bullfighting and rodeos are cut from the same fabric: violence. Only when we have become nonviolent towards all life will we have learned to live well ourselves."

Marjorie Spiegel, author of The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery, writes: "All oppression and violence is intimately and ultimately linked, and to think that we can end prejudice and violence to one group without ending prejudice and violence to another is utter folly."

Apart from the violence against animals involved in meat-eating, foods DO affect one's consciousness! The ill effects of alcohol, opium, morphine, nicotine, etc. upon individual users have been well-documented. The Federal Bureau of Investigation reports that 60 to 75 percent of all violent crime is alcohol-related. Might there be a similar relationship between meat-eating and aggressive behavior?

In a letter to a friend on the subject of vegetarianism, Albert Einstein wrote, "besides agreeing with your aims for aesthetic and moral reasons, it is my view that a vegetarian manner of living by its purely physical effect on the human temperament would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind."

U Nu, the former Prime Minister of Burma, made a similar observation: "World peace, or any other kind of peace, depends greatly on the attitude of the mind. Vegetarianism can bring about the right mental attitude for peace... it holds forth a better way of life, which, if practiced universally, can lead to a better, more just, and more peaceful community of nations."
http://www.all-creatures.org/murti/art-meat.html

[USFREEDOM911]

During thousands and hundreds of years,
the hatreds and viciousness in meats
in people's dining utensils,
are as deep as sea,
and are hardly to cease.
If one wants to know why there are wars in the world,
just listen to the thrilling screams
from a slaughter house

This is a well-known Buddhist poem, which reveals the connection between Meat-eating and War.

Meat-eating causes hatred, and hatred may cause war.

The hatreds arouse when an animal is killed, and when someone eats that animal's meat, the hatreds,
and the thoughts of vengeance, will enter the eater's body together with the meat.

Those hatreds and thoughts of vengeance can accumulate in one's body, making him become more
and more depressed, dislike others, easy to be angry, easy to conflict with others, etc. and when a
large number of people (e.g. people in a nation) are dominated by these emotions, that may cause war.

Those hatreds and thoughts of vengeance will pollute and block one's heart, make his heart closed,
as hard as stone, and become a great obstruction against enlightenment. A philosopher with evil inclination,
who preaches the doctrines that supports violence, massacre, and anti-religion behaviors, may emerge under such a circumstance.

If one can renounce meat-eating, those pollutions will not continue to accumulate in his body and on his heart,
but those pollutions will not be cleansed automatically. One also need to renounce killing, and practice some
Dharmas (e.g. some Dharanis, mantras, repentances, etc ) which can cleanse those negative karmas.

For example, the Vajra-sattva Heart Mantra, Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva Sutra, Great Compassion Dharani,
Great Compassion Repentance, Shurangama Mantra, Six Words Great Enlightening Dharani, etc. are very
powerful and efficient for bad karma cleansing. Their Dharma-streams can wash your heart, soften your heart,
make your heart open for enlightenment, and make you an inartificial virtuous person.

http://www.fodian.net/world/meat.war.html

[USFREEDOM911]

Consequences of Meat Protein on Human Behaviour
Armando D'Elia
Naturalist, chemist, expert in vegetarian dietetics. Honorary President of AVI Scientific Committee
Human beings use large numbers of animals for the food value of their meat proteins.
The effects of these proteins can undoubtedly be seen in aggression, violence, hatred
and moral insensitivity: we can therefore say that meat has a negative effect on human
behaviour. The vegetarian, on the other hand, builds the foundations for an attitude of tolerance,
gentleness, sociability and a spirit of sharing. Experts speaking out against the use of meat
proteins can now call on support from the chemistry of neurotransmitters and from neurobiology,
two scientific disciplines that explain how such foods cause certain human behaviours.
As a result we can now act with greater certainty in our food choices, which to prefer and which to avoid.
Among other things, we should reject the idea that violence is innate in humans: no-one is born aggressive or evil, but we can become so by eating meat.

Consequences of Meat Protein on Human Behaviour
Animal proteins listed on labels as "meat" come from the muscular tissue of land-based
vertebrates, whose carcasses are used by human beings for food. To be specific, the animals are:
cattle (oxen, buffalo, bison); deer (including roebucks, fallow deer, reindeer); camels, elks,
dromedaries; goats, sheep; donkeys, horses; hares, rabbits; hedgehogs, hippopotamuses, kangaroos;
and swine (pigs, wild boars). Humans also eat the flesh of marine vertebrates: fish - we should not
forget that fish is really a kind of meat - and other aquatic animals (whales, frogs). And there is also
meat from different types of birds (poultry, ducks, turkeys, ostriches, various gamebirds).
But the meateater also cruelly kills and eats many invertebrates such as: molluscs (octopuses, cuttlefish,
squids, limpets, snails, oysters, mussels, razor and other clams, etc); shellfish (freshwater crayfish,
European lobsters, lobsters, Dublin Bay prawns, crabs, squills, spiny spider crabs); echinoderms (sea-urchins, holothurian trepangs).

All these proteins taken from the animal world means an absolute bloodbath, and it is not only
unnecessary and morally repugnant, but also responsible for physical diseases brought on by toxaemia,
even including cancer, and psychological disorders brought on by the influence towards aggression.
What we understand by the word "meat" is muscle tissue, which always contains saturated fats,
the worst for human health. Meateaters also eat liver, pancreas, thymus, saliva glands, kidney or brain -
organs not made up of muscle tissue; additionally meateaters eat tripe, which is part of the
complex stomach of ruminants; also many types of sausages, such as cooked pressed pork, spiced pork,
baloney, ham, salami, frankfurters, stuffed pig's trotters, and so on. And meateaters eat tongue
or bovine tail muscles, or sausage or dried salted beef or bacon, and so on, not to mention caviar,
mullet roe, or, as in China, dogmeat, or offal or calf's intestines.

In short, a terrible massacre, a real holocaust
Eating such enormous quantities of animal proteins has a profound effect on human behaviour.
Generally in nature carnivorous animals are fierce and aggressive, while non-carnivorous ones are peaceful
and sociable. Another thing that can easily be seen is the gradual reduction in aggression in human
beings as they move from a diet containing large amounts of meat towards one excluding high protein foods,
especially meat. It is also well known that dogs, although carnivorous in nature, keep guard and
attack strangers more effectively if they are fed larger than normal meat rations.

Similarly, in wartime, when men are to take part in highly risky military action, they have to be given
large meat rations, so that the meat is used as a drug to develop aggression, violence and moral insensitivity.

In Homer's Iliad, for example, the warriors have meat-based banquets between one battle and the next.
Seneca used to point out that among the big meateaters you could find tyrants, organisers of massacres,
feuds and fratricidal wars, instigators of murder, slave-traders, while those who fed on the fruits of the
earth behaved gently. Liebig tells how the bear in Giesen zoo became extremely restless and dangerous
if forced to eat meat instead of vegetable food.

We can say, then, that physical hygiene means mental hygiene, as J. Dalemont maintains when describing
the history of human diet in his work A Manual Of Mental Hygiene.
The slogan "meat means energy" is used by those who want to justify meateating, because this society,
based on competition, free and unfettered competition and social climbing, demands we wear an aggressive
scowl which will help us get on in the world, win our life struggles.

These brief sociobiological references already allow us to state with certainty that meat has a negative
effect on human behaviour. We can say this because, as everyone can see, human beings are readily
influenced by environmental factors, especially diet, an important truth encapsulated by the great Ludwig
Feuerbach way back in 1855, when he famously said, "Der Mann ist vas er isst." ("Man is what he eats.")
But, more than a century earlier, in 1728, a distinguished Italian expert, Bartolomeo Beccari (doctor, chemist,
and chemistry teacher at Bologna University) delivered the judgement, "Quid alius sumus, nisi it unde alimur?"
("What else are we, if not what we eat?") so expressing what Feuerbach would say much later.
It was not by chance that both these great thinkers were vegetarians. Beccari, among other things,
discovered gluten and isovalencies between animal and vegetable proteins. Man is not just an alimentary
canal to fill with various foods, but a thinking being
hose brain, like any other part of the body, must be nourished with the material necessary for
its metabolism that is delivered by the blood stream. And since most of the food we eat is
produced by a food industry concerned only with profit, without regard for our real dietary needs,
we can say that, just as orthodox medicine is conditioned and financed by the
pharmaceutical industry, so what is referred to as "the science of nutrition" is very much in the hands of the chemicalised food industry.

This is an industry that mainly seeks to sell "junk foods", especially those based on meat proteins,
with the powerful assistance of the media. Uncritical acceptance of the activities of the food industry
eads inevitably to violent behaviour towards our fellow humans and other living creatures because of
the aggression induced by carcass food. As far back as 20 centuries ago, the great Juvenal (Satires X, 512),
had pronounced on the close link between health of mind and body, with his eternal saying,
"Mens sana in corpore sano." ("A healthy mind in a healthy body.")
A healthy mind, then, requires a healthy body, which means that we should make bodily health a priority.

Much later, in the 17th century, another authoritative voice, the British philosopher, John Locke, in his work
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693), stressed the validity of Juvenal's saying about the health of the mind depending on that of the body.

So it is that we see the great importance of vegetarianism, which detoxifies the body and purifies the blood supply to the brain.
Consequently we are capable of more lucid and penetrating thought, leading to a real opening of the mind,
with increased powers of self-control and ability to withstand intellectual and physical work, initiating an attitude
of tolerance, gentleness, openness to peaceful dialogue and solutions of disputes, to love, sociability and sharing.

Electrical activity in the brain as shown by EEGs has shown that the vegetarian diet induces alpha waves,
which indicate a state of neuromuscular relaxation not just of the brain but of the whole body.
Leadbeater maintains that this scientific research proves the beneficial action of vegetarianism on behaviour,
in that it promotes a sense of wellbeing "analogous to the state of meditation on the most profound truths".

This is why through the centuries the most intelligent, the most cultured, the most open, the most
tolerant people in the world have been vegetarians, in all fields of knowledge: in science, philosophy, art, literature, medicine, and so on.
It is clear, then, that the blood supply to the brain carries with it the meat catabolites, the brain's
physiology is affected, and in the behaviour we will note -
I repeat - intolerance, the tendency to quarrelsomeness and aggression: hatred instead of love;
separation, antisocial behaviour and violence
instead of convivialityand togetherness. In this way humans get stuck in antisocial attitudes
and fierce individualism, and those who want power need only divide and rule.

Those in power know how to use the weapon of food to influence human
behaviour towards what is most convenient for their purposes, and so
they do all they can to encourage us to eat dead, poisoned, intoxicating foods, especially meat.
Ultimately the target is the brain, which they want to render incapable of
understanding. In conclusion, while vegetarianism favours the highest cognitive faculties, carcasses
depress them, encouraging behaviours damaging to the individual
and society, and reduce serotonin levels. A meal high in meat proteins reduces tryptophane levels
in the brain, and so leads to aggression, anxiety and propensity to fighting;
whereas the more we rely on the fruits of the earth and follow vegetarian principles,
the more positive our behaviour. Our choice of food, then, influences our behaviour and emotions.

This is what Dr Rossi says, and experimental confirmation for this has come from John Fernstrom
and Richard Hurthman, biologists in the Department of Nutrition and Dietary Sciences at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Serotonin in fact has a particular capacity to cause sleepiness.

Some "nutritionists" against vegetarianism (for various reasons, permissible or secret) maintain
that aggression is not caused by meat proteins, but rather innate in humans, a ridiculous
assertion, since no-one is born aggressive and bad, but may become so under the influence of meat.
The well known anthropologist, Luigi Lombardi Satriani, says that it is just an excuse for us to blame
aggression on nature, an excuse we as a society use to escape our responsibilities. No-one is born bad,
otherwise aggression would be universal, which anthropology shows to be wrong. In fact, societies
with absolutely non-violent cultures have existed and still do. For example, certain tribes in
Africa or groups of Indians in north-west Brazil or the Piaroa Indians in Venezuela, have built
very peaceful societies, based on cooperation, without a trace of aggression in their children's upbringing,
and the children's games reflect the balanced lifestyle, since they consist of dancing, singing and love.
Hatred is unknown, and it is common knowledge that these people are vegetarians.
Do we need better evidence that diet influences the character?

We should not forget that the powerful used to like to flaunt their supposed superiority by
ostentatiously eating meat, since they believed that meat, a dietary symbol of violence,
was a badge to show that they belonged to the strong. But in order to eat meat
there needs to have been an earlier violent act, culminating in the killing of an animal,
so that meateating, based on murder as it is, is inevitably associated with violence
and brute force, whereas vegetarianism is based on the stability, tranquillity and serenity
of the vegetable world which, in its powerful nobility, draws life and strength from
Mother Earth to give it to humanity. Professor Carlo Sirtori, a distinguished clinician and
scientist, has brought to light how meateating leads to aggression in humans, because
phosphorus and calcium are to be found in meat in a ratio of 50:1. Meateating leads to
a phosphorus excess which is not natural for humans, whose milk has a 1:2 phosphorus-calcium ratio.
Sirtori comments that this fact leads to a fall in calcium levels, leading to irritable and aggressive behaviour,
and sometimes convulsions in small children.

During the Gulf War in 1992, US marines getting ready to go into action were supplied with
50,000 turkeys in addition to the normal, abundant meat rations. The reason:
"They are soldiers and have to eat a lot of meat." In other words: "They have to attack, and meat helps make them aggressive."
I will end my speech by quoting the well-known words of the philosopher, Jacopo Moleschott, which confirms meat's aggressive influence:
"As long as the Irishman is fed with potatoes, he will be subjugated by the Englishman eating steak and roast beef."

- translations by Hugh Rees, Milan - commissioned by Associazione Vegetariana Italiana (AVI)
http://www.purifymind.com/MeatProtein.htm