Hi everyone.
*warning - emotional spill - lol*
I am new to this board and I joined because of late, and in fact since my earliest years, I have been with an unshakeable feeling of guilt when i eat meat. I was one of those children who did not believe meat was made of real animal until told so by my parents (i guess alot of kids are like this) and when told so I actually remember my heart breaking. My Dad has always encouraged meat eating however and i guess that really set me on my meat eating from that age onwards.
I look back and i ask myself if i resent him for his attitude, and the truth is - yes i really bloody do. Memories of him telling me "meat is good for you" and cracking jokes about how much i had eaten, and that i should eat more not only utterly annoy me, they have started to make me feel physically sick. In my head i contrast my Dads "humour" over this against the various pictures/movies i have seen showing cows/pigs/chickens and other animals being tortured,tormented by seemingly unfeeling people, and finally slaughtered make me literally want to hit him so hard his nose bleeds.
I also can not shake a feeling that that smug "meat is good for you" attitude will one day have some kind of karmic retribution against him (abstract i know but i am just writing how i feel at the moment).
I find myself of late actually talking to the animal whose meat i eat, and in fact all the animals i have eaten from since i was born - seeking their forgiveness, hoping against hope that they are "at peace now", promising i will pay by whatever means for being part of the race that was responsible for its and its kin treatment, and telling it i love it and respect it.
I wonder to myself if the moment i discovered a great majority of our race survive by killing and eating animals wasn't the saddest day of my life.
Despite being a meat eater, i have always loved and respected animals. One animal which i have unending admiration for is the Gorilla.
When i have considered the Gorilla's lifestyle of lazing in foliage, tending to and nurturing their precious young, grooming each other.. watched over and protected by their formidable Silverback, eating only the vegetation/fruits around them and doing no harm to any other being but those who would threaten them I have known myself to cry. No words can express how much beauty i find in that noble being, and also encouragement and hope. I have unimaginable inner rage at those who would hurt or exploit this animal. If i saw one of those people who did so being mauled by a Silverback.. I would be applauding the Silverback without question.
They symbolize to me something that i wish i had found more predominately in the human race from birth.
It is perhaps hard to describe, but since i actually began to look deeply at the nature of survival itself and my own. I can not shake the feeling that i feel misplaced while the various creatures around me feed off one another in order to further their life, whilst I harbor this feeling of love for them and long to love everything.
Thankfully, again, when feeling at odds with the nature of being alive the thought of the magnificent Gorilla brings me solace.
When it comes to my eating, and my desire to be free of being party to the suffering of other beings I have found myself having problems. Veganism seems so absolutely alien to me after twenty nine years of eating meat, and after i tried it for two weeks i found myself slipping back to what i am used to.
My moral self is telling me that Veganism is the way i should be though, and I am serious about making this step from my current eating habits. I am hoping a few more attempts and experimentations will make a successful transition in time.
I had sort of let it slide for a few months since i last "went Vegan" but recently the guilt has been building and I felt that perhaps posting this somewhere with people who understand would help me actually "get round to it" again.
Thank you for reading.
We have the luxury in our society in the West, to have the choice to eat meat or not. If that choice is taken from us, we should not feel bad about it. If we were not meant to eat meat, our bodies would not facilitate it. If you put a sheep or a cow in a pen and starved it of vegetation, would it eat meat if offered it? If you put a carnivore in a pen and starved it, would it eat vegetation? Some creatures have adapted their bodies to eat certain foods. And some humans are in environments where they have no vegetarian options. So what is right and what is wrong? Well, it's the way we treat the animals we slaughter that is the problem. Our intention.
Here is a scenario. I recently talked to someone who had visited India. She came across this situation.... a group of people had put a dog in a pit, doused it in petrol and set it alight. Why? Because they wanted to see what would happen. The dog did not die. So they watched it suffer. It lingered for days. Why? Because being Hindu, they are not supposed to kill a creature. Now, you tell me where the logic is in this? So much for them not eating meat out of concern for an living creature.
Now, I know that the above ghastly tale is no doubt an isolated incident, but it highlighted for me just how hypocritical religion can be.
So being a vegetarian can often be a choice situation or a situation governed by religion, and topography.
I'd say if you want to eat meat, or feel the need to, then don't condemn yourself too much, but do strive to at least purchase free range and organic and keep your intake as cruelty free as you can.
Hi archaic
On reading your heartfelt post, I had to wonder why you couldn't start off more easily than immediately going vegan. Why not try just cutting out red meat to begin with. Eat only organic fish and chicken, and eat th
at sparingly. Then after a week or so, cut that out too and try being vegetarian but not necessarily vegan. Don't beat yourself up about it, just go with the flow.
xxx
Hi,
Don't look back, most Western Vegans started out eating meat and poultry, it was the thing to do, and how we were educated, and there was not the internet to keep us informed about what is fed to our animals, how they are treated, what it does to us, and how the planet cannot sustain meat eating on the scale of today, unless the poorer peoples of the world continue to starve. The production of meat is a high contributer to Global Warming.
Best Wishes,
Peter RAS
Hello archaic29,
I've just found your post and can really identify with where you are coming from, so I thought I would respond.
I was also bought up in a traditional British meat-eating family. As I said in another post I never like the idea of eating animals as a child but was pressurised by my parents to so so.
My father worked for the City Council and one of his jobs was to do inspections/audits at council premises, and this included the slaughterhouses. When he was due to go one day I asked him to go and see how the animals were treated. When he came back I asked him about it - I was about 11 at the time -and he told me that "the animals don't suffer" and they "didn't feel anything".
With hindsight I think that either a) he didn't go to the slaughter hall or b) he did and lied to protect my sensitivities.
(This was in the days before pre-stunning was compulsory by law.)
Either way I was given mis-information which persuaded me that it was sort-of-OK to eat meat and I did so reluctantly for another 7 years until I left home. When I found out the truth I was really angry at having been mislead and I didn't set much store by anything my parents said after that.
I vowed that I would never let another person be misinformed like I was, hence my activity on forums such as these, and in veggie groups.
Despite my experiences, it took me 25 years to go vegan and I started by just cutting out the meat, then the fish etc. So I agree with Sunanda and don't think you need to beat yourself up over it. "Every little helps", as they say.
Kind regards P.
Here is a scenario. I recently talked to someone who had visited India. She came across this situation.... a group of people had put a dog in a pit, doused it in petrol and set it alight. Why? Because they wanted to see what would happen. The dog did not die. So they watched it suffer. It lingered for days. Why? Because being Hindu, they are not supposed to kill a creature. Now, you tell me where the logic is in this? So much for them not eating meat out of concern for an living creature.
...it highlighted for me just how hypocritical religion can be.
This disgusting act has nothing to do with religion, it's about plain human cruelty and nothing more. Don't blame religion for that.
Hindu philosophy teaches that anyone who inflicts injury, pain or death on another creature will pay a Karmic debt for having done so.
Don't blame religion for that.
There is disgusting cruelty all over the world, but I will always remember on experience of India. A company I used to work for has an office in Pune. When at the office I used to watch the "stray" street dogs being fed every morning. A huge tipper truck comes in the mornings and dumps a pile of bones in the street for the dogs.
Yes there is cruelty in the world but there is great kindness too.
Myarka.
Hi archaic29
It struck me as interesting that have been eating meat all these years.... have you been eating AND feeling guilty for all these years, or has the guilt just come up recently? Has your relationship with your father altered in any way recently?
best wishes