A lot of my friends are vegans so I realize I won't be making myself popular here… But I've had this article lying around for a few months now & it's something I honestly believe. Therefore it's on my blog. I hope it doesn't cause too much offense and does cause some thinking.

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I Eat Meat Because I Love Animals

With health, as with many things, yesterday's answers and solutions are not necessarily today's. I was a vegetarian for six years, vegan for most of that time and, barring the occasional indiscretion, 100% raw vegan for 18 months. Although I gave up cooked food to improve my health, I gave up meat for environmental and animal welfare reasons. I just couldn't live with the idea of killing another in order to sustain my own life – or worse still to excite my palate.

However, as you can see from the title of this article, I am now not only a meat eater, but I genuinely believe that I'm ethically in a better position than I was when I was vegetarian or vegan. It's not that I was doing anything deliberately wrong back then, I was simply misguided and misinformed.

The argument for veganism goes as follows: animals, like humans, should be free and we should not impinge upon that freedom. That includes keeping them in fenced fields and milking them and definitely includes killing them and eating them. When I followed this path, I felt I was evolving spiritually as I deepened my compassion for the world. I was more sensitive to the suffering of others and therefore increasingly reluctant to become the cause of it.

From the point of view of the heart, this is an entirely reasonable line of thinking, however, we humans are more than just emotional beings – we are highly developed intellectual beings too. And rather than leaving us cold and logical, one of the marvels of this intellect is that it actually allows us to empathise more deeply with another heart: another heart that may function very differently to our own. In fact, whether that heart is human or of another species, we often need our intellect working in tandem with our heart to bridge the gap and truly experience the feelings of another.

So, with our minds engaged just as much as our hearts, we come back to the argument: animals should be free. But what does freedom mean to a pig, or a goat? Undoubtedly some humans, but not all, would see a fence as a restriction on their freedom. But does an animal, given ample room to play and exercise, look at a fence and feel a burning desire to get to the other side? Upon meeting the barbed wire, rather than brooding about the injustice of their imprisonment, would they not simply turn around and forage somewhere else? What I am saying is that a golden cage is no cage at all to many animals. Captivity, if it is carried out with with kindness and respect, means safety for the captive and in reality results in greater freedom to play, eat and express natural behaviour.

But surely, slaughter is an impingement on an animal's freedom right? Not so. This is a tough lesson for the evolving heart to learn, but there are plenty of humans, let alone animals, who would rather be taken care of and die a quick death, than live in freedom but possibly die in a prolonged and painful way. If you had to live a lifetime as a pig, which would you rather: the risk of some nasty demise or injury in the wild, or a safe happy life followed by quick trip to the slaughter house that ends very suddenly?

Like I said, it's a hard lesson for the heart to learn and the closer you get to the actual slaughter of the animals, the harder it gets. And it should be hard! One should never take the life of another lightly. But by accepting and embracing the 'red in tooth and claw' of the natural world and being willing to honestly put ourselves in the footprints of an animal, we can allow nature to express itself in the kindest way possible.

As part of my project to improve conditions in pig farming, I recently visited a free range pig farm. I realised that were I a believer in reincarnation, I would gladly and gratefully come back as one of their pigs and much prefer it to the life of a wild boar here in Tuscany where I live. They were happy, peaceful creatures, treated with love and respect by the farmers. By eating them I give them that life. It's good karma to eat them and their well-being is inseparably linked to my own.

Virtually every indigenous culture the world has ever seen has eaten meat – cultures probably wiser than our own in may ways and certainly with a far more profound connection to the land and the animal kingdom. Are we really so much wiser than all of them? We must think extremely carefully before making such an assertion. Perhaps veganism is an evolution to a new dawn for humanity, or perhaps it is simply an understandable reaction to the gratuitous cruelty of modern man's farming system. For my own part, I feel we are better off embracing the natural world that has existed for longer than any living civilisation. Our kindness and empathy must be within that context, otherwise it cannot be real, sincere or lasting.

As I said earlier, I eat meat, fish and dairy because I love animals. Since becoming a conscious omnivore, the health of my body depends directly upon the health and well-being of land and sea creatures, wild and farmed. This is man's natural relationship with the world. I believe that the vegan movement, whilst well meaning, is both a disconnection from nature and a dead end. Rather than campaigning for the abstinence advocated by veganism, we should work towards greater consciousness of and connection with the food sources that have sustained us for many millennia. I put it to you that spiritual evolution is characterized, not by change, but by a deeper understanding of what is already there.

http://30days2change1thing.com

My challenge is, I've been bouncing backwards and forwards between Italy & the UK now for a couple of years. I've done some computing freelance work but basically I haven't earnt a proper living over that time or the year previous… So over the next 30 days I'm going to start bringing more money in than is going out, right here in Italy!

I have the following skills:

Qualified Yoga Teacher – Yeah I swore I'd never teach again but I can teach 1to1s in silence if I have to (& I might 'cos my Italian falters whenever I try so talk about anything more complicated than the weather/Berlusconi )

Musician – Actually my music career's going well atm. I'm talking with a record label, getting fans/like on facebook every day for my various projects and have nearly finished an album… But money is not going to coming in quickly enough to rescue me. So perhaps some guitar/piano tuition is on the cards…

Computing – You'd think a Computing Masters from Imperial College would be of use but the language barrier & the length of time since I've worked anything other than freelance in computing seriously limits that. On the plus side I have website development & online marketing experience that's cutting edge so we'll see…

I'm already on day 3 here 'cos I spent the last couple of days investigating/discussing a website/online marketing project with a language school. This would be great 'cos it's pretty similar work to what I'm doing already for my music & for Alison's projects – plus they all speak better English than I do:).

I'll tweet about this every day 'cos if I tell everyone then it'll be too embarrassing to even consider failiure!

Rob

Principal number 1 – Individual Responsibility For Your Own Unique Body

The responsibility for eating correctly rests firmly with your good self. This is not something you can just hand to someone else (like a doctor for example…). True, doctors can provide you with information via blood tests etc. Also, a nutritionist will have far more information on which foods commonly have which effects on people.
But ultimately, only *you* get detailed feedback every time you eat something and every day as you feel the long term effects of a diet. So *you* have to make the decisions. And the solutions will be unique because your genetics and past eating habits will determine the weak points in your body that you have to be gentle with. For me it's complex carbs. I abused my digestion when I was young and have to be careful with them. Still I value them for the slow release of carbohydrate energy they give – and with a lower water content than fruit.
You have individual needs and you are the best placed observer to figure out what they are!

Principal 2: It's Not What You Got, It's What You Do With It!

Some will tell you that particular foods are intrinsically bad – like grains or animal products or fruit or cooked food n general… This is not so. Whatever your opinions on the science or your observations on your own body, the fact is that humans have been surviving in all sorts of environments and all sorts of diets for hundreds of thousands of years and often in far better health than the average burger munching (or even health conscious) westerner. However, they did it by growing and preparing the food properly. Meat was wild or naturally reared, often eaten raw but not always. Grains and nuts were always soaked/fermented. Seriously, proper preparation makes all the difference between nutritious food and poison.

The thing about preparation is it's not so important how much of it you do. However, it *is* important the reason *why* you are doing it. Eating fruit/veggies raw and in their natural state is great but not if you're doing it out of laziness to avoid cooking. Similarly, cooking or juicing or whatever to increase nutrient availability or make something more digestible or even more palatable is great… …preparation to titillate and addict the consumer is definitely not.
Source food properly and prepare it intelligently and you won't go far wrong. However, principal 2 is superseded by principal 1. Your individuality is more important.

Principal 3: Eat like it's a Sunday afternoon on a three day weekend!

There's no hurry! You can't eat properly if you're depressed, anxious, stressed, over excited etc. In this way, your whole quality of life effects the quality of your digestion. A peaceful, fulfilling life leads to a peaceful, fulfilled tummy. Meanwhile, try to be as peaceful and gentle as you can with your food and it will pay you handsomely in return. Principal 3 is supeseded by the two previous rules although I'd point out that if you're calm and rational and peaceful all the time you'll probably be implementing the first two anyhow!

Notice I haven't given you anything prescriptive here that says 'eat this' or 'don't eat that'. That's because proper eating is a journey. You'll rarely fix anything overnight – just learn and improve as you grow as a person! Happy eating folks!