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Harmful Effects of Eating Non-Vegetarian Food | Daaji and Clancy Martin | Compass E02
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what should we
diet welcome to an original exploration
of everyday moral dilemas with
philosopher Professor Clancy Martin and
thi [Music]
food it is a necessity for our
survival but for many of us it is much
more than that it is one of the
principal pleasures of life it brings us
together whether it be Jesus and the
apostles at the Last Supper or a modern
family going out to dine at their
favorite restaurant food has become
Central to social [Music]
[Music]
Gatherings but of late there has also
been a lot of debate about
food what is healthy what is not what is
ethical what is
not let's hear from Professor Clancy
food in the western philosophical
tradition when we first start thinking
about um how best to feed ourselves what
to eat and what not to eat um we see it
arise in the ancient Greek tradition and
the ancient Greek philosophers thought
not so much about um the impact of
eating on the world around them or even
to be fair on what was being eaten and
we'll be talking about that today but um
the relationship between living a good
life oneself a life that one wants to
live and can considers to be a
praiseworthy life and the fact that you
do indeed need to eat in order to
live the most um interesting thinking on
the subject really comes to us from the
Greek philosopher Epic epicurus epicurus
was a materialist in fact and what we
mean by a materialist in this series of
series of conversations is that is one
who believes that all that exists is
matter and motion he thought that there
was no life before we were born he
thought there was no life after we die
um he thought that everything that we
think of as human life exists while we
are living in this ordinary place that
we all the world that we all call
home and but he thought that what you
ate was an important part of whether
that life was going to be a good
one he made an interesting division
between pleasures and pains which he
thought came to us naturally and then
within the context of pleasures and
pains he thought to live a good life was
quite simple seek Pleasures avoid pains
but within the context of those
Pleasures he thought there are some
Pleasures which are natural and
necessary there are some Pleasures which
are natural but unnecessary and then
there are some Pleasures which are both
unnatural and
unnecessary now a natural and necessary
pleasure of course is
eating but only eating a certain amount
eating in moderation eating as much as
we need in order to produce health for
the body it's very easy for us to eat um
epicurus thought in an unnatural or an
unnecessary way now for
epicurus um there's nothing he thought
first of all natural and necessary
Pleasures should absolutely be
cultivated so eating in a healthy way was
was
just crucial to living a good life to
the possibility of having these other
Pleasures to continue to live at all and
also an important part of that good life
a genuine pleasure that we should
cultivate and that we can do better or
worse um doing it well means choosing
our Foods thoughtfully choosing foods
that do in fact make us healthier that
um contribute to our feeling of
wellbeing contribute to our feeling of
nourishment but we can also epicurus
thought eat something that is
unnecessary but still natural so when it
came to consumption of this kind he
listed you know foods which are
Pleasures or uh drinks which are
Pleasures like wine for example is a
good example of for epicurus oven
of an unnecessary but natural pleas
pleasure one glass of wine or a cup of
tea or something you don't have to have
it but nevertheless it's still a
pleasure and those Pleasures Pleasures
which he called natural but unnecessary
Pleasures he thought you should keep an
eye on indulge in them in some
moderation to the degree to which they
contribute to one's happiness contribute
to one's flourishing but be careful that
because they are not necessary they May
tend to slide into a different category
the category of Pleasures which he
thought we should avoid at all costs
which are unnatural and unnecessary
Pleasures unnatural and unnecessary
Pleasures are those which actually will
destroy the body and destroy our our
Capa ultimately destroy our capacity to
feel pleasure at all so an unnatural and
unnecessary pleasure for example which
can become a pleasure for people but but
ought not according to epicurus would be
overeating or the over consumption of
alcohol or um eating things which um you
know acquire a great deal of sort of
connoisseurship in order to acquire a
taste for but they don't actually
benefit the body at all and even though
you you kind of think that you're
enjoying them because you've cultivated
The Taste for them they're really not
good for you and we can all think of
things we can consume so for example if
there had been um
uh cigarette smoking in epicurus's time
he would say I could see how you can
cultivate a pleasure for that but it's
an unnatural pleasure it destroys the
body and it's unnecessary you don't
require it in order to go on living a
good life so that's the first thinking
about um how to eat well from the
ancient Greeks and I think it to this
day provides a good a basic guideline
for thinking about how to eat as an
being but is food merely a natural and necessary
pleasure then what is the reason that
cultures around the world have developed
elaborate rituals and prayers around the
[Music] food
let's turn to daaji to try and get a deeper
understanding to my
mind the entire culinary
experience is both for pleasure and out of
of
necessity human trait is to engage in
fulfilling our Necessities with some
level of
embellishment Joy it's part of having having
having meals
meals
furthermore if we partake what we
consume in right frame of mind can have
a double impact on our physical mental
emotional and spiritual
needs here the thought action
prevails effect of thoughts on various
neurotransmitters while you're partaking
meals with your dear ones and suddenly
your spouse approaches some controversial
controversial
topic where you have to defend yourself
or your teenage child brings forth some
moral issues affecting them plus the way they
defend their controversial or
food even the best food that is put in
front of of you by your loved ones if
your mood is not right it will turn to
ashes or say you are so happy and
feeling loud that even the simplest of
foods made by someone you love will
taste just
Divine so where is the pleasure is it
not in your perception and state at the
time of partaking
your this meal
this is why how we eat and in what state
we eat is more
important science also talks greatly
about this vagus
nerve vus nerve is a key the brain can
body and the body to the brain through
the vus
nerve the entire gut intelligen is
regulated by this vas nerve people often
talk especially in the scientific world
brain we observe that when even if we
eat highly nourishing foods and spend a
lot of time preparing them
well if we are unable to eat in the
right frame of mind the intestines
cannot absorb nourishment from the food
that passes
through we build toxicity and the inner
environment of our body starts becoming
prone to cultivating cells that are
deceased and proliferate in such an
environment this is yet
another demonstration of the Mind Body
Connection and how our thoughts emotions
and physical Sensations are interconnected
connected today most families have
fallen into this habit of eating in disturbing
disturbing
ways food is consumed at all hours of a
day without
routine mobile telephones and
televisions are constantly on while
eating food prepared is done with a very
limited time that is available hardly
any of it is made from scratch or from the
the
beginning in a jostling stressful World
there is little time to Accord to
Preparing and eating food
correctly people grab a quick sandwich
or run to a nearby fast food to swallow
what they can before hitting their work
again late night dinners are common and
very few families sit together to eat
and spend time
together in such
circumstances we create an inner
environment in our bodies as the
neurophysiological and chemical
processes are Disturbed as a result and
should therefore in the ancient
Traditions emphasis was given to to your
state of mind how the food was prepared
how the food was
served you know and they classified
depending upon the effects of food on
our moods not just the energy level
these Foods were classified into satwik
rajasic and
tamik all of them classified based on
their ability to affect our consciousness
that is why
prayer is so important before partaking
meals so as to create certain level of spiritual
spiritual atmosphere
atmosphere
perhaps equally important to me is to be
grateful to all those who prepared this
this meal in front of
us simply closing our
eyes as at the end of the meal and in
the Deep silence Express this
gratitude not just
before beginning of our meal but at the
end of the course of the meal too will
help in fact it is more important when
we express our
gratitude after taking meals just try it
while it may be relatively easy to
change how we eat what about what we
eat cultures around the world eat a wide
variety of
foods how do we make a more informed
eat the utilitarians spend a lot of time
thinking about this there's an
Australian utilitarian philosopher by
the name of Peter Singer whose work you
may want to take a look at and um
there's some very nice videos also on a
that Peter Singer has produced that are
available on YouTube you can look them
up but I particularly recommend his
writing and Peter Singer points out that
it's true that we are sentient beings
and we human beings are sentient beings
and we have pains and pleasures and we
have happiness and unhappiness but he he
also points out why do we suppose that
only our own happiness or unhappiness is
relevant he has an idea he calls
speciesism and what he means by
speciesism is that when I prefer when I
am only considering human beings and
other human beings when I'm thinking
about the question of eating um maybe I
am being a speciesist like another
person might be a racist would say hey
well that's a little racist isn't it you
need to extend your thinking um and
recognize that all people are relevant
not just one race well similarly Peter
Singer says maybe we human beings need
to extend our thinking and recognize
that it's not just our species that is
relevant but all these other species are
relevant too because they are sentient
because like us they seek happiness and
avoid unhappiness they seek pleasure and avoid
avoid
pain and if we recognize that
which is hard to avoid that uh the
conclusion that other non-human animals
also experience pain and pleasure well
then uh what we eat is going to
change because we are going to recognize
that we have to start thinking about the
sentients of the beings that we eat and
we might think okay well I look at a cow
I see a cow definitely experiencing pain
and definitely experiencing pleasure so
cows are off the list um I look at a dog
okay well no dogs are off the list I
look at Dolphins okay dolphins are off
the list but then I look at a salmon and
I think hm that salmon behavior of that
salmon it's awfully similar to that um
other animal that I already took off the
list I better take the S I better take
the salmon off the list also and pretty
soon you will wind up where a lot of us
of course have wound up we wind up as a
vegetarian saying that that um all
non-human animals um and of course
humans are also off the list we're just
not going to eat anything that we can
recognize as experiencing [Music]
sentients but there is
also the fact that um there are a lot of
human beings on the planet
we do have respect for these human
beings and they have to be fed they also
have to be clothed they they have to
interact with their environments and
sometimes these conver these arguments
tend to make it sound like every other
being on the planet gets to be a natural
being except for the humans and there's
something unnatural about us and our
needs and that also is not
true and that is why we may want to
think about when it comes to uh the
principle of eating for example rather
than forcing ourselves to live by increasingly
increasingly rigid
rigid
um conventions that might make it
extremely difficult for all of the human
beings on the planet to live at all to
follow a gentler [Music]
[Music] principle
principle
while certain environments and
circumstances May necessitate the
consumption of non-vegetarian food is
there any excuse for consuming
non-vegetarian food when it can be easily
avoided yes it's one of the most
controversial topic we are entering into now
now [Music]
[Music]
vegetarianism there's a lot of debate
about vegetarian and nonvegetarian Arian
meals so many diets are tossed about as
the best way to eat let us go beyond the
mere elements that make of this
food where we are supposed to have more
proteins or more carbs
Etc imagine for a moment our planet
being attacked by
aliens these
aliens favorite food is human embryo
just think for a moment such a situation
situation
how in the world they target millions of
pregnant women line them up and simply
divor their growing
fetus later they tame or cultivate the
human race just for the
embryo somehow we are also like aliens
visiting this planet and behaving like
them and not doing our part in
strides when we eat nonvegetarian food
that has embedded the
patterns at the time of
slauter and we take
those when we consume that food we
become part of those vibratory
level of the animal they lead to a certain
certain
grossness or sadness or death inity or
anger that we accumulate
energetically vibrationally from the
food more you enjoy such food more they
become part of you because you are
allowing it to happen
happen
animals are also santian beings to a
plant this reminds me of Fred Rogers the
well-known American television
host was also a presbyterian Minister
used to say that he could never
eat he could never e a thing that had a
mother also I I personally feel that
eggs can have a heavier charge or
grossness than many other nonvegetarian
Foods think of it as what must be going
through the mind of the hand that lays
the egg the mother hand has the simple
attachment what her eggs will hatch
eventually when we remove them from her
that longing and fear for her eggs
gets latched on to that substance that
we later
consume that thoughts or those thoughts
affect matter is now no longer a
mystical phenomena it is proven by so
many EXP experiments conducted in labs
world while beginning to recognize the
effect of thought on matter science has
also brought to our attention a more
tangible result of our consumer
habits science points to the modern
malaise of overc
consumption a study in America showed
that if every human on earth consumed as
much of this planet resources as the
average American we would need seven
earthlike planets to sustain
ourselves this is all the more
scandalous when dealing with the
consumption of food because
approximately 9 million people die of
hunger or hunger related diseases around
the world every
year we're we're all familiar with these
arguments when it comes to the question
of our consumption and our impact on the
environment and global warming and
future Generations another Nuance that
we need to always bear in
mind the more we consume and the more
thoughtlessly we consume um the more we
harm the environment around us the
more difficult we make the lives of
future Generations so when we are
thinking in a utilitarian way also in a
Buddhist way we recognize
that harm can extend very far out from
ourselves that harm can be like you know
dropping uh a pebble in a pond and the
ripples extend a long long way much
further than we
anticipate so for this reason again
trying as best we can to do a little
less harm rather than to do more harm
trying to be increasingly thoughtful
about the way in which we consume food
in particular um
um can have a much greater impact for
suppose I recommend everyone to visit a
village and see how food is produced raw
materials are produced how each farmer
is putting his heart and keeps his hands
busy all while until the crop is
harvested and and given out to the
market so much of sweat and energy is
invested in
producing the [Music]
[Music]
meal after visiting a village when you
see how they go through amount of
rice you would not waste even one grain
from your plate because that you will be
able to witness how much trouble they
have taken in preparing these
grains looking from a spiritual angle
certainly it is a fact that wasting food
or consuming
irresponsibly has an impact on
us awareness or lack of awareness
leading to Inner Harmony or
Discord peace or
disturbance leads us often to
optimization or lack of
it peace literally oozes out of us and
when so many of us start living in such a
a
manner all with using our peaceful
vibrations out of contentment our impact
on the planet will shift towards an
authentic and responsible behavior that
naturally includes the good of all
beings not just humans each
each
day as we cultivate such an inner
quality of
life you would automatically know when
to eat how to eat how much to itat and
what time of the day to eat in the most
natural and simple way simplest manner
everything starts falling into place as
we are able to draw just what is
required and develop an inner
Compass inner compass that can guide us
towards good eating
habits all
altruism empathy begins with a calm and
relaxed harmonious Inner
Space that is
trained by a daily practice ice of inner [Music]
balancing thank you taji and Dr Clancy
Martin for those valuable
insights that is certainly a lot of food
for thought and that is most certainly a
very bad pun thank you also to our
listeners for joining us do join us
again for the next episode of compass
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