Originally posted by
Joanna
I've been vegetarian then vegan for (doing math in head) 33 years - since leaving home at 19.
Silently, internally, I was in hell through teen years - after unexpectedly seeing a sheep slaughtered at 12 by two men who wrestled it onto its back on a wooden frame while it bleated and fought to escape, before they cut its throat. I have never forgotten the wall of agony that hit me that day, and proceeded to have recurring dreams through my teens, of being in slaughterhouses holding the faces of cows, trying to comfort them as they were killed.
My family went prawning through the summers, and I would walk along behind on the beach and pick up the hundreds of tiny fish flipping around on the sand left carelessly to die, with tears pouring down my face.
When I tried to go veg at that age, I had no idea of nutrition, and just left off eating the meat, and became protein and iron deficient, so began eating it again, although it never sat right in my heart, while putting up with a fair bit of mockery from family members.
I felt the suffering of life very acutely, human and animal, and still do...but am able to stay in balance much better and far more easily now. It was a long road though, and I am grateful every moment to be able to hold my peace in the midst of a storm of violence. Humans are currently eating 70 billion land animals per year, around 54 billion of which are 'intensively farmed', meaning they live in confinement, deprivation, and mostly with very shortened and often painful lives, before being sent to slaughter.
It is impossible not to kill, while in physical 3D form - every breath we take kills a stack of micro-organisms.
But that is different to intentionally enslaving other living beings in order to eat them, or wear them. The right to own and dictate the lives of other beings is still very ingrained in humanity, and won't change overnight (miracle excepted, which I'm always open to). :)
There's a qualitative difference between having a caring companion relationship with an animal - including those who produce milk and eggs - and using them as a product whose feelings and quality of life don't matter, and discarding their babies as waste byproducts.
In the 1970s my great aunt and uncle had a dairy, where their cows were at least well-treated slaves, and their calves stayed with them and fed at night.
Now, at least in Australia, the majority of calves are taken from their mothers before they're 24 hours old, and 700 000 'bobby calves' are sent to slaughter each year at five days old. They are now legally allowed to be kept 'off food' for 30 hours, and arrive at the slaughterhouse bewildered, dehydrated, often sick and with infections, some unable to walk...when they should be with their mothers by any kind of natural right. But they're seen as the worthless cast-offs of slave animals - who themselves now are considered 'spent' at 4 to 5 years old (a cow naturally lives up to 22) as soon as their milk tapers of maximum yield...and btw, in the 1970s the average cow produced 2800 litres per year, now it's 5400 litres per year.
Callous indifference along with outright cruelty continue to reinforce humanity's 'annexation' to/by some very cold, unloving players in the galactic field, from my point of view.
On the other hand, in the last 33 years, the shift of first vegetarianism, then veganism and even fruitarian diets, into a more mainstream awareness and acceptability, has been profound. In the 1980s I had to go to a specialist health shop to buy tofu or tempeh. Now, there are about eight different kinds on the local supermarket shelves, plus all manner of veggie pre-made dishes, pies etc. There are so many plant-based milks available now, it's incredible. This week I'm drinking Macadamia Milk, and have coconut milk, soy milk and almond milk in the cupboard! This has all changed in only a few years. Wow!
The last two years there's also a lot of organic foods in regular supermarkets, and superfoods like chia seeds, which are now being grown in the north of Western Australia - the climate suits them ideally...and chia is huge in protein, iron, calcium and Omega 3's.
So I'm finding this a really great time to be on this planet as a vegan/fruitarian gradually shifting off the need for physical foods, which is my preferred goal...
Yay :)