Raw-Can-Roll-Kitchen

Spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants. -Mahatma Gandhi

taken from worldpeacediet.com

“Cruelty to animals is as if man did not love God…there is something so dreadful, so satanic, in tormenting those who have never harmed us, and who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power.”
—Cardinal John Henry Newman

taken from worldpeacediet.com

We can argue that animals are largely unconscious, decreeing that because animals seem to lack the complex language that allows them to formulate thoughts in words as we do, their experience of suffering must therefore be less significant or intense for them. This same thinking, however, could be used to justify harming human infants and senile elderly people. If anything, beings who lack the ability to analyze their circumstances may suffer at our hands more intensely than we would because they are unable to put the distance of internal dialogue between themselves and their suffering.

Taken from www.worldpeacediet.com

The lesson is quite basic. If we can’t stop the cruelty of eating animal foods, how can we presume to develop the sensitivity, the spiritual consciousness, the joy, peace, and creative freedom that are our potential?
Photo from Ashes and Snow website

from worldpeacediet.com

We will only survive and thrive if we recognize the central power of our meals to shape our consciousness. Food is eaten and becomes the physical vehicle of consciousness, and consciousness chooses what to incorporate into itself from itself. Do we cultivate and eat fear or love? Terrorized animals or nurtured plants? We cannot build a tower of love with bricks of cruelty. photo by: Erik Sens

from worldpeacediet.com

“If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, then you have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.”

-St. Francis of Assisi

taken from www.worldpeacediet.com

An interesting objection to adopting a plant-based way of eating that many Christians rely on is the saying by Jesus that “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man” (Matthew 15:11). This is often interpreted as giving us permission to eat anything we like and instructing us instead to be mindful of our speech. By now it should be clear that this objection misses the point entirely. When we order a chicken or a cheeseburger at a deli, restaurant, or market, that is the moment that we engage in violence and cause “murders,” “thefts,” and suffering to defenseless animals and disadvantaged people. At that moment we are like the general who gives an order to kill someone in a faraway country; though he never sees the blood or hears the scream, he is nevertheless responsible for the killing.
Photo by: EssJay

From worldpeacediet.com

As omnivores, we may resent vegans for reminding us of the suffering we cause, for we’d rather be comfortable and keep all the ugliness hidden, but our comfort has nothing to do with justice or with authentic inner peace. It is the comfort of blocking out and disconnecting, and it comes with a terrible price. We may rationalize our meals by saying that we always thank the animal’s spirit for offering her body to nourish us. If someone were to lock us up, torture us, steal our children, and then stab us to death, would we acquiesce as long as they thanked our spirit?

Photo by: Marilyn Jane

From worldpeacediet.com

“There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to beasts as well as man it is all a sham.”
Anna Sewell, Black Beauty