WHY BE A VEGETARIAN?

Avoidance of meat has been a part of religious practice in nearly all faiths. Some Egyptian priests were vegetarians, avoiding meat in order to help them maintain vows of celibacy. They also avoided eggs, which they called "liquid flesh."

Although the Old Testament, the foundation of Judaism, contains some prescriptions for meat-eating, it is clear that the ideal situation is vegetarianism. In Genesis (1:29) we find God Himself proclaiming: "Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in that which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat." In the beginning of creation as described in the Bible, it seems that not even the animals ate flesh. In Genesis (1:30) God says, "And to every beast. Of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat; and it was so." Genesis (9:4) also directly forbids meat-eating: "But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof; shall ye not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it."

In later books of the Bible, major prophets also condemn meat-eating. Isaiah (1:5 states, "Saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide Mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear, for your hands are full of blood." According to Isaiah (66:3), the killing of cows is particularly abhorrent: "He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man."

In the Bible we also find the story of Daniel, who while imprisoned in Babylon refused to eat the meat offered by his jailers, preferring instead simple vegetarian food.

Major stumbling blocks for many Christians are the belief that Christ ate meat and the many references to meat in the New Testament. But close study of the original Greek manuscripts shows that the vast majority of the words translated as "meat" are trophe, brome, and other words that simply mean "food" or "eating" in the broadest sense. For example, in the Gospel of St. Luke (8:55) we read that Jesus raised a woman from the dead and "commanded to give her meat." The original Greek word translated as "meat" is "phago", which means only "to eat." So what Christ actually said was, "Let her eat." The Greek word for meat is kreas ("flesh"), and it is never used in connection with Christ. Nowhere in the New Testament is there any direct reference to Jesus eating meat. This is in line with Isaiah’s famous prophecy about Jesus’s appearance: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good."

Clement of Alexandria, an early Church father, recommended a fleshless diet, citing the example of the apostle Matthew, who "Partook of seeds, and nuts, and vegetables, without flesh." St. Jerome, another leader of the early Christian Church, who gave the authorized Latin version of the Bible still in use today, wrote, "The preparation of vegetables, fruit, and pulse is easy, and does not require expensive cooks." He felt such a diet was he best for a life devoted to the pursuit of wisdom. St. John Chrysostom considered meat-eating to be a cruel and unnatural habit for Christians. "We imitate but the ways of wolves, but the ways of leopards, or rather we are even worse than these. For to them nature has assigned that they should be thus fed, but us God hath honored with speech anda sense of equity, and we are become with worse than the wild beasts." St. Benedict, who founded the Benedictine Order in A.D. 529, stipulated vegetable foods as the staple for his monks. The Trappist order uniformly prohibited meat, eggs, and other flesh foods from its founding in the seventeenth century. the regulations were relaxed by the Vatican Councils of the 1960s, but most of the Trappists still follow the original teachings. Remarkably enough, however, many Trappist monasteries raise cattle for slaughter to support themselves financially.

The Seventh Day Adventist Church strongly recommends vegetarianism for its members. Although little known to the general public, the huge American breakfast cereals industry got its start at an Adventist health resort run by Dr. John H. Kellogg. Dr. Kellogg was constantly devising new varieties of vegetarian breakfast foods for the wealthy patients of his Battle Creek Sanitorium. One of his inventions was cornflakes, which he later marketed nationwide. Over the course of time, he gradually separated his business from the Seventh Day Adventist Church and formed the company that still bears his name.

The largest concentration of vegetarians in the world is found in India, the homeland of buddhism and Hinduism. Buddhism began as a reaction to widespread animal slaughter that was being carried out through perversion of religious rituals. Buddha put an end to these practices by propounding his doctrine of ahimsa, or nonviolence.

Indian Philosophy and Nonviolence

The Vedic scriptures of India, which predate Buddhism, also stress nonviolence as the ethical foundation of vegetarianism. The Manu-samhita, the ancient Indian code of law, states, "Meat can never be obtained without injury to living creatures, and injury to sentient beings is detrimental to the attainment of heavenly bliss; let him therefore shun the use of meat." In another section, the Manu-samhita warns, "Having well considered the disgusting origin of flesh and the cruelty of fettering and slaying of corporeal beings, let him entrirely abstain from eating flesh."

"In the Manu-samhita the concept of a life for a life is sanctioned, and it is actually observed thrughout the world. Similarly, there are other laws which state the one cannot even kill an ant without being responsible. Since we cannot create, we have no right to kill any living entity, and therefore man-made laws that distinguish between killing a man and killing an animal are imperfect.....According to the laws of God; killing an animal is as punishable as killing a man. Those who draw distinctions between the two are concocting their own laws. Even in the Ten Commandments it is prescribed, 'Thou shalt not kill.' This is a perfect law, but by discrimnating and speculating men distort it. 'I shall cheat themselves and inflict suffering on themselves and others."

"Everyone is God’s creature, although in different bodies or dresses. God is considered the one supreme father. A father may have many children, and some may be intelligent and others not very intelligent, but if an intelligent son tells his father, ‘My brother is not very intelligent; let me kill him,’ will the father agree? . . . Similarly, if God is the supreme father, why should He sanction the killing of animals who are also His sons?" Who draw distinctions between the two are concocting their own laws. Even in the Ten Commandments it is prescribed, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ This is a perfect law, but by discriminating and speculating men distort it. ‘I shall not kill man, but I shall kill animals.’ In this way people cheat themselves and inflict suffering on themselves and others."

An Animal Voice (learn about animal suffering)

1. "Diet and Stress in Vascular Disease," Journal of the American Medical Association, June 3, 1961, p. 806.

2. "Diet and Coronary Heart Disease," a statement developed by the Committee on Nutrition and authorized for release by the Central Committee for Medical and Community Programs of the American Heart Association, 1973.

3. "Diet and Coronary Heart Disease," Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 222, no. 13, (Dec. 25, 1972), p. 1647.

4. Michael J. Hill, M.D., "Metabolic Epidemiology of Dietary Factors in Large Bowel Cancer," cancer Research, vol. 35, no. 11, part 2 (Nov., 1975), pp. 3398-3402; Bandaru S. Reddy, Ph. D. and Ernest L. Wynder, M.D., "Large-Bowel Carcinogen-genesis: Fecal Constituents of Population with Diverse Incidence Rates of Colon Cancer," Journal of the National Cancer Institute, vol. 50, 1973, pp. 1437-41.

5. Dr. Sharon Fleming, personal correspondence, Feb. 26, 1981.

6. Los Angeles Herald Examiner.

7. Higher Taste – Bhaktivedanta Book Trust

8. Quoted from Cancer and Other Diseases from Meat Consumption, Blanche Leonardo, Ph. D., 1979,

9. Statement of Dr. William Lijinsky, U.S. House of representatives’ hearing "Regulation of Food Additives and Medicated Animal Foods," March 1971, p. 132.

10. "Arsenic in Chicken Liver to Be Reviewed by agency," Wall Street Journal, Jan. 13, 1971.

11. Jean Snyder, "What You’d Better Know About the Meat You Eat," Today’s Health, vol. 19, Dec. 1971, pp. 38-39