the great vegetarian debate

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
Jhana4
Posts: 1331
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2011 5:20 pm
Location: U.S.A., Northeast

Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by Jhana4 »

For regular people, I would imagine it would be related to rationalization making so that they could continue to do what they like to do and not feel like they are doing something wrong.

For scientists, they have a demand to think things through more thoroughly. Just because an animal looks the way people do when they have emotion X, doesn't mean the animal actually has emotion X. A good example is dolphins. They look like they are happy and smiling, but that is just the natural resting shape of their snouts and face. House cats may seem affectionate by rubbing on people's ankles, but cats have scent glands in their cheeks and will rub on thing to also mark their territory.
In reading the scriptures, there are two kinds of mistakes:
One mistake is to cling to the literal text and miss the inner principles.
The second mistake is to recognize the principles but not apply them to your own mind, so that you waste time and just make them into causes of entanglement.
User avatar
Aloka
Posts: 7797
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2009 2:51 pm

Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by Aloka »

Jhana4 wrote:For regular people, I would imagine it would be related to rationalization making so that they could continue to do what they like to do and not feel like they are doing something wrong.

For scientists, they have a demand to think things through more thoroughly.
It doesn't take much rationalization or thinking things through to understand that animals feels pain, if one has ever heard them screaming in agony.
User avatar
Ceisiwr
Posts: 22287
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2009 2:36 am
Location: Wales

Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by Ceisiwr »

Ben wrote:
clw_uk wrote:This has probably been raised before, but what about lab grown meat?
Hi Craig,

By lab-grown meat, I assume you are referring to the animal tissue that was artificially synthesized and then widely reported in the media a few weeks back? (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23576143)
The key questions for me is whether the tissue was sentient and if sentient, whether the act of eating killed the being/s.
My understanding of the production of the meat is that individual muscle cells are grown in a growth media - similar in the way that Quorn is manufactured. Does lab-grown meat possess sentience? I think it highly unlikely. Does one kill the meat when eating it? I think it is most likely that the life-cycle of the lab-grown tissue would have ceased long before it reaches the supermarket. In my humble opinion, I would rate it as kammically 'active' as purchasing and eating Quorn.

I agree with Jhana4 in that it is less of an ethical issue than it is a health issue.
kind regards,

Ben

Yes that is what I was referring to

If this could be brought to mass production, would the vegetarians here eat it?
“The teacher willed that this world appear to me
as impermanent, unstable, insubstantial.
Mind, let me leap into the victor’s teaching,
carry me over the great flood, so hard to pass.”
User avatar
DNS
Site Admin
Posts: 17169
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 4:15 am
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada, Estados Unidos de América
Contact:

Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by DNS »

clw_uk wrote: If this could be brought to mass production, would the vegetarians here eat it?
Speaking just for myself, no. I wouldn't have any problem with it ethically, but personally just don't care for the taste of meat any more. I haven't knowingly or intentionally ate meat in 29 years and I feel much better, healthier and don't miss the taste. There are some Chinese vegetarian dishes that look just like meat, taste very similar (gluten-based creative recipes) to it, even have similar texture and I don't care for those either, even though there is nothing wrong with it ethically since there are no animals or even animal products in it.
User avatar
Aloka
Posts: 7797
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2009 2:51 pm

Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by Aloka »

I don't think I'd want to eat lab grown meat. I'd rather have smoked tofu with almonds and sesame seeds.


:)
daverupa
Posts: 5980
Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2011 6:58 pm

Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by daverupa »

clw_uk wrote:If this could be brought to mass production, would the vegetarians here eat it?
I would hope that vegetarians would be able to remain clear-headed about the ethical distinction between the treatment of animals and a given amino acid profile on a protein.
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
Jhana4
Posts: 1331
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2011 5:20 pm
Location: U.S.A., Northeast

Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by Jhana4 »

daverupa wrote:
clw_uk wrote:If this could be brought to mass production, would the vegetarians here eat it?
I would hope that vegetarians would be able to remain clear-headed about the ethical distinction between the treatment of animals and a given amino acid profile on a protein.

"I would hope that carnists would be able to remain clear-headed" to remember that there still might be health issues, still might be environmental issues, there still might be ethical issues in a hungry world with using more nutrition to make lab meat than the nutrition that is produced and "I would hope that carnists would be able to remain clear-headed" to observe that host animals would need to be kept in captivity to involuntarily have host cells removed from them( possible ethical issues).
In reading the scriptures, there are two kinds of mistakes:
One mistake is to cling to the literal text and miss the inner principles.
The second mistake is to recognize the principles but not apply them to your own mind, so that you waste time and just make them into causes of entanglement.
User avatar
Alex123
Posts: 4035
Joined: Wed Mar 10, 2010 11:32 pm

Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by Alex123 »

David N. Snyder wrote:Speaking just for myself, no. I wouldn't have any problem with it ethically, but personally just don't care for the taste of meat any more. I haven't knowingly or intentionally ate meat in 29 years and I feel much better, healthier and don't miss the taste.
You don't have meat cravings? That is great. I tried to be vegetarian, but I was dreaming about KFC (or salty pork lard) too much. And when I do it, I eat about 5-8 legs at a time... yummie!
User avatar
DNS
Site Admin
Posts: 17169
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 4:15 am
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada, Estados Unidos de América
Contact:

Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by DNS »

Image

(Colonel Sanders at the Pearly Gates, saying "uh oh" at the sight of the chicken figures guarding the gates.)
User avatar
Ben
Posts: 18438
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:49 am
Location: kanamaluka

Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by Ben »

clw_uk wrote:If this could be brought to mass production, would the vegetarians here eat it?
No doubt some vegetarians will, Craig. Especially those whose primary motivation is ethical.
My motivation for adopting a vegan diet recently was to the shock and horror of some other vegans not entirely predicated on the welfare of others. While veganism is consistent with my own ethics regarding harm to other creatures and damage to the environment, the kicker for me was the incontrovertible and overwhelming evidence that by adopting a plant-based wholefoods diet one could either eliminate or greatly attenuate the leading causes of premature death.

The following short video relates to a recent suggestion published in a peer reviewed medical journal of providing statins with fast-food meals to neutralize the risk of stroke, heart attack and death of consuming those meals.
kind regards,

Ben

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
User avatar
Ajatashatru
Posts: 32
Joined: Thu Jul 11, 2013 8:35 pm

Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by Ajatashatru »

I heard from my old Vaishnava grandmother that the worst kind of violence (himsa) one can do is when you boil another being alive.
Spiny Norman
Posts: 10154
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2010 10:32 am
Location: Andromeda looks nice

Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by Spiny Norman »

Alex123 wrote: You don't have meat cravings?
Have you tried quorn? It's a very satisfying alternative... ;)
Buddha save me from new-agers!
User avatar
Alex123
Posts: 4035
Joined: Wed Mar 10, 2010 11:32 pm

Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by Alex123 »

Spiny Norman wrote:
Alex123 wrote: You don't have meat cravings?
Have you tried quorn? It's a very satisfying alternative... ;)

I have never heard about it. I did google and it appears to suggest that it is not available (or rare) in Canada. :(

What I've just read, that it is a fungus, and people may have allergic reaction to it, alerted me.
Jhana4
Posts: 1331
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2011 5:20 pm
Location: U.S.A., Northeast

Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by Jhana4 »

Just go to any large supermarket, Whole Foods, or Trader Joes. They all have a variety of faux meats.

Currently, the most favored brands are Gardein, Beyond Meat, and Match Meats.

Many Asian markets have some very advanced faux meats, though the labeling standards are loose. Some have animal products or even small amounts of meat in them for flavoring despite being labeled "vegetarian"
In reading the scriptures, there are two kinds of mistakes:
One mistake is to cling to the literal text and miss the inner principles.
The second mistake is to recognize the principles but not apply them to your own mind, so that you waste time and just make them into causes of entanglement.
chownah
Posts: 9336
Joined: Wed Aug 12, 2009 2:19 pm

Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by chownah »

Alex123 wrote:
David N. Snyder wrote:Speaking just for myself, no. I wouldn't have any problem with it ethically, but personally just don't care for the taste of meat any more. I haven't knowingly or intentionally ate meat in 29 years and I feel much better, healthier and don't miss the taste.
You don't have meat cravings? That is great. I tried to be vegetarian, but I was dreaming about KFC (or salty pork lard) too much. And when I do it, I eat about 5-8 legs at a time... yummie!
Cravings.....yeah, cravings......what was it the Buddha taught we should do about cravings? Was it to just indulge in that craving to make it go away?....I forget just what he did teach about cravings.......seems like he did say something about craving.......anyone remember what he said?
chownah
Post Reply