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    Diet and Spiritual Practice

    I am just asking out of curiosity: does diet play a role in your spiritual practice, like veganism, free-range, no fried food, only hotdog and no bun on Sundays?

    Do you give thanks for the animal, the farmer, the Earth, or just happy you have food to eat? Don't think about it, you're hungry?

    I'm going through a diet change (trying on vegan for the second time) right now and am interested in other peoples' whys and wherefores.

    (I somewhat denied it in another thread, but I am kind of a hippie )

    #2
    Re: Diet and Spiritual Practice

    We thank our food and the people that helped bring it to our table before we eat. I personally practice "Pagan Lent" from Candlemas to Ostara (the whole time, not some sissy Friday only). I can't be vegan at all, and I can't do vegetarian long term without getting sick (6 weeks and 6 days I can handle easily). My 8 year old is a "lessatarian"--she eats eggs and cheese and fish, but only occasionally other meats. As a family, we only eat meat 2-3 times a week, and its usually more like a condiment or side dish than a main part of the meal. TBH even if I could, I think vegetarianism in general and veganism specifically is just as incredibly unnatural and spiritually unhealthy as the current contemporary American diet (I say this as someone that was a vegetarian for 8 years).

    We normally try to buy mostly local (depends on the season, and now that we've moved, it will take some time to find those places and sources again) and sustainable (though not necessarily organic, which is a legal term, and isn't all that environmentally friendly when scaled up on a national brand level), and we try to forage/hunt/fish whatever is in season (I think we are going to try our hand at shrimping this weekend, which will be our "try something new for New Years" if I manage to get my new drivers license and can get a resident in-state fishing saltwater license) on a regular basis. Down here, nearly everyone that I've met so far hunts and fishes--everything from feral pig (wild bacon!)(which you can apparently make a pretty penny trapping and selling to the meat processing facilities) to deer to gator to waterfowl to shrimp to fish.

    But that isn't necessarily something we do because of our spirituality, it's something we do because of my conservation biology background...though in a way, as a mostly Nature-centered Pagan, they seem to go hand in hand. We also avoid disposable plastics (having kids puts us at a disadvantage for a full-on ban), we don't use most disposable paper products (except toilet paper, and for about 2 weeks when we moved and our stuff was all packed), and we make almost all of our household cleaning products and body care products. I also do a lot of thrift store shopping, clothing alteration, and clothing repair rather than throwing things out. We give away, donate or freecycle almost everything we get rid of, rather than putting it in the waste stream, or repurpose it for other use.
    Last edited by thalassa; 31 Dec 2015, 02:54.
    Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of HistoryPagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
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      #3
      Re: Diet and Spiritual Practice

      Originally posted by THANK... View Post
      I am just asking out of curiosity: does diet play a role in your spiritual practice, like veganism, free-range, no fried food, only hotdog and no bun on Sundays?

      Do you give thanks for the animal, the farmer, the Earth, or just happy you have food to eat? Don't think about it, you're hungry?

      I'm going through a diet change (trying on vegan for the second time) right now and am interested in other peoples' whys and wherefores.

      (I somewhat denied it in another thread, but I am kind of a hippie )
      I have a fairly similar attitude to food as Thalassa, and it seems to be fairly common in people who have a bioregional or environmental focus to their spirituality.

      A core part of my spirituality is a sense of place (geographically) and a sense of my place within the larger picture (circle of life type stuff). I am not vegetarian and never will be... I don't process carbohydrates well (I produce too much insulin) and I need to eat a low carb diet in order to be truly 'healthy' (which means high animal protein, because most veg protein sources are also high in carbs). So even though I love lentils and legumes and wholegrains, they mess with my blood sugar and make me all sorts of bleh. I also don't think that cutting out meat completely is inherently healthier, more 'natural' nor more ethical. There are just as many ethical issues with commercial crop production as meat production, and I happen to consider plants and the environment just as important as animals.

      So spiritually, the diet that ticks all my spiritual boxes is the diet that a) makes me feel good, b) reduces my contribution to environmental impact and c) considers my local land, bioregion and community (including local businesses). For me this means buying local produce as much as possible, straight from the farm gate as much as possible. It means trying to eat seasonal fruit and veg rather than purchasing out-of-season imported stuff. It means buying only free range chicken and eggs, only grass feed beef and lamb, and only sow-stall-free pork (completely free range pork is harder here, but I'm working on it). It means trying to replace a lot of our red meat consumption with grass fed venison and kangaroo. 'Local', 'free range', 'heritage breed/strain' and 'sustainable' are far more important to me than any other food trends. Homegrown is even better, but we haven't been so great at that so far for various reasons (my parents are awesome at it though, and I have plans for when our house is built). I also work on reducing food wastage or using food wastage responsibly, by feeding appropriate scraps to my ducks and by planning a compost bin and worm farm. Avoiding highly processed foods and mono-crop ingredients like wheat and corn is also something that I'm trying to be proactive about, though it's made easier by the fact that I don't really buy high-carb ingredients very often anyway. I try to save the junk food for 'real' junk food (ie a lazy meal from McD's on the way home) rather than the pantry (ie eating everything out of jars and packets with artificial colours and preservatives on a nightly basis). I am trying to learn about foraging local ingredients, though it's not so easy in Australia as it is in the US or Europe as we have fewer easily accessible resources to learn from. I really want to get into the nose-to-tail movement too, though I admit it's fairly low on my priority list thus far as I genuinely don't like the flavour and texture of the organ meats that I've tried so far. Root-to-leaf is a lot easier, and I'm trying to incorporate those ideals into my food habits.

      My actual 'religion' has no real rules about food, but my spiritual focuses lead me to everything that I've said above. I value life - ALL life - not just the cute furry ones. I value death. I value the cycle of death sustaining life. I value the nutrient content of the food that I eat and the way that it interacts with my body. I pay homage to the lives that sustain me, whether they be plant or animal lives. I pay homage to the lives that sustain the lives that sustain me. I understand my part in that cycle and strive to exist within it with as low an impact as I can, while not denying myself, apportioning guilt nor trivialising what it means to take the lives of other things in order to live.

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        #4
        Re: Diet and Spiritual Practice

        Why do you both think veganism is unnatural and unhealthy? Because of our evolution as hunter gatherers?

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          #5
          Re: Diet and Spiritual Practice

          Originally posted by THANK... View Post
          Why do you both think veganism is unnatural and unhealthy? Because of our evolution as hunter gatherers?
          I don't think it's unnatural or unhealthy. I think it's not inherently more natural or healthy than being omnivorous.

          .................................

          And a brief word to the wise... I suggest everyone actively tries NOT to turn this into a vegan/vego vs omnivore debate. That particular discussion has been had far too many times and will not last very long if it rears it's ugly head yet again.

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            #6
            Re: Diet and Spiritual Practice

            Originally posted by Rae'ya View Post
            And a brief word to the wise... I suggest everyone actively tries NOT to turn this into a vegan/vego vs omnivore debate. That particular discussion has been had far too many times and will not last very long if it rears it's ugly head yet again.
            Just to note, I am generally curious, I have no problems with other diets, because it is all very personal. I can care less what others put in their bodies (except for friends, because some of them OD on hard drugs. That just sucks).

            I think being omnivorous is very healthy, but the vegan diet makes me feel better knowing I am not eating a dead, and possibly abused, animal. I just like that you can eat just about every part of the vegetable raw and make juice to go with your meal. I love juice, and what better way to enjoy it than directly from your dinner plate!

            If I thought about every little thing that was wrong with food in general, including the workers wages, the chemicals, how the workers are treated, the packaging, the shipping, et cetera, I would go crazy.

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              #7
              Re: Diet and Spiritual Practice

              I try to eat the same way I try to be a conscious consumer. I want to feel good in an ethical sense, but there is always some new information that refines my understanding, some new choice to be avoided or investigated, and in the end, there is probably still someone who does a better job attempting the same thing with less resources, less time, less information, less ... of anything and/or everything.

              So I have my few little rules that fall in between being completely amoral whatever-I-want-to-eat-whenever-I-want-it and militant veganism.

              A subject like this is hard, because whatever line you draw is bound to seem arbitrary to someone else. So I guess my answer is just, yes lol.

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                #8
                Re: Diet and Spiritual Practice

                Morality is arbitrary to region and time.

                Agree with Rae'ya, my regional persuasions pull me more towards that flavour of sustainability. Vicinity is preferable to life form. Pain or none, you still deprive a spirit of a body for your needs. As long as it is done respectfully and you find ways to avoid pain, then I see no problem. I control my meat to vegetable ratio based on health and availability, rather than any moral basis.
                I'm not one to ever pray for mercy
                Or to wish on pennies in the fountain or the shrine
                But that day you know I left my money
                And I thought of you only
                All that copper glowing fine

                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: Diet and Spiritual Practice

                  Originally posted by THANK... View Post
                  Why do you both think veganism is unnatural and unhealthy? Because of our evolution as hunter gatherers?

                  By the way, (for the peanut gallery) THIS IS NOT AN INVITATION TO MAKE THIS A DEBATE. Do not make me have to repeat this in red. I am stating my personal opinion on why I feel that vegetarian and vegan diets as I have generally seen them practices are unnatural and unhealthy--which is largely for the same reasons that I think that the conventional Western diet is unnatural and unhealthy.

                  Buying Morningstar fake breakfast patties and Quorn fake chicken nuggets to replace meat is just as unnatural as Velveeta. I'm hippie enough to know a good number of vegetarians and vegans (and I was a vegetarian 8 years and a vegan briefly), and replacing meat with processed food or a double helping of pasta or a vanilla flavored soy milk and refined coconut oil with palm sugar cupcakes is just as much of a nutritional nightmare as butter and milk from a cow (unless you are lactose intolerant or allergic to cows milk, not to mention the problems of human slavery and habitat wreckage that comes with any palm-based product).

                  Yes, it is possible to DIY garden and DIY can and buy things from the farmers market or from a co-op, etc...but unless one lives in California, I doubt they have an almond orchard local to make their own almond milk (and lets not talk about the water hogging problem of that), etc...the transportation of specialty products has the same environmental costs as it does for conventional diet products. And, even if one is a vegetarian that only buys organic, industrial level organic farming has many of the same pitfalls of conventional industrial farming--including the death of thousands of small animals when a combine comes rolling through a field, and the problem of nutrient overload on local waterways (yes, cow poop is natural, but thousands of pounds of cow poop concentrated on one field still washes into the nearest creek and river, just like conventional fertilizers). Pragmatically speaking, I see as few vegetarians that take the time to do their diet with health consciousness and environmental consideration as I do non-vegetarians.

                  Is the vegetarian diet healthier than the conventional Western diet, for most people, it can be. As long as one isn't replacing meats with more carbs, as long as one isn't buying processed fake meat products, as long as their diet results in a net calorie loss (which is harder than you think, because mentally your brain tries to trick you into eating the same amount of calories) of minimally processed components, sure. But for some people, it isn't. I spent 8 years severely anemic and sick all the time, and (because my mom was a nurse and being underage at the time I started, she made me) I did it with the help of a nutritionist that specialized in vegetarian diets and was herself, a vegetarian. It got to the point where I didn't even know how crappy I felt til I was finally forced to start eating meat by the realities of shipboard deployment.

                  Now, we can throw the evolutionary bit in there too...but that is far more complex than we give it credit for. Digestion is actually mostly carried out by bacteria in our gut, and they evolve much faster than we do. They also are able to transmit bits of their genome into ours. Also, we are capable of evolving far faster than we think we are--many diseases of today are likely genetic responses to conditions of the past (G6PD deficiency, sickle cell, hyopchromia, etc), and some of those play into diet (favism--or G6PD deficiency has food triggers). Food is both a matter of biology and culture and humans (as a species) can pretty much eat whatever the heck they want...(This last bit is highly speculative on my part) BUT humans as individuals from unique ethnic populations with both a cultural and genetic heritage and an individual genetic profile are stuck (in terms of what is probably better for them) with the types of food their specific ancestors ate (which is why the conventional Western diet--whether one includes meat in there or not, is so very bad for everyone).

                  With all that having been said, the reason that going veg has no spiritual appeal to me is that it that life is not inherently worth more than life. A carrot is not worth less than a cow on the life scale...




                  ...coincidentally, we watched this episode of DAwn of the CRoods last night with the kids (it was pretty funny):

                  Last edited by thalassa; 01 Jan 2016, 06:23.
                  Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of HistoryPagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
                  sigpic

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: Diet and Spiritual Practice

                    Sure, veganism works for some, including many who are not yet vegan, but genes determine enzymes whilst region and upbringing are the main contributors to gut flora. These two things will dictate what diet you can put up with, because whilst a human can technically derive sufficient nutrition from a vegan diet, nothing is that simple. Intolerance and gut flora will determine if you can efficiently gain from veganism. I have tried, for religious reasons, to be vegan and I was a shell of a human. I can't stand most vegan alternatives to meat, although I have no allergies, so I was unable to get enough protein for my intensive job. I was also unable to 'keep it up', so PETA are liars! I was fine afterward when I stopped being vegan.

                    Like thal, I really don't want this to deteriorate into vegan vs omnivore, although I have no authority I just don't want it to go that way. It's just important to remember that human biology is far more complicated than 'people can be vegan, so everyone should be vegan'. If you can be, and you want to be, more power to you, and I wish you the best. If western homo sapiens however evolved and developed (or became home to, in the case of gut flora) the necessary constitution to consume and digest cows milk, then it is as natural as natural can get.

                    So, understanding that the biology of human diets transcends morality, lets all be friends, vegans and omnivores alike?
                    I'm not one to ever pray for mercy
                    Or to wish on pennies in the fountain or the shrine
                    But that day you know I left my money
                    And I thought of you only
                    All that copper glowing fine

                    Comment


                      #11
                      śivāya vishnu rūpaya śivaḥ rūpaya vishnave
                      śivasya hridayam viṣṇur viṣṇoscha hridayam śivaḥ

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                        #12
                        Re: Diet and Spiritual Practice

                        While this thread is not technically in my jurisdiction, I am making an exception and posting this in colour.

                        The OP specifically asked Thalassa and I why WE personally held the opinions we posted. We have answered. No one else needs to express an opinion about how natural or unnatural any dietary preference is unless the OP specifically asks you to (which I strongly suggest they do not do).

                        Additionally, this topic is about diet choices and SPIRITUALITY. Not ethics. Not health. Ethics is relevant only so far as it relates to your spiritual practices. Do not make this discussion about ethics unless you can confidently justify to us how it is central to your spirituality.

                        The next person who does not heed our friendly warnings will summon the Red Text of Doom and will be personally responsible for ruining a perfectly good discussion on a SPIRITUAL topic. I suggest that you all be very careful not to be that person.

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                          #13
                          Re: Diet and Spiritual Practice

                          Rae'ya, your application for promotion to GM status has been received. We'll get back to you eventually. :cthulhu:
                          life itself was a lightsaber in his hands; even in the face of treachery and death and hopes gone cold, he burned like a candle in the darkness. Like a star shining in the black eternity of space.

                          Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

                          "But those men who know anything at all about the Light also know that there is a fierceness to its power, like the bare sword of the law, or the white burning of the sun." Suddenly his voice sounded to Will very strong, and very Welsh. "At the very heart, that is. Other things, like humanity, and mercy, and charity, that most good men hold more precious than all else, they do not come first for the Light. Oh, sometimes they are there; often, indeed. But in the very long run the concern of you people is with the absolute good, ahead of all else..."

                          John Rowlands, The Grey King by Susan Cooper

                          "You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve", said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth; be content."

                          Aslan, Prince Caspian by CS Lewis


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                            #14
                            Re: Diet and Spiritual Practice

                            Originally posted by THANK... View Post
                            I am just asking out of curiosity: does diet play a role in your spiritual practice, like veganism, free-range, no fried food, only hotdog and no bun on Sundays?

                            Do you give thanks for the animal, the farmer, the Earth, or just happy you have food to eat? Don't think about it, you're hungry?

                            I'm going through a diet change (trying on vegan for the second time) right now and am interested in other peoples' whys and wherefores.

                            (I somewhat denied it in another thread, but I am kind of a hippie )
                            As an atheist I give the boring answer nope. As someone who used to be 'Catholic' as in raised in it but not actually believing in it. And someone who was in love with a person where their food was important to their religion(a Muslim) I will answer this. I can never understand why the food you put in your mortal mouth would matter in the scheme of gods and worship. I mean I know what the reasons are. I just don't agree. But I'm not about to tell you Disneyland hot dogs are not spiritual if that's your thing.
                            Satan is my spirit animal

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                              #15
                              Re: Diet and Spiritual Practice

                              Where to start... Alright so food is a HUGE part of my life. Its what I do for a living and I love to eat. I look at recipes on the web and read cook books. I read books about Chefs and about kitchen life. I live and breath it. I am constantly amazed by the applications of a carrot, or a mushroom, of flour and sugar. I think what we can do with simple ingredients is absolutely amazing and wondrous. I have absolutely no diet restrictions(thats a lie, i shouldn't eat blue cheese because I'm allergic but I do it any.. but only in small doses). I give thanks every day for what I do and the food I get to eat. I celebrate food. I love it and want everyone to. I think it is a gift from my Goddess and God. I don't think we should just eat to sustain ourselves. Eating is a time of gathering and celebrating. Its bringing a family together after a long day. Its a time to relax and enjoy.

                              I'm probably straying from the question but I see food all foods as a gift. As a fruit of labor. I give thanks for it and I consume it. We.. I have 3 harvest festivals where we celebrate the bounty of our harvest. The food to get us through the winter. So yes I give thanks to the Earth for her gifts. I give thanks for the lives the animals gave to feed me.
                              "If you want to know what a man is like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals." -- Sirius Black

                              "Time is an illusion, lunch time doubly so."-- Ford Prefect

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