Author Name: StartRight
Humans have relied on plant and animal-based diet throughout history. From hunter-gather societies, people moved to agriculture and animal husbandry. Labor was largely divided by gender. Women would tend to the plants, cooperating with the cycles of nature, nurturing the spontaneous growth of plants, and save the precious seeds so they could be planted again the following season. Meanwhile, animal agriculture was done by men. It required hard and dirty work: domination, blood, fur, secretions, slaughter. It began with wild sheep and goats and spread to cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals, and unfortunately, brought out the worst in the people who practiced it.
Children are naturally kind and loving towards animals. As they grow, they are injected with cultural narratives that rationalize abuse. The story is that animals are different from humans; that humans need to consume flesh to be strong and healthy. Participation in cutting flesh from the bone and hooking unsuspecting fish involves a hardening of hearts and a closing of eyes.
Universally, people prefer not to see or think about the violence required to kill animals for food. Yet it is something that most people accept as a necessary, albeit cruel, part of life.
Over the millennia, this mentality of domination has spread to plant agriculture.
Although humans can create networks of small-scale farms and gardens, the change seems overwhelming The method is more results for cheaper prices – no matter who gets harmed in the process.
You see, animal agriculture doesn’t just harm the animals or our planet. It harms every person who has to take part in this cruelty.
Both men and women have an inherent desire to care for others and to protect the weak. This desire is represented most deeply in the bond between mother and her offspring. A mother nurses her young and protects them at all costs.
This desire to protect the young – and the mother – is suppressed in animal agriculture. Female cows, sheep, turkeys, and other livestock animals are being separated from their young and forced to give birth again and again.
This violence is embedded in all the animal-derived foods, including the “humanely-produced” meat, dairy, and eggs that are growing in popularity.
It demands the suppression of the feminine parts of human consciousness.
This is one of the least recognized consequences of animal agriculture, yet it is a serious one. It causes disharmony in relationships between men and women and parents and children. It spurs violence toward the Earth and other human beings.
As plant-based diets grow in popularity, humanity questions this mentality of domination. People discover that they can survive without eating meat, dairy, and eggs. Rather, they can thrive. The effect is not just on the body and energy levels. There is a shift towards kindness everywhere.
As people learn to stop suppressing the kindest, most loving parts of themselves, there is an opening to so much more. There is room for spiritual awakening, cultural harmony, and protecting the future of life on Earth.
