I was a meat eater until the age of 35, and I consumed massive amounts of dairy products for the ten years that followed. It wasn’t like I was a “bad person” for doing so — I just didn’t take the time to really think about what my food purchases were supporting; just didn’t take the time to realize that animals have brains & central nervous systems — that they are sentient & self-aware — that they have feelings and fears and can suffer just like me. In essence, I — like many of you — was the final frame of the image below.

So, I’m wondering … Which frame of this picture does your diet currently reflect? And much more importantly: if you are not yet eating cruelty-free, are you willing to paint a new picture of yourself today?

“When a hamburger (or a steak, or any other meat) is eaten, no one appears to be harmed. But that is because SOMEONE — a unique being, has become SOMETHING — an object, a mere substance, with no distinctiveness, no uniqueness and no individuality. SOMEONE has become a mere mass term … When you add five pounds of hamburger to a plate of hamburger, it is more of the same thing, nothing is changed. But if you have a living cow in front of you, and then you kill that cow, and then you butcher that cow, and then you grind up her body, and then you eat her flesh, you have not added a mass term to a mass term and ended up with more of the same thing. No, you have murdered a sentient animal, and you know that you have done so. What is on the plate in front of you at that point is no longer devoid of specificity; it is the dead flesh of what was once a living, feeling, caring being. This is how the Awake Human looks upon meat, and this is why the Awake Human refuses to partake of the same.” ~ inspired by Carol J. Adams

Filed under: Sanctifying Sentience by Scaughdt