Metta, diet, and lifestyle

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Going a step further

If you’re already a vegetarian then you could consider becoming vegan, or even just eating less dairy products and eggs. The production of milk and eggs also involves suffering. I’ve been a vegan for several years now and I’ve never felt healthier. I hardly ever get a cold (even when everyone else seems to be coming down with them) and when I do get ill it passes very quickly.

Another step most of us can take is to eat more organic food (food grown without artificial fertilizers, insecticides, and weed killers). This has beneficial effects not only on your body but for the environment as well, since artificial compounds can linger in the food chain for many years. Of course it’s more expensive to eat organic food, but at least we can buy some organic food from time to time. Remember that we’re not talking black and white here. We’re talking about degrees of suffering and harm that can be avoided.
Becoming a responsible consumer

You can look at other purchases you make. Where are the clothes you buy made? Are they produced in sweatshop conditions, or using child labor? If they do, then perhaps you could write to a company and tell them you disapprove of their employment practices.

And there is transportation, and the effect of carbon dioxide and other emissions. These are all things that we can think about. Perhaps we can carpool (some days at least), or take public transport, or cycle, or buy a more fuel-efficient vehicle.

These are just a few suggestions of course. Each of our lives is different, and each of us needs to look at his or her own life and see what implications the practice and cultivation of metta has.

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Comments

Comment from David Humphrey
Time: March 31, 2008, 7:45 am

a very good article. My girlfriend has been a vegetarian for almost a year new and about a month ago i followed suit. I find that not only is avoiding meat healthier for but it is also a lot cheaper to not eat meat. At first i thought that being a vegetarian would be to restraining, but in many ways it is more liberating because it forces you to look beyond what you would normally eat, in order to find something that will sustain you and cause the least harm. It is also incredibly empowering to make a conscious effort to say “i will not eat that”, instead of eating whatever is in front of you.

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