A Valid Question?
I was a vegetarian and even a vegan for a long time but started eating fish again a few years ago. I’m not a vegetarian.
I’m just wondering what would happen if each and every one of us had to kill the food we want to eat. If we want a steak we have to kill a cow, if we want sausage we have to kill a pig, if we want chicken we have to kill that and that of course equally applies to seafood.
I want to answer the comment my sister Nina left the other day when I posted the image of the crab. She said, “Amazing image. But I am sure you gave it its deserved freedom after the shoot (-;”
Nina. I didn’t. I put it in a pot of boiling hot water and had it for dinner.
I have to admit that I felt very guilty doing so though. I had the sense that after the few minuets it spent as a model and I spent shooting it we had become friends.
There is an ugly energy around killing. Maybe I’m too sensitive but it just does not feel right. I saw my armored friend’s life force disappear, it’s body turn purple and the whole thing just felt wrong. I have to admit that I will not be able to do that in the future any more. I realized that if I would have to kill for my food I would be a vegetarian.
One might argue that I just killed to survive. That argument might apply to certain parts in the world but not to living in New York City. Before I started to eat fish again I had survived on a vegetarian diet for 10 years without any problems.
One of the practices in yoga is non-harming. To sustain the body we have to harm but how do we harm the least? This is why vegetarianism is so popular within the yoga movement. Being a vegetarian you still harm a plants. What is the big difference between harming a plant and an animal?
Well, cut an union in half and then put a crab in boiling water and see how both experiences feel.
Please check out my website at carstenfleck.com