Pythagoras

[Skip]

In math class, we learned from Pythagoras:


But we were never taught this:



I truly believe that if everyone adopted a plant based diet, the world would be a safer, more peaceful place. In a world with terrorists, senseless killings and hate, the adoption of a plant based diet would go a long way to solve these problems. But I never hear anyone suggesting this as a solution.

[wade4veg]

In a world with terrorists, senseless killings and hate, the adoption of a plant based diet would go a long way to solve these problems.

[Grammy Ginger]

I would like to believe your theory is true. However, one only needs to watch what is happening between non-animal killing, non-meat eating YouTubers at this time to see it isn't. The world will be peaceful when each and every one of us stops being mean, reactive, offended, forceful, close-minded, and selfish. I'm not painting everyone but me with that brush. We all have room to change and grow. Let us choose kindness and forgiveness and patience.

[arugula]

i think that the aggressive youtubers are a self-selected group, somewhat on the narcissistic side, to have the desire to put themselves on display the way that they do and say the things that they do and to be able to handle the inevitable backlash that ensues. i certainly could not.

they are not representative of the whole. for every crazy and aggressive youtuber there are 10,000 or more vegans who are not.

i see the same thing here.

one bad apple doesn't spoil the whole bunch.

[Grammy Ginger]

i think that the aggressive youtubers are a self-selected group, somewhat on the narcissistic side, to have the desire to put themselves on display the way that they do and say the things that they do and to be able to handle the inevitable backlash that ensues. i certainly could not.

they are not representative of the whole. for every crazy and aggressive youtuber there are 10,000 or more vegans who are not.

i see the same thing here.

one bad apple doesn't spoil the whole bunch.

True. Very sane position. Thanks for this outlook.

[JeffN]

In a world with terrorists, senseless killings and hate, the adoption of a plant based diet would go a long way to solve these problems.

I would like to believe your theory is true. However, one only needs to watch what is happening between non-animal killing, non-meat eating YouTubers at this time to see it isn't. The world will be peaceful when each and every one of us stops being mean, reactive, offended, forceful, close-minded, and selfish. I'm not painting everyone but me with that brush. We all have room to change and grow. Let us choose kindness and forgiveness and patience.

If you haven't seen the documentary, American Commune, I would highly recommend it. It is the story of The Farm, a peaceful intentional community started in the 1970, and what happened to them over the next few decades.

The Farm was all peace loving vegan hippies who grew all their own food too. A friend of mine from High School used to live there.

http://www.americancommunemovie.com

"In 1970, 1,500 hippies and their guru, Stephen Gaskin, founded a commune in rural Tennessee. Members forked over their savings, grew their own food, delivered their babies at home and built a self-sufficient society."

It is available for rent on most streaming sites (VUDU, Google Play, Amazon, etc).

A similar story is told in the movie, Commune, about Black Bear Ranch, a commune started in 1968 in Northern California, though it was not vegan.

In Health
Jeff

[f1jim]

You mean people are going to be people whatever they choose to eat? Novel.
I know that if we all eat vegan there would be millions less animals slaughtered for food. That's enough for me. I don't need any more spiritual blessings beyond that . If there are I would be even happier. I am not holding my breath. Human history always teaches us our self interest generally will come first. I am also okay with that. Not that other interests don't come into play in my life but I would be lying to say my own interests take a back seat to those of others.
Now give me a win-win and see how well I respond!

With all the animosity and fervor being generated by the vegan you tube debates I have a sneaky feeling I know what Jeff Nelsons talk will be on when he makes his presentation at ASW. It does appear that many people supposedly working to further our cause my, in fact, be hurting it.
f1jim

[Chikiwing]

I truly believe that if everyone adopted a plant based diet, the world would be a safer, more peaceful place. In a world with terrorists, senseless killings and hate, the adoption of a plant based diet would go a long way to solve these problems. But I never hear anyone suggesting this as a solution.

If you want to get people to fight, to actually get violent, there is no faster way than to put a sexual interest or partner into the mix. I've seen more confrontations turn violent between two males, or two females, fighting over a sexual interest or partner than anything. For example, some guy calls another guy's girlfriend a bad name or shows a sexual interest in her and it can go south very quickly.

I don't think what people eat would change this very much.

[petero]

Although I do what Pythagoras did, as a historical materialist I too am skeptical about any idealistic solutions to human problems. Nevertheless, ideas do have some power if the material conditions are ripe for them to take hold.

[Thrasymachus]

@f1jim:
Veganism is promoted so little, with the backing of zero powerful interests, and has such little public mindshare that there are no:

people supposedly working to further our cause my, in fact, be hurting it.

A child molester could promote veganism and it wouldn't hurt veganism at this stage. It is like a small guerrilla faction trying to take on all on global militaries at the same time, all the bodies possible are needed. That said there are some vegan Youtubers that do infact hurt the cause I could name: a bas el ciel and Unnatural Vegan. Why? They actually don't even on the Youtube sphere promote veganism, all they do is attack veganism and other vegans, in effect taking turf away from veganism and giving it back to carnists. To advocate for something you have to actually promote it and those two don't make videos that draw in and try to change others. But they do get alot of vegan youtubers to in-fight instead of out-fight.

[Skip]

Eating a plant based whole foods diet has allowed me to enjoy greater physical health and mental health. Mental health relates to less violence and more peace. I'm sure the same thing has happened to many of you. If this happens to an individual, by extension, why wouldn't it happen to a group of people?

One of the attributes of the blue zone populations is that there is much more cooperation and less violence in these groups of people.

quod erat demonstrandum (as Pythagoras might say)

[petero]

Eating a plant based whole foods diet has allowed me to enjoy greater physical health and mental health. Mental health relates to less violence and more peace. I'm sure the same thing has happened to many of you. If this happens to an individual, by extension, why wouldn't it happen to a group of people?

There does seem to be a trend toward vegetarianism/veganism. But human conflicts don't happen because people are mentally unbalanced. Human conflicts happen because of the material causes that underlie them, like competition for scarce resources. It's not even that people cause conflicts, it's largely socioeconomic elites that are responsible. People generally have to be told lies to carry out the violence.

[patty]

I like this from Will Tuttle's "The Worlds Peace Diet":

“The pain and suffering inflicted on children by the American diet is so brutal that if it were administered with a stick, parents would be put in jail.” —John McDougall, M.D.1

The Gift

A basic reason that billions of animals suffer confinement and slaughter is our cultural belief that we need to eat animal-derived foods to be healthy, yet one of the most common motivations many of us have to 66 reduce or eliminate animal food consumption is improving our health! Illuminating this paradox requires us to investigate our human physiology and the animal foods we eat, and to reconnect with the perennial understanding that cultivating kindness and awareness improves physical and mental health, while harmfulness and unconsciousness lead ultimately to physical and mental disease. We can realize that we are meant to live in harmony with the other animals of this earth because we’ve been given bodies that actually function better without killing and stealing from them. What a liberating gift! No animal need ever fear us, because there is no nutrient that we need that we cannot get from nonanimal sources. The evidence of this is abundant, and we’ll look at some of it in this chapter in order to question the delusion that we need to eat animal foods to be strong, healthy, and real. Both medical studies and the obvious examples of healthy vegan people we see around us tell us that eating animal products is unnecessary, and in many ways is actually detrimental to our health.

Some of us may protest, “Wait a minute! How can eating animal products be unhealthy? It seems so natural!” Let’s take a closer look at the human body. A good way to begin is by observing with fresh eyes how our bodies compare to some of the other animals with whom we share this planet. How soft, hairless, and delicate we humans are! And how physically weak! A human, for example, has only one sixth the strength of a typical chimpanzee.2 We dominate animals not through physical strength, but by using implements and treachery.

We can notice our organ of eating, our human mouth. We see how small it is, how small our teeth are, and how we lack long, sharp canines to tear tough flesh as well as the strong, heavy jawbone and jaw muscles of carnivores and omnivores. We notice also how soft human teeth are, compared to the much harder teeth of carnivorous animals that are able to crush bones to gain access to bone marrow.3 Our teeth and jaw are obviously not designed for ripping flesh and gnawing bones; like frugivores and herbivores we have incisors in the front with molars along the sides for biting off and grinding plant foods.

It is interesting to imagine trying to kill and eat another mammal without using any implements, just our delicate mouth and fine, clawless hands. Could we do it? Could our parents, children, or friends do it? Could any human being do it? Could anyone, or would anyone chase down, say, a deer, cow, pig, sheep, goat, or rabbit in the wild and then, somehow catching her (highly unlikely) fall on her neck with our small, flat human mouth, tear through the fur and skin into the living flesh with our small human teeth, and fill our mouth with the fresh, hot blood of the unfortunate creature? This scenario shows the complete absurdity of what we humans are doing when we eat animal flesh. We have no claws or teeth to rip and rend raw flesh, to bite through fur, feathers, scales, or bones, nor do we have an appetite for fresh blood in our mouths.

We may notice that our jaw is especially hinged to provide side-toside movement. This is a jaw construction shared by herbivorous mammals for grinding various types of plant material; omnivorous and carnivorous mammals have jaws that are rigidly hinged and just snap up and down. We notice further that the purpose of the dominant enzyme in our saliva, ptyalin, is to break down the complex carbohydrates in plant foods into glucose for energy. These carbohydrates are the fuel our bodies were designed to use; animal flesh contains none!

Unlike carnivores, we don’t have strong stomach acids to quickly dissolve flesh, or short, smooth-walled intestines to pass decaying flesh from our bodies quickly. Instead, we have the weaker stomach acids and the much longer and more highly convoluted intestines of herbivores and frugivores for slowly extracting nutrients from plant foods as they pass through and are broken down.4 Our long and convoluted small intestine is decidedly herbivorous, with thousands of little pockets and countless tiny fingers, or villi, that give it an enormous overall surface area—larger than a tennis court!—for our food nourishment to be passed into our blood.5 Our digestive system requires high-fiber foods to keep these intestinal walls clean and functioning properly. Animal foods are not only devoid of fiber but also tend to be more clogging than plant foods as they decompose, leading to constipation, hemorrhoids, colitis, diverticulitis, colon cancer, and other ailments. We have the circulatory systems of herbivores as well, which have difficulty tolerating saturated fat and cholesterol. If a cat, for example, eats a large quantity of fat and cholesterol in the form of animal flesh or eggs, she gets no build-up and blockage in her arteries, but if a rabbit, gorilla, human, or other frugivore or herbivore does this, the arteries become severely coated. If the practice continues, the arteries become clogged and unhealthy, leading to arteriosclerosis, high blood pressure, heart disease, and, in the case of humans, guaranteed demand for drugs and surgeries.

By ignoring the obvious fact that we humans are not designed to eat the large quantities of animal foods typical of our culture, the pharmaceutical-medical establishment actually contributes to the supply of sick people and guarantees what John McDougall, M.D., refers to as its “job security.”6 This is not to imply any sort of conspiracy or that the average doctor is not motivated by altruistic impulses. Yet the medical establishment, like any other industry functioning within our culture’s economic framework, simply follows the path of least resistance and most reliable financial return. To those in the upper echelons of the medical industry pyramid, who help determine political strategies and media/education policies, maintaining the status quo must seem like a basically good idea, so they de-emphasize prevention in favor of drug and surgical treatments and encourage the continued acceptance of an omnivorous diet for humans.

Classifying the human physiology has always been problematic in our culture and continues to be controversial today. While it’s obvious we’re not basically carnivorous, it’s also obvious that we’re not grazing ruminant or ungulate herbivores like sheep, deer, horses, and cows, who can browse on grass and leaves because of having multiple digestive pouches. We may best be classified as frugivorous herbivores, designed primarily for fruits, seeds, vegetables, nuts, and succulent roots and leaves. Most physiologists, though, still claim humans to be omnivorous by nature. Yet even horses can be taught to eat venison, and cows, sheep, and goats are taught to eat and relish the flesh of fish, chickens and pigs in modern confinement feeding operations—how much of our daily food choices are the result of being taught what to eat?

Three points, at least, seem undeniable: that we have choice, that animals suffer because of our choice to eat them, and that the current high levels of animal food consumption are unprecedented and have deleterious effects on our health. It’s well established by fossil remains that early hominids lived primarily on a plant-based diet, and that contemporary foraging cultures do so as well. Indeed, renowned anthropologist Ashley Montagu has stated that these cultures should be called gathering-hunting rather than hunting-gathering.7

Like all animals, we are essentially spiritual beings, manifestations of a universal, loving intelligence that has given us bodies designed to thrive on the abundant foods that we can peacefully nourish and gather in orchards, fields, and gardens. Our bodies reflect our consciousness, which yearns to unfold higher dimensions of creativity, compassion, joy, and awareness, and longs to serve the larger wholes—our culture, our earth, and the benevolent source of all life—by blessing and helping others and by sharing, caring, and celebrating. We have, appropriately, a physiology of peace.

The wholesale killing and abuse of other animals for food runs counter to our essential sense of compassion, so we disguise the disturbing truth of our meals through self-deceptive rationalizations and elaborate methods of cooking, grinding, mixing, coating, seasoning, and covering. At a deep level we know we’ve been given the precious gift of bodies that require no living being to suffer, fear, or die for their feeding—but we throw this gift back in the face of the benevolent universe with the violence required by our food choices. Tuttle PhD, Will (2008-01-29). The World Peace Diet (pp. 70-71). Lantern Books. Kindle Edition.

Tuttle PhD, Will (2008-01-29). The World Peace Diet (pp. 69-70). Lantern Books. Kindle Edition.

Aloha, patty

[vgpedlr]

A child molester could promote veganism and it wouldn't hurt veganism at this stage.

Not sure I agree, as clearly the lack of "quality" protein prompted the molestation.

Still funny though.

[Skip]

I like this from Will Tuttle's "The Worlds Peace Diet":

Tuttle's book lays out the best arguments for Pythagoras' ideas. It's a great book and a must read.

But human conflicts don't happen because people are mentally unbalanced. Human conflicts happen because of the material causes that underlie them, like competition for scarce resources.

As Tuttle lays out in his book, our herding culture and commodification of animals has created many conflicts when competing for scarce resources. In our past (and in some cases present), cattle was one of those scarce resources. Plant based eating is such a great way to conserve so many constrained resources that can and will lead to conflicts. Water shortages, food shortages, deforestation, global warming ,etc...

Many violent acts happen because people are mentally unbalanced. Eating plant based helps to bring that mental balance and clarity back as opposed to the current norm of antidepressant drug use.