March 25, 2015 • 102

[meat] “really people?”

‘Really People’ is a series designed to help raise awareness on issues concerning animal cruelty. This one is about Meat.

As many of you already know, I am very sensitive with matters concerning animals. Be it killing them for fashion, animal testing, poaching, or endless [as it seems] acts of cruelty towards innocent beings …including eating them.

Week beginning on March 23rd is Meat Free Week.

Aspiring towards a world with less suffering.

Great minds in our history have already said all that needs to be said on that matter:

“For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.” ~ Pythagoras

“Animals are my friends…and I don’t eat my friends.” ~George Bernard Shaw

“I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other….” ~Henry David Thoreau

“We manage to swallow flesh only because we do not think of the cruel and sinful thing that we do. Cruelty… is a fundamental sin, and admits of no arguments or nice distinctions. If only we do not allow our heart to grow callous, it protests against cruelty, is always clearly heard; and yet we go on perpetrating cruelties easily, merrily, all of us – in fact, anyone who does not join in is dubbed a crank.” ~Rabindranath Tagore

“To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of the human body.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

“Being vegetarian here also means that we do not consume dairy and egg products, because they are products of the meat industry. If we stop consuming, they will stop producing. Only collective awakening can create enough determination for action.” ~ Thích Nhất Hạnh

“A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral.” ~ Leo Tolstoy

“One should not kill a living being, nor cause it to be killed, nor should one incite another to kill. Do not injure any being, either strong or weak, in the world.” ~ Buddha

“The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.” ~ Leonardo Da Vinci

“Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages” ~ Thomas Edison

“But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy.” ~ Plutarch

Did you also know that eating excessive amounts of meat has serious consequences for your health, meat production is detrimental to the health of our planet and that increased meat consumption has led to inhumane farming practices?

For more information about the meat and farming industry, please visit the Humane Society here: [http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/eating/, http://www.hsi.org/issues/eating/meatfree_guide/meatfree_meals_guide.html and a Guide to Meat Free Meals] or Peta here: [http://www.peta.org/videos/meet-your-meat/]

You may check out Peta’s FREE Vegan Starter Kit here.

Following the “Fur“ artwork, this is the third of the series.

…because -like G.B. Shaw- I don’t eat my friends!

Here it is: