I too am a vegerarian. My objection to meat being in the cruel and wasteful way in which it is produced .

If organically produced meat had been as widely available 15 years ago as it is today, when I first became a vegi, I might still be eating meat today. However, after 15 years as a vegetarian the thought of meat just turns my stomach. My meat consumption slowly decreased without me even being aware of it over 2-3 years (before I called myself a vegetarian) and I discovered several health benefits for me from being vegi over the first couple of years.

As a vegetarian I am aware of many inconsitencies in my practice (eg I wear leather shoes and can justify it in many ways). I also have 3 cats and regulalry handle raw meat to make their food (which does not smell as distasteful as that revolting canned stuff).

I appreciate ethical problems with the the original source. I try to be pragmatic in my approach and to "tread lightly on the earth".

Janyce

Frank Hicks,
Sorry your health suffered because of a vegie/vegan diet. Usually it's the opposite way around. I'm really curious what illness was abated by the resumption of eating animal products? In the US, meat and dairy products are known to be loaded with anti-biotics, growth hormones and bacteria, not to mention the cholesterol. Beef cattle and chickens are fed processed chicken/cow manure, plastic peanuts (waste from the packaging used in shipping), dried human sewage from disposal plants and pulverized pet carcasses from the shelters. Perhaps where you live this is not the case but even so, how did eating meat and dairy products bring you back to balance?

Regarding the comment that someone who chooses not to use products resulting from cruelty to animals is extreme and pathological..... Is it that any strongly held conviction would be considered extreme and pathological or just this particular conviction of harmlessness? Don't most BB members have very strong convictions and voice those convictions advocating the use of homeopathy? If they refuse allopathy and dedicate themselves to homeopathy, are they then extreme and pathological? Most of history is comprised of events brought about by people with very strongly held convictions. Some holding on to those convictions be they good or bad in other's opinions...firmly, unwaveringly, even with risk to their health and well being, without compromise. We don't read too much history about conviction-less, non-extreme people. Good thing the world had people who did become, as Lisa put it, "sooo focused" or we might not even have homeopathy as we know it! Or much of anything else for that matter.

Enough of this, this isn't homeopathy any more and we took the thread away from the poster.

hillabee......my opinion is homeopathy is the best method of health care for any being. As Frank said, the remedies are available in tinctures or in sucrose and the choice is the individual's if they decide to avoid remedies obtained from animal sources, that is an option available to them.

We are what we eat !!!!!

If all that RUBBISH is being fed to animals in the USA .......its no wonder their disease rates are off the wall

Bad enough here with the BSE crisis .....when will farmers and governments start to learn

Kylene

Not funny at all. You are obviously not a vegerarian and do not understand the most basic issues about why someone chooses not to eat meat or products of the slaughterhouse.

Wearing fur, at least in the west, is about status and fashion. Animals are kept solely for their fur, and in cramped and cruel conditions far from their natural "lifestyle".

The animals which produce leather also produce meat and other food and industrial products - whaterver I think of the farming methods.

Think about it. But please don't make flipant comments about things which you don't understand and don't really seem to want try to understand.

Janyce

gpm, Comparing Homeopathy with Vegatarianism is like comparing airplanes with religion.

Vegetarianism is about choosing what one eats...either on 'moral' grounds or 'dietary' grounds, both of which are based on few facts and a lot of personal preference.

Homeopathy is a scientifically sound method of healing. It is not based on opinion and surely it would be wrong to seek to include or exclude remedies for reasons other than their proven worth. If vegetarians find homeopathy more acceptable than other forms of medicine then that is a fortunate coincidence but they should not seek to alter homeopathy to suit their own ethics.

Of course, no one is obliged to take any particular remedy but surely they risk limiting the effectiveness of their treatment. To do this on tenuous grounds would appear foolish. It's the individual's choice but, to an outsider, there does seem to be a lack of logic in riding in a car - thereby slaughtering countless insects and small animals - but refusing a remedy that has no measurable quantity of an animal product in it. Perhaps you always walk - very carefully?

Personally, I feel no guilt over eating meat. Mankind was certainly carnivorous, or at least omnivorous, for as long back as can be determined. I do not regard carnivorous animals, such as lions, leopards or tigers, as any less beautiful or less deserving of regard than antelopes. Indeed, it is mankind's determination to alter or reshape nature that has resulted in the real harm to animals - his inclination to eat them is a minor threat by comparison. It could be argued that meat eaters are closer to nature!

What do you say to carnivorous animals?? "Oh, Mr. Leopard, please don't kill that lovely Impala and drag him up in the tree!! You're not eating ALL the meat and you're also wasting the fur! I'll make you a bowl of salad and throw in some tofu to make sure you get the necessary protein". If we are not going to try to breed vegetarian leopards, why is it more moral to convert humans from meat?

Improving health standards in animal feed manufacture is somewhat remote from non-animal homeopathy. We all must make choices based on our own convictions but, IMO, homeopathy should be isolated from moral issues of this sort.

Lisa

I have a funny one for those that are in the mood. Why is it that wearing fur is less acceptable than leather? It's easier to harass a rich lady in a fur than a motorcycle gang in leather! Anyways, back to the veggie thing. Some (not all!) Organic gardeners use raw manure instead of processed fertilizer. Where did that come from. It passed through an animal. I've seen veg's club a rabbit because it ate his lettuce! I am all for everyone eating what "agrees with them" but those who think they can get away from all animal products are kidding themselves. As Pat Davis said - A little balance! To the veggie's - If you are coming to my house this week-end for the big July 4 celebration, please bring a fruit salad or a veggie tray! I really hate cutting all that stuff up, but I love it!

Like Frank, I was a vegetarian for many years and a vegan for some of those. Now I eat meat - organic only - and I do feel better for it. I have no idea why. It just feels that I digest it a lot more easily and it does me good.

I do sympathise with gpm's point of view and admire its coherence, but maybe some of us do need to eat meat to be healthy.

Anna Bryant,
I think the reason some feel better eating meat may have something to do with the carbohydrate/protein thing which I don't fully understand. There was a thread not too long ago that mentioned or had reference to other sites regarding blood types and the foods that are most likely to be appropriate for each.

Lisa, I don't think there was any mention of trying to alter homeopathy to suit
vegetarians. "Diet" in Greek means "life style", if I remember correctly. Vegetarianism is part of a chosen life style that usually encompasses more than simply what one eats. Life styles and morals rather go hand in hand. Hard to have one without the other, regardless of what they may be. All I said was that homeopathy could certainly be a part of a vegetarian life style.

I might have this wrong but I thought there was evidence that "man" evolved into a meat eater, but wasn't originally. Seems our teeth and alimentary systems more closely resemble herbivores with carnivores having teeth particularly suited to piercing to kill and ripping flesh from carcasses. They have short intestinal systems which is why you feed the cat or dog and put it out to empty soon after. Humans, cows, horses have very long intestinal systems, with a much longer time to eliminate and are very different from true carnivores.

Don't think my point was to attempt to change or condemn the natural life style of wildlife nor dictate the choices humans make. For some reason vegetarianism causes such a stir of emotions in non-vegetarians. Wonder why such protests against a life style chosen so we can, yes, walk carefully through life? What threat does someone trying to live as harmlessly as possible pose to people to conjure up such reactions?

janyce....good explanation of the difference between fur and leather.....all your comments show the thought you have invested in the subject.

Gpm, I respect your choices and think this is clear from my post. I intend no disrespect to those making different choices to my own. However from a purely homeopathic perspective in case taking where a person's conviction becomes a restriction on the whole vitality it is taken as a symptom.

To return to the fruitarian for example, what if there is no fallen fruit? Starving, it will be weeks before the fruit will fall. Here conviction becomes a choice between life and death. If the fruitarian refused to pick fruit to live Hahnemann's directive would be that this is pathological.

The example I was taught with was this. You are at the top of the Empire state building. You are talking with someone about to commit suicide. You know that when they finish their coffee they will jump to their death and can not be peursuaded otherwise. You happen to have the remedy Aurum on hand. What do you do?

The three options were:
(a)Nothing
(b)Something
(c)Treat them

It was an ethical debate here are a few of the points put for each option:
(a)Nothing - This is not your responsibility. You must respect their choice. You require consent for treatment and the coffee would antidote anyway.
(b)Something - Fetch help. Restrain them from jumping. Give a blindfold. Keep talking. You should care and try and prevent it.
(c)Treat them - Without consent, maybe slip an Aurum in the coffee.

The answer?
(a)Nothing - abdicates responsibility.
(b)Something - suppressive.
(c)Treat them - resolves the situation.

"The Physician's high and only mission is to restore the sick to health, to cure as it is termed". stanza 1 of the Organon

You would be expected to act and give the remedy with or without consent. Nature has no morals. Homeopathy does not negotiate with dis-ease. This is an unconditional directive.

So if the indicated remedy is Apis for a strict vegetarian suffering anaphylatic shock it should be given. If it is refused as an animal product then yes, vegetarianism could be incompatible with homeopathy!




[This message has been edited by Frank Hicks (edited 02 July 2000).]

Actually, saying one will refuse to take a remedy, that may be indicated, based on 'moral' grounds is denying Homeopathy......

I'm afraid I cannot agree with your interpretation of human evolution from herbivore origins. How much cellulose can humans digest? As to why the adverse reaction to vegetarians - I, for one, respect vegetarians' personal choice, but all too often, it is accompanied by a direct or implied attack on the morals of meat eaters. I do not see many meat eaters campaigning against the morals of vegetarians but meat eaters do defend their 'lifestyle' against attempts to proselytise them.

Two separate issues - and as Frank said, which I cannot say better, "Nature has no morals. Homeopathy does not negotiate with dis-ease."


Lisa


[This message has been edited by Lisa007 (edited 02 July 2000).]