The compassionate non-vegetarian?

Since I can remember, I have always loved animals, even though the only ones we ever had at home were a couple of parakeets, and my sister had a hamster. Once we found an injured wild baby rabbit which we nursed back to health and then set free. We explored the world of frogs and tadpoles. We delighted in the sighting of any wildlife on walks. I played with and eventually fed a neighbor's collie, who started to stay in the back of our house at night. He was eventually given to a farm by it's owners. Still,even though I never had any of my own,  I loved animals. Wherever we moved, there were always bird songs in the spring and songbirds to observe raising their young. We did get to watch all animal shows on TV and back then in Germany, they were good documentaries on all kinds of wildlife and their habitats, animal's lives and plight. My favorite animals were dolphins, then dogs (German Shepherds and Collies especially), horses, songbirds, wild cats, rabbits, cows, deer, foxes, birds of prey, wolves, and you name it. Once my dad told us about having to kill a mouse - and how  that is when it's just there, still, looking at you with these big brown eye's asking: why are you doing this? And I understood it then, and even more so now.
We also often got game from farmers during hunting season, parts of a deer, rabbits, occasionally wild boar. I learned to skin and gut rabbits. We also, already way back then, tried to get eggs from free ranging chickens and beef from a cow that had been allowed the life of a cow on a pasture.This was after it became known how the animals were kept.
I have eaten meat most of my life,  once or twice a week, and in recent years only chicken from free range organic farms.
And then Skye came into my life, this majestic German shepherd husky and because of wanting to do the best for her, I looked up a lot of dog related stuff online and inevitably came across all the horrific accounts and images of abused dogs, neglected dogs and the whole domain of the plight of dogs in shelters and their killing and for the first time in my life, I could imagine being an activist - in fact, in my own way, I became one.  Sensitized, I also watched the Video: Glass Walls, below. And even though I had sort of known for a long time, this time it hit home in a different way. You could say: I feelingly awakened to a new level.


I became a vegetarian, and it has been easy.

Compare this to a dog in a shelter

I have friends who also became vegetarians, and I have friends who point out the detrimental effects of grains on human digestive systems, and the benefit of an all meat diet. There is the right diet for your blood type theory. There are camps pro and con vegetarian, meat eating, and the health benefits of each. Even Buddhists don't forbid the eating of meat.
To summarize what the suttas tell us: it appears that one may, with a clear conscience, receive, cook, and eat meat that either was freely offered by someone else, or that came from an animal who died of natural causes. But as to purchasing meat, I am just not sure. There are no clear-cut answers here.
We are all guilty of complicity, in one way or another and to varying degrees, in the harming and death of other creatures. Whether we are carnivore, vegan, or something in between, no matter how carefully we choose our food, somewhere back along the long chain of food production and preparation, killing took place. No matter how carefully we trod, with every step countless insects, mites, and other creatures inadvertently perish under our feet. This is just the nature of our world. 
from "Frequently Asked Questions About Buddhism", edited by John T. Bullitt. Access to Insight, 18 March 2011, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bullitt/bfaq.html.

I also am not sure that my body does not need meat to do better, my own sense is that is does. Maybe I'll see an specially trained doctor for guidance on the matter.
So the dilemma is there, how can I possibly eat meat again, even if my body needs it? I am not in principle and under all circumstances opposed to meat-eating for everyone. I oppose and object to the mal-treatment of animals and the misuse of the earth's resources in order to "raise meat" commercially the way we do, no matter which or where. But could I kill them? In a survival class with Tom Brown Junior, the Tracker, the groups were each given a white rabbit which we were to kill for food and usage of the fur. This did not go without the teaching of the sanctity of it's life and the way to kill with a sudden blow. So, you get the gist - there are many different kinds of ways to look at the entire issue of food, including meat. Someone once said, as the topic came up and we were munching on carrots and other vegetables: ask them what THEY have to say about that - as if they did not have to give their life to become food, and I can tell you - if you do it with enough sensitivity, pulling out weeds or harvesting gorgeous lettuce hurts too.

Then there is the issue of: if we can eat cows and pigs and chicken, why not horses, and dogs and cats and monkeys and goats and sheep...and the list goes on, whatever happens you are able to find.
Yet, they are all these beautiful sentient beings with feelings and their life's purpose.
Recently I have come across lots of outrage of the Chinese eating dogs and their general disrespect in how those dogs get treated, with lots of comments calling the Chinese barbaric. But I ask you, watch the video below and then tell me: how are we less barbaric in this country? How can anyone not think this is atrocious and monstrous? Just saying, it is not a Chinese characteristic. In fact, we as a society may be more barbaric - they simply use dogs as food culturally, not having lived with dogs at the same level of companions as we in the West have been relating to dogs.Of course they skin them alive...I don't know how they can do it....




This one is about eating meat or not. Are we human designed or meant to eat meat? Are we supposed to "outgrow" our need for meat as we ascend the evolutionary ladder to a more awake and enlightened species? Does it depend on your genetics?
It is also about how we go about caring for the animals we breed as life-stock and giving them a life in the process as well as honoring and thanking them for giving their life for us.
It is also about how we choose which animal is ok to eat and the cultural differences and traditions.
It is about the life on this beautiful planet and how to honor all sentient beings, about giving and taking and sharing and sacrifices and the deep respect for other forms of life.
Can there be a compassionate non-vegetarian?


In looking for some images, I came across this blog - this is what happened to me too: the images - and once you really know, you cannot "unknow"
the-face-on-your-plate