Discussion: Could other bad habits be encouraged by eating meat?

The general philosophy in Hinduism is that willingly eating meat encourages you to be more violent, more cruel. If you eat meat, you are eating the remains of an animal that was killed, which had suffered and died to provide you your food. Such energies can permeate to elsewhere, so if you are cruel to animals, you are likely to be cruel to other humans as well. Basically, the idea is that you have to respect all life, and being cruel to one form of life means you will be cruel to another at some point.

It's an interesting way of looking at the relationship between us, our food and each other. But this mindset obviously does not explain a lot of exceptions: many harsh and cruel soldiers have been loving to their families, many who eat meat regularly could never harm a fly and many slave owners of the old British Empire committed absolutely abhorrent acts toward their slaves while being the most genteel of people to their white acquaintances.

I did start to wonder though if, maybe by eating processed meat on a frequent basis, people slide into other bad habits. I have already mentioned junk food but, let's be honest, eating junk food is a simple consequence of being lazy most of the time. What I was wondering was if there could possibly be a link between meat-eaters and litterbugs. You see, while many Hindu philosophers consider those who eat meat frequently (or ever) to be cruel to others - or will inevitably be cruel to others - I can't help but wonder at the background of those who'll buy a bunch of food from a chippy or kebab shop somewhere, not finish it, and then dump it on the ground. There is no stronger statement of how little you care for others or your environment.

But hey, all individuals are products of their culture. So why is it that many a respectable person can eat a lot of meat (or even junk food) and still be able to respect others and everything around them? It's all to do with mindset: there are things some people take for granted. A lot of people who litter a lot and get wasted on alcohol in the mistaken belief that they have a "good time" probably have no clue where any of their food comes from and probably don't care. I have no idea who said this, but there is a certain saying floating around: if the majority of the world had to kill the animals for their meat, or at least witness their slaughter, a great many of them would be vegetarian instantly. Ditto for the people I'm talking about here, I can guarantee that.