Conscious Eating for VitalityEating for vitality is so important if you want to live in ‘excellence’ and because of this I felt I needed to write about a sequence of events that happened to me a few days ago. I found myself being very unconscious and in turn embarrassed by my actions at first and then I was angered at how stupid we human beings can be at times. After this incident I put myself at the top of the list of stupidity. It was only a couple of weeks ago that I had written an article about Optimum Vitality in which I talked about the food we feed our body amongst other things and here I was just a week and a half later behaving in exactly the opposite manner to which I had described in the Optimum Vitality article. What does it mean to “eat consciously”? First of all I want to relate my story so you can see what it is like to eat (or almost eat in my case) very unconsciously in order to bring awareness to our actions then we can discuss how we can change these habits to being more conscious and therefore more vitality enhancing. I was driving to a meeting a few days ago and pulled up a set of traffic lights beside a truck carrying what looked to be thousands of chickens crammed in to cages on top of each other with no room for them to move at all. These chickens were obviously on their way to a slaughterhouse which I knew was located not far from where we were stopped. As I sat at the lights I was able to take a close look at a good number of the chickens on this truck and was deeply saddened by the fear, anxiety and lack of vitality that I saw before me. Most of the chickens were missing a good number of feathers and looked as if they were either suffering from or about to have a nervous breakdown. You may think that I am soft to say such a thing but this ‘soft’ male was able to bring a very large law firm and two of its very senior partners to justice a couple of years ago after they did the wrong thing by me and my then partner in a business venture. I just thought I should let you know that I am not one of those castrated males on their “hippie trippy” spiritual path. I am a vital, grounded and very real male who also happens to be very sensitive to the underlying energy that permeates our existence. I am able to tune into people’s subconscious regardless of what facade they are trying to project to the outside world and this has often got me in trouble with very egotistical people because they have nowhere to hide! Anyway, back to the chickens.... Just as I am able to sense the subconscious of humans I am also able to tune into the ‘energy’ and vitality of other living beings. These chickens were experiencing extreme nervous anxiety and some had already died from sheer anxiety overload. It was a very distressing sight to say the least. As I sat in my car I pondered how cruel we can be as humans and maybe we all should be put in cage like these animals were during our childhood so that we can know firsthand what it would be like to be one of these chickens. Imagine if one of those chickens were our children, would that be acceptable? So why do we treat other living beings this way? Some may say that the chickens chose to experience this on their evolutionary path and that everything is in perfect order so why worry about it at all? Before I get in to this I want to finish relating my story. I was on my way to the meeting and it was about 11.30am and I was beginning to become a little hungry and my vitality was waning. I had time so I decided I would stop at McDonalds McCafe and grab a coffee (soy flat white) and a little snack of some sort. I went up to that counter and I didn’t feel like anything sweet from the cafe so I ordered an egg McMuffin (without any sausage or bacon) and a soy flat white coffee, but I was informed that breakfast menu was finished and I would have to order from the lunch menu. Looking at the menu I knew I didn’t want anything sweet and I only wanted something small. The only small (and reasonably healthy) thing I could see was a Chicken Mini Wrap and without any thought of what I had just seen on the road I ordered the Chicken Mini Wrap! I took my snack and my coffee back to my car and as I un-wrapped the Chicken Mini Wrap my mind went back to the truck I had seen carrying the chickens to the slaughterhouse. I was hungry and even though I don’t usually eat meat I took a bite but immediately spit it out again as I couldn't believe the lack of vitality in the food and couldn’t get the fear and anxiety I saw in the chickens earlier out of my mind. I took a sip of my coffee and I became very angry at myself because I knew better but in my unconscious ‘hunger’ I went not only against my values but also against what I know to be a better way of eating for health and vitality. Needless to say the Mini Chicken Wrap was hurled into the nearest bin and I continued on my way to the meeting sipping on my coffee only. What’s wrong with eating a little bit of chicken? Human beings only began eating meat when the earth iced over and there was a shortage of plants and vegetables available. The American Indians traditionally believe that it was the Antelope that was the first animal to sacrifice itself in order for humans to be able to continue to survive and remain vital. Had it not been for the ice age humans would have continued to thrive on plant life only. We eat animals for the life force that they ingest through eating plants that are nourished by the earth and the sun. It is because we obtain this life force from the animals second hand so to speak that this energy is an inferior alternative to gaining it directly from plants. It is because of its inferior quality (and our inappropriate digestive systems, see below) that it takes more of our vital energy to digest the flesh of animals than it does plants and that is why we usually crave sweets or coffee after a meal of flesh. Have you ever noticed that we don’t often if at all eat animals that feed on other animals? The reason for this is that it is even more difficult for us to absorb and assimilate the life force from this flesh and requires an enormous amount of energy to do so nullifying any vital benefits of eating it in the first place. In addition to this the emotional state of the animals killed is stored at a very deep cellular level and is transferred to our energetic field as we digest the flesh within our intestines.
Red Meat and Aggression We all know by now that people who eat a lot of red meat show signs of being more aggressive and easier to anger than people who do not eat red meat. Is this due to the composition of the meat or is it because the methods leading up to and the killing of the animal cause the animal to experience extreme distress which is then passed on to the person who ingests its flesh? Or is it the fact that the human liver cannot cope with eliminating the uric acid that is required in order to break down the complex protein of animal flesh which stresses the liver and in turn causes the person to become ‘liverish’? These are questions worth meditating on..... Above are ethical and energetic dilemmas on which we ought to ponder before reaching for that beef pot roast or that side of lamb in our supermarket freezer. Now I would like you to consider the following discussion..... Should human beings be eating the flesh of animals at all? Have a look at our teeth and our digestive tracts. Now compare your teeth to the family dog’s teeth or the cat’s teeth. Are they similar? Have a look at your hands and feet. Are they designed to run after animals, bring animals to the ground and then tear the flesh from their bodies like a lion or a tiger? Once an animal has been felled, the teeth and jaws of carnivores are designed to rip the flesh from bones but a human would be hard pressed to achieve this feat! What about the ability of the human hands to pick berries, nuts, fruit and pull vegetables from the ground? They are much better suited to this activity aren’t they? Human teeth are designed to crush and chew things like nuts and berries and other plant life with human jaws unlike carnivore jaws having good side to side and back to front motion. What about our digestive tract? The typical digestive tract of a carnivore is about half the length of a typical herbivore (length of tract to body ratio) and the digestive tract of the carnivore is smooth allowing for easy passage and minimal absorption of fats and cholesterol. This is why a high cholesterol diet does not adversely affect a carnivore but has a very detrimental effect on the human body mostly in the form of blocked arteries leading to heart disease. Compare this to the human digestive tract which is about six times the length of the body (thirty six feet for a six foot tall person) and winds around itself and in three different directions allowing for complete absorption of all nutrients from the food ingested. This design is not made for the quick elimination of high cholesterol foods such as red meat. The digestive enzymes in a carnivore contains about ten times the hydrochloric acid of the human digestive enzymes making it easier for carnivores to break down animal protein which is the most complex form of protein that we know of. The extra hydrochloric acid in the carnivore also kills bacteria and worms that may be living in the flesh of their prey which the human digestive tract is unable to do. Digesting animal flesh requires large amounts of Uric Acid and this substance is released into our digestive tract upon ingesting meat. The human liver has only one tenth of the capacity of a carnivore liver in the elimination of the uric acid once the flesh has been digested and the remaining uric acid is a major cause in the premature aging and lack of vitality in the human body which is why most people who eat a lot of meat look and feel much older than their ‘herbivore’ or vegetarian counterparts. And what about the nature of the human being compared to the nature of a typical carnivore such as a tiger? When a tiger spots a furry creature in nature its instinct provided it is hungry is one of ‘Kill’! What happens when we as human beings see a furry animal in nature? Generally we look at it a say “Aw, isn’t that cute!” It’s unlikely that we would look at a little furry duckling and say “Aw look at that, Dinner” and proceed to pick it up and break its neck! A perspective I use to determine whether or not I ought to eat something is “If I were in the wild, would I kill, pluck, skin and dissect that animal before eating it?” I usually stop at kill because I don’t see any reason to kill any animal in order to keep our bodies functioning vitally and I even decided about twelve months ago to stop eating fish as I would not kill a fish for food, I’d rather pick nuts from a tree! If I had had the presence of mind when I was at McDonalds the other day there is no way I would have bought that Chicken Mini Wrap. By doing so I further propagated the senseless slaughter of helpless animals which made me very angry at myself for being so stupid. And in addition the food contained no vital energy to speak of. I thought I should let you know about this incident and sequence of events because how many of us really stop to think about what our bodies really need before reaching for that leg of lamb or tray of rump steaks? I hope this discussion assists you in choosing the correct food for your body in order for it to operate optimally whilst having respect for all other living beings. Conscious eating means to consider from where and how the food arrived on our plate, in our sandwich etc and the effects that ingesting that food will have on our body and our minds before consuming it. Wishing you a life of “Excellence” Rohan James
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