The debate over different modalities of food for human consumption and what best diet fits for it has been going on for centuries, from time immemorial. It is known that man was hunted for a long time, became prey to other animals that fed on him, invaded his territories, etc. Nevertheless, he learned to hunt from hunted and of its own species inclusive, of which he savoured the meat of his alike in rituals of cannibalism. The man liked both this predatory activity and the taste of flesh, which today, vast tracts of land on the planet are used to feed the hunger for the flesh of cadavers inherited from his ancestors.
However, the Earth also offered in abundance, other delicacies, such as roots, tubers, leaves and fruits, cereals and nuts, not to mention what the seas and rivers offered, and which, over time and increase in population, other vast tracts of land and water is used to quench man's hunger. More recently, he is turning his taste into large-scale consumption of insects and worms.
The centuries go by, and the debate continues... is man carnivorous, macrobiotic, vegetarian, vegan, pescetarian, crudivore, flexitarian, frugivorous or insectivorous etc.? And the list will go on with new modalities!
If we want to analyze from the human dental arch, we will certainly conclude; however, relative, it may be. We have the incisors to cut, but we do not have the sharp canines, which tear. Our premolars and molars do not have ruminants' anatomy, so we can say that man is an omnivore? Who eats everything according to his taste?
Who should answer this question? To each one, from its character, or morality and ethics, is supposed?
A recent scientific doc broadcasted by BBC Television in London entitled “Gut Feeling” showed a range of behavioural research and scientific studies in labs with a large number of volunteers who presented themselves as human guinea pigs resulting in the following: that the more diverse it is our food intake, the more is our survival and health, because the larger and richer our intestinal flora is, the healthier man becomes and more resistant his organism is against the attack of a disease.
But... in everything, there is controversy. The most critical, those of intellectual and analytical mind, exacerbated and emotional ego will deny all.
“Man shall not live on bread alone”! Jesus formulated this precept over 2000 years ago. Still, it has a much more comprehensive and current metaphysical approach that shows that human beings in tune with the Primary Cause also feed, but of another kind of intake: Cosmic Energy!
If one opens the pages, for example, of Paramahansa Yogananda's fascinating book, “Autobiography of a Yogi,” to travel in the astonishing accounts of human beings of ascetic experience, who did not eat any food. The famous German mystic and stigmata Therese Newmann, with whom Yogananda had personally witnessed the phenomenon of wounds in her body during the liturgical period of Lent, survived for almost 40 years by feeding daily only on one consecrated host!
Placing these phenomena aside, let's analyze from another point of view without prolonging the concepts of morality and ethics; culture, education, tradition and daily life, and what motivates a man to act in a certain way, his character, before the concepts of good and evil.
Eating meat feeling guilty through the pain and suffering imposed on animals should be avoided. But in feeding only on roots, vegetables, cereals, fruits and nuts... is not it also a way to destroy life? And the cost to the planet of unemployment generated if everyone adheres only to one form of diet? How much food is thrown in the trash! Statistics show that out of every 5 supermarket grocery bags with food, one is discarded because it was not consumed in time and rotted or already expired.
An extremely complex dilemma, reaching an impasse!
Opting for ethics in favour of nonhumans is an attitude of the most virtuous. However, abdicating ethics with its human counterparts is the most hypocritical and paradoxical reaction. Treating nonhumans in one way and humans in another is an aberration...
Adolf Hitler, who did not drink and did not smoke, was strictly vegetarian!
Therefore, it should be remembered: to make ethics a recognized fact without possessing the mystics, it almost always leads to the consciousness of vanity and self-complacency, which is already a defeat. Ethics only exists pure, without sacrifices, if it exists as a simultaneous attitude to the mystical experience; thus, preserving it sound and true, beautiful and light.
“Man shall not live on bread alone” is a subtle warning. Jesus, the author of this phrase, extended in this statement an invitation to a banquet where very few came. Still, there are empty chairs on the table for the spiritual banquet, which is usually indigestible for the profane man. He himself drank and ate at every table, and it is unknown whether he determined a diet specific to himself, nor did the Gospels refer to a diet formulated for all. Criticised gluttony called for the harmony of character and behaviour and ended his arguments with the brightest of warnings:
“It is not that which comes into the mouth that defiles a man, but out of the mouth, for it proceeds from the heart, that is what defiles him.”
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