It’s common for people in the New Age arena to believe the myth about a vegetarian diet and spirituality, that it’s necessary to become enlightened.
The pro-vegetarianism contention goes something like this: “I am 100% for life and I love animals, so I avoid eating meat. Animals are my friends. Why would you eat your friends? A vegan diet brings more peace and enlightenment to every living being.”
Or, the argument goes like this: “Eating meat is akin to murder. Plus, it’s too heavy; plants are much lighter and better for your body, thus, your spirituality is enhanced on a strict vegetarian diet.”
Never mind that there’s never been a strict vegetarian civilization in the history of the planet that has survived for any length of time.
If it’s true that eating meat is murder, that means that most animals, including humans, are murderers. That bacteria, those cute little micro-organisms you just killed by washing your hands? That makes you a murderer too, as does killing plants, which are also living organisms.
About twenty years ago, we learned firsthand about the myth of a vegetarian diet and spirituality. We avoided animal products for many months. Even though we took a careful approach, including doing internal cleansing along with the diet transition, in time we realized it’s a dysfunctional diet for our body type.
A strict vegetarian diet brings you closer to God all right–it decimates your health if you stay on it long enough. It saps your energy, makes you vitamin deficient (e.g., vitamin a, and b-vitamins), and eventually, makes most people look and feel unhealthy.
It was very telling how much energy we had, bouncing off the walls, when we first had a vitamin b-12 supplement, after not having animal products for a long time–we were vitamin b-12 deficient. Unfortunately, supplements and toxic substances like processed, unfermented soy aren’t good, long-term substitutes for the nutrition your body needs.
The concept of a vegetarian diet and spirituality has been warped beyond recognition, in our view.
Don’t get us wrong, we do believe short-term vegetarianism can be very healthy, such as doing a vegetable juice fast for a while. We’ve done three week herbal cleanses (no meat or animal products, no starches, etc.) that we believe have been very helpful for detoxification and our overall health.
Dr. Mercola of mercola.com advocates a vegan-rich diet, along with free-range, chemical-free meats. He claims that only less than 30% of the population has the body type that tolerates strict vegetarianism, or veganism. We believe it may be lower than 30%, based on our observations. Even those who say, “I had my blood-work done, it shows I’m fine,” may be fine for now, but the longer you avoid vitamin rich animal products, the more likely your health may suffer.
Here’s a video from a former vegetarian who speaks of the dangers of a strict vegan diet. She says that after a year of an approximately 95% vegan diet, she felt great, but then her health began to decline.
It’s astonishing how many people buy into the vegetarian diet and spirituality myth and erroneously believe it’s more spiritual, when the exact opposite is true for most people.
We’ve meditated regularly and undertaken other spiritual disciplines, such as Reiki, for many years and we can assure you that eating a diet that works for your body, even if it includes animal products, won’t negatively affect your spiritual growth or cause you to incur negative karma.
While it’s true that it’s not easy to meditate and get closer to your God-self (or higher-self, etc.) after eating a huge steak dinner, avoiding meat altogether is likely to negatively affect your health over the long-term.
It’s okay to have believed the falsehood about a strict vegetarian diet and spirituality, but now you should act on the truth.
Copyright © 2013 Scott Petullo, Stephen Petullo