National Vegetarian Week and eating meat

The 15th annual National Vegetarian Week, begins today and it is clear that eating less meat is a much greener way of life.
Vegetarians’ meat and fish-free lifestyle reduces their impact on the environment. Almost a fifth of climate-changing greenhouse gases come from livestock production!!! Animals reared for meat are a major source of water pollution and the majority of deforestation is carried out to clear land for livestock pasture and the growing of their feed crops. See more here.

Clearly there are also many other reasons for going Vegetarian or at the very least reducing meat consumption. My brothers cafe in Bristol is a great place to see what vegetarian food can really be about - see here but locally in Stroud we also have some excellent places like Woodruffs and Star Anise.

I do still occasionally meat - I was vegetarian for some years but after getting seriously ill I found that I was better eating some but it was and still is occasional - I will not be doing so this week. Apparently the Dalai Lama was a vegetarian in the 1960s but after developing hepatitis he was ordered by his doctors to eat meat again - he has apparently since 2005 turned to a vegetarian diet again. I have to say I am not entirely sure about this health issue - I wonder if with a nutritionally good vegetarian diet then meat would not be necessary? Or do some people need to eat some meat? Certainly a diet with lots of meat is not healthy.

I understand the Buddha did not made it a compulsory rule that all his followers have to be vegetarians. However he strongly encouraged us to be vegetarians. In the Bodhisattva practice of minimising harm to all beings and benefiting them as much as possible, the practice of vegetarianism as far as possible plays an essential role. We can see this in many of the Buddha's recorded teachings. Indeed there are moves within other religions to also call for less meat eating - there is an international Christian Vegetarian Association, a UK Muslim Vegetarian/Vegan Society and more.

Certainly it is clear that our current meat-eating is wholly unsustainable. Vegetarian and Vegan diets need to become much more the norm - and factory-farmed meat is an absolute no-no. Read also Green Principal Speaker Derek Wall talking about what it means to rise to the challenge of being vegetarian on his blog today: http://another-green-world.blogspot.com/