Compassion for the Animals

Why eating plants and loving animals makes the whole world happier.

Hi there!
I’d like you to meet someone.

This is my friend Carlos’ dog. Her name is Sangha. And she is the cutest rottweiler. Ever. Ever.

Feeling connected to others, feeling that we care, and feeling that we are sufficiently aligned with our values — in one word, compassion, is a core component of mental health.

This is why I would like to share with you a chapter of my book Heal the System called…

The Animals

A civilized society does not condone the unnecessary harming and killing of living beings.

The first time I made the connection between the food I ate and the death of animals, I was horrified. My twin sister and I were eight year old when, following our mother to the food market, we came face to face with corpses of rabbits and pigs hanging upside down. Distressed, I turned to my mother and asked, "Mom... Are they dead?"

My sister and I, scandalized, cried our revulsion at the butcher's stand, before our embarrassed mother walked us away. Coming home, I informed my mother I would not eat meat anymore. She tried to dissuade me, saying I needed protein to grow, but I insisted, asking her meal after meal not to put meat on my plate.

I only managed to stay vegetarian for a few months; after which, eating meat still felt wrong, but I looked the other way. At the risk of sounding like I'm justifying myself, up until my teenage years, I don't remember anyone watering my seed of compassion for farm animals. My own lack of resolve, the culture I lived in, and my unchecked beliefs about nutrition prevented me from expressing the care I had for animals.

When I was seventeen, my mother became vegetarian, for both health and ethical reasons. She learned that plants provide all the amino acids (the building blocks of protein) we need, and gracefully apologised for her past mistake. After divorcing my father, she began cooking delicious vegetarian dishes for us and inspired me to reconnect with my childhood's aspiration not to contribute to animal suffering.

We all say we love animals. We may share heart-melting clips of animals on social media. We play with our pets, admire them and care for them. We can feel elated looking at birds soaring in the sky. We can be struck by the beauty and preciousness of life. Yet, when it comes to animals that we label as “items of consumption,” we as a society can also be quick to disconnect.

We choose not to make the connection between the food we eat, the clothes we wear, and the painful realities of those innocent creatures.

We ourselves could never artificially impregnate cows, separate newly born calves from their mothers, slit their throats, hang them upside down and cut them into pieces. We are horrified at the idea of throwing male chicks in industrial grinders, trimming chickens' beaks, smashing piglets' heads on concrete and castrating pigs manually. Yet these are only some of the atrocities we pay other people to commit for us daily.

To open the doors of our hearts, let us open the doors to slaughterhouses and see: there is no humane way to kill an animal who wants to live, to separate a family that wants to be together, or to hurt an innocent animal.

To go vegan is to bridge the gap between our moral values and our daily actions.

I have come to believe that making progress towards a vegan lifestyle is one of the most impactful things we can do to heal our word.

Women are more likely to go vegan than men, partly because many of us still associate meat consumption with manliness, believing we can't have one without the other. I believe a “real man” has the courage to confront the suffering around him and to stand up for what is right.

I invite you to watch vegan documentaries and learn more about the suffering within the animal farming industry. It won't be easy, but the temporary discomfort of watching will be well worth your newly gained empathy and awareness.

There are 7.5 billion people on Earth and every year we kill 70 billion land animals and 2.7 trillion sea animals for consumption. We don't have to. The American Dietetic Association, the British Dietetic Association and other large bodies of nutrition professionals have let us know that

“Appropriately planned vegan diets are healthful and nutritionally adequate for all stages of life.”

Our ancestors' conditions might have been different, but in today's world, the availability of food allows us to survive and thrive on a strictly plant-based diet. Plants provide us with all the fiber, vitamins, minerals, proteins, calcium, iron, antioxidants, and other nutrients we need – without the cholesterol, trans fat, hormones, antibiotics, and other harmful substances found in animal products.

We cannot argue that consuming animal products is a personal choice, because there are victims involved. Morality is not a matter of personal preference, nor can it be based on the behavior of people in the past or animals in the wild. Morality stems from a direct encounter with the reality of suffering, from the victim's perspective.

To be born a human being is to be born a big sister or big brother in the Earth's family. We can protect, support, and let live, knowing that our younger siblings' suffering and happiness are intimately connected to our own suffering and happiness.

Let us be true animal lovers.

If you’re interested in the topic, I also contributed a chapter to this book,

edited by Will Tuttle, PhD, bestselling author of The World Peace Diet.

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This newsletter is free and will remain free. It is 100% written by me. I only use AI to help me with the spelling, grammar, and word use. I welcome concrete and specific suggestions for improvement.

The #1 thing you can do to get started on this Mental Health Revolution is to print a Daily Wellness Empowerment Program (DWEP) Sheet and get going.