{"id":1466,"date":"2015-12-08T12:20:15","date_gmt":"2015-12-08T18:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vegetatingwithleslie.org\/?p=1466"},"modified":"2017-04-20T14:24:34","modified_gmt":"2017-04-20T20:24:34","slug":"what-you-eat-expresses-your-values-do-it-consciously","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vegetatingwithleslie.org\/?p=1466","title":{"rendered":"What we eat expresses our values: let’s do it consciously"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally this post started with my reaction to the Trump phenomenon. I’m revising it because that phenomenon is just the latest expression of a deep-seated trend in American history and culture, in fact in all of human culture.<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m not adding an image to this post because I couldn’t find one that adequately expressed what I want to say. The image in my head is the Garden of Eden, a vision in which creation lives in harmony. That world was vegetarian, and no part of it was devalued in relation to another part. All the images I found either didn’t include\u00a0human beings or, if they did include human beings, they were white only.<\/i><\/p>\n

* * * * * * * * * *<\/p>\n

Words have power. The vocabulary of bigotry and devaluation and exclusion eventually leads to violence.<\/p>\n

Symbols have power as well. Images have power. Rituals have power. All of these are non-verbal expressions of ideas.<\/p>\n

Those of us who hope for a just and compassionate society must increase our sensitivity to the impact of words, symbols, imagery and rituals and how they are understood and expressed in society. A first step toward stemming the tide of disrespect and violence in our world is stemming the tide of negative words and imagery by opposing it with positive words and imagery.<\/p>\n

A starting place for me to begin to understand the origins of violence in our world and to oppose it is with food.<\/p>\n

Food does more than nourish me. It is a central part of my personal symbolism. I express myself with the food that I make and eat and share with others.<\/p>\n

Usually my food talks about good health and love and caring. Today my food needs to say something else. It needs to say, people of the world, unite against lack of compassion, hatred and violence. Recognize the seeds of it everywhere. Those seeds are hardly restricted to one group emanating from the Middle East.<\/p>\n

I want to put out a challenge. I would like to invite all of us to commit to sitting down, once a week, with at least one other person with whom we can share our meal. Let’s make that meal vegan, and let’s be certain that either we grow and prepare every item on our plates, or we purchase Fair Trade, sustainably produced raw ingredients to prepare the meal. In fact, extend the process to everything on the table. The salt. The plates. The napkins. Find out what was involved in getting each item to your table.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the near impossibility of fulfilling this requirement will serve to make us aware of the pervasiveness of thoughtless violence that implicates us all, the thoughtless violence that underpins massive cultural, ethnic, religious, racial, gender and species-directed violence.<\/p>\n

This meal will be our regular weekly time to reflect on this violence that threatens to engulf creation, violence against animals “produced” on an impossibly massive scale just for slaughter, violence against our environment, and violence against our fellow human beings in so many ways and at so many levels.<\/p>\n

For some of us, this reflection may lead to further social action. For others, the communal reflection is an action in itself. The power of one sensitized person is far greater than the power of one radicalized individual.<\/p>\n

For more, visit my blog, vegetatingwithleslie.org<\/a>, \u201cLike\u201d me on FaceBook\/Vegetating with Leslie or follow me on Twitter, @vegwithleslie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally this post started with my reaction to the Trump phenomenon. I’m revising it because that phenomenon is just the latest expression of a deep-seated trend in American history and culture, in fact in all of human culture. I’m not adding an <\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[90,34,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-sustainability","category-thoughts"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat we eat expresses our values: let's do it consciously - Vegetating with Leslie<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/vegetatingwithleslie.org\/?p=1466\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What we eat expresses our values: let's do it consciously - Vegetating with Leslie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Originally this post started with my reaction to the Trump phenomenon. 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