Seems to me people that eat a lot of animal foods get sick, have an accident, or are the victim or perpetrator of domestic violence.

Think about it–pro athletes from Chris Henry to Steve McNair to Pat Tillman to Marquis Cooper and Corey Smith in the NFL.

In Major League Baseball, it’s Josh Hancock, Nick Adenhart, Tim Crews and Steve Olin and Corey Lidle. The NBA and NHL have their stories as well.

Then there’s Golf Tiger Woods is in deep doo-doo, and remember what happened to Payne Stewart?

You might say, “these guys are living large, they make so much money, and travel so much, and have so much pressure on them. All that is true.

But there’s a lot of pressure on me to provide for my family, and I can only make $50-$80K despite having a master’s degree, and have to work through the year,
compared to these guys who earn in the millions, and work part time.

I don’t want to unfairly single out pro athletes, but they do come to the top of my mind when I think of…tailgating, sponsors of pro sports teams such as McDonald’s, Burger King, Domino’s Pizza and the like, and stories about athletes that have 10 eggs and a 24oz. steak for breakfast. And of course there are the fatties at Sports Radio WEEI who are all one meal away from death by heart attack.

Interestingly, many actors, dancers and musicians are vegan, and while they are not without their problems, I would love to see a “karma comparison” between them and pro athletes.

If there is a connection between eating meat and tragedy, two thoughts come to mind:

1-Why does this happen to meat eaters?

2-If it does happens, should we educate people about it, so we can prevent these tragedies?

As for the connection, I believe the book by Dr. Will Tuttle, entitled The World Peace Diet, explains it best.

In Chapter 13, entitled Evolve or Dissolve, he explains:

“There is much talk today about stopping the cycle of violence, which is typically understood as the “hurt people hurt people” syndrome.
Children who are violated and abused will, when they become adults, tend to violate and abuse their children in a self-perpetrating cycle of violence
that rolls through generations. We address it by trying to stop the child abuse, and fail to see the deeper dynamic. This human cycle of violence will
not stop until we stop the underlying violence, the remorseless violence we commit against animals for food.”

“We teach this behavior and this insensitivity to all our children in a subtle, unintentional, but powerful form of culturally approved child abuse. Our actions
condition our consciousness; therefore forcing our children to eat animals wounds them deeply. It requires them to disconnect from the food on their plates,
from their feelings, from animals and nature, and sets up conditions of disease and psychological armoring. The wounds persist and are passed on to the
next generation.”

Dr. Tuttle is a very well educated philosopher, gifted author, lecturer, musician and composer. This is but two paragraphs from his 300 page seminal work.
But you may see here that we are in over our heads, because of not only the amount and the quality of the animal foods we eat, but because we are
almost totally unconscious as we do it. This is certainly contributing to many of the problems of our time…drug abuse, violence, war, poverty, and illness
are at unacceptable levels for a civilized country, don’t you think? And of course, then we can add in the notion that professional athletes tend to be less
mature, and our given outrageous sums of money and have a lot of pressure put on them to perform, and be public figures. They almost always disappoint
in the end, not because they are human, but because our world has made them less human.

I will leave number 2 for another day. But please meditate on this. When animals are abused for our food, we all suffer terribly. It can not go on forever. Something must be done.
It may sell newspapers today. But I fear it also signals us selling our souls, and dooming us to the same violence that comes to billions of animals every year.

One final, practical note, which may not ingratiate me to Dr. Tuttle, but may have a good end result…

If you are not ready to give up eating animals, please do not take a breath, and simply bury these ideas. They will fester, and come out eventually anyway, possibly with life-altering implications. Instead, when you choose meat or eggs or dairy foods, make sure you choose organic, and take a moment to consider that an animal gave up its life so you can eat it.

Yes, we are at the top of the food chain, but let’s give thanks for that, and honor the animals that allow us to be there. Then we can behave more like the evolved creatures we claim
to be, and perhaps over time we will work more at reducing the suffering of our animal friends.

David Kagan is a natural healthy educator in the Boston area, currently seeking funding for a startup to provide organic vegan healing foods.

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