Hi Tom,

you wrote:
>A good question. The "food offered with love" has a number of aspects:
>1) It is a description of milk and dairy, as Mother cow makes milk for
>her calf: she loves her calf, and the milk is an expression of her love
>for her calf.  (Some won't agree, but this is right in line with vegan
>"values".) Further, the cow is generous and will share her milk with
>us.

I have a different point of view here.
Perhaps the cow makes milk for her calf and expresses her love for her
calf by that. But she obviously does    n o t    make milk to be stolen
by us humans. And if she knows, we will steal the milk intended to be
drunk by her calf, she might decide to put hatred and anger into the
milk, intoxicating it.
She does not share her milk with us. She is forced to do so by us.

Tom:
>2) From this view, animal flesh is not offered in love, as the animal
>wants to survive - i.e., avoid being eaten. Animals don't offer their=20
>flesh to us.

Well, in ancient times scavenged meat seemed to be an important source
of RAF for humans. Still today instinctos (me too) watch, that they
prefer aged meat, not fresh kills. And an animal that is dying simply
because it has finished its life, is offering (indirectly) its body to
nature. And I consider humans to be part of nature.

Tom:
>One argument relies on the law of karma: if you eat a creature, then
>karma requires that you be eaten in the future. (Blood for blood.)

And that's true: after your dead you (indirectly) offer your body to
nature again... the circle closes.

Tom:
>Animals have strong self-identities, and when you eat them, you are=20
>eating their "body-identification" consciousness. Plants
>have less consciousness; when you eat them, ...

If the degree of consciousness grows from plants to animals (and su-
posedly from animals lower in evolution to more higher species) why
should we lower our self-identity then? In the contrary it looks we
should strengthen it!

Tom:
>Vegetarianism is an explicit teaching of many religions - branches of
>Hinduism,...

Most religious leaders introduced vegetarianism due to hygienical pro-
blems with meat. Several religions don't eat meat of porks and this was
due to trichinosis problems in those times (not only in those times as
we know now... ;-))
Also eating meat in neolithic times nearly always means eating cooked
meat. And cooked meat I personally consider to be highly toxic and de-
sastrous to your spiritual development.
The religious leaders missed the real point in my oppinion.

Best instinctive regards,

Stefan
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