Expert: Alex Wilding - 3/28/2008

Question
QUESTION: Is it alright to eat meat?  If so, what type of meat?

ANSWER: Hi Henry,
Not all Buddhists by any means are vegetarian, but vegetarianism is highly admired.
I think you have to recognize that even if you eat *no meat at all*, sentient beings still suffer and die in the production of your food. There is no "line" dividing what is ok from what is not ok.
There is also an argument that the quality of life of the animals, and the way they are killed, is more important than whether they are reared for meat. Factory farming methods involve *much* more animal suffering than free field rearing and humane killing.
So the less meat you eat, the better, yes. Even more important is to avoid factory-reared meat and products. But you also have to realistically accept the circumstances of the time.
So that's not a black-and-white answer, but I hope it helps all the same.
Best wishes
Alex Wilding

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: This is really serious to me.  My family and I eat meat, I don't know if I am creating a lot of bad karma out of this.  Some religions and almost all probably definitely prohibit meat eating.  Can I buy food and treat for my dog that contain meat by products, beef, bacon, chicken, and other sources of meat?

Answer
Dear Henry,
I think the "bad karma" depends on your mind. If you don't care about animal suffering, happily and knowingly eat meat that has been reared in factories and killed cruelly - that sounds like bad karma to me.
But if you realize that eating meat is a problem, and make sure that you maybe eat *less* meat than you did before, and that when you do, you get it from sources where you can be sure that the animals were reared in surroundings where they could be happy (i.e. not in a tiny battery cage, for instance) and that they were killed humanely, then I don't think that is so bad. It is *impossible* to live without doing some harm. The thing is to try to do *less* harm, not to beat yourself up just because you can't reduce the harm to zero.
And, after all, you also have a responsibility to your dog, to see that he has food that is healthy for him/her. In the case of cats (I have two dogs and one cat) it is even clearer - cats' bodies cannot live without animal protein. My view of the ethics there is that we should look after these animals too, but we should minimize the harm that *they* do in two ways 1) do not breed from them and make sure they are de-sexed 2) do not obtain them from breeders - take in strays and homeless animals to save their lives.
Any help?
All the best
Alex Wilding