Were Humans Meat-Eaters? || Acharya Prashant (2019)
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Video Information:
Interview Session, 04.11.19, Bengaluru, India
Context:
~ Why should one turn vegan?
~ What is the relationship between veganism and spirituality?
~ How is veganism related to compassion?
~ Why is veganism necessary for today's generation?
~ What is the relation between veganism and climate change?
~ How could veganism change the world?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .
Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...
Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?
Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Video Information:
Interview Session, 04.11.19, Bengaluru, India
Context:
~ Why should one turn vegan?
~ What is the relationship between veganism and spirituality?
~ How is veganism related to compassion?
~ Why is veganism necessary for today's generation?
~ What is the relation between veganism and climate change?
~ How could veganism change the world?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00How long have you been eating meat and drinking milk?
00:18We have been always eating meat and drinking milk. It's been since our ancient times.
00:25So my question to you is, is animal liberation or a vegan movement consistent with the ancient times of our land?
00:37There are a few myths that need to be dispelled.
00:56Yes, man has had the inclination and the capacity to eat meat since a very, very long time.
01:17But even when man was in the jungle, he was primarily a herbivore.
01:29And this is borne out by scientific analysis of the fossils being dug out and many other kinds of equally rigorous scientific evidences.
02:00It is obvious that for the inhabitant of the jungle, the hunter-gatherer,
02:13it is far easier to pluck a fruit than to chase and catch an animal and then kill it and then eat it.
02:31So it is a myth that our ancient, ancient forefathers were all carnivores.
02:41They did have meat when it was probably available and that is likely to have been quite sporadic.
03:01So man comes actually from a primarily vegetarian, herbivore background.
03:13The argument that man has always been a meat eater needs to be studied and refuted.
03:27The current splurge in meat-eating is not more than 200 years old.
03:42It came along with industrialization and the popularization of thought that it is meat alone that can provide for protein,
04:11calcium or many other important nutrients to the body.
04:20It was obviously a highly unscientific belief, but it got popularized.
04:32Now, since the last 30, 40, 50 years, as we are progressing, there is tons of scientific data
04:54to conclusively prove that not only are we not historically prolific meat eaters,
05:09but also that meat eating or milk consumption has a highly deleterious effect on the human body.
05:18But then this data is now fighting against a huge mountain of habit and vested financial interests.
05:40You know of the size of the global meat industry, you know of the size of animal agriculture.
05:48They are one of the biggest industries on the face of this planet.
05:56So now even as it becomes known that probably mankind took a wrong dietary turn quite recently, just around 200 years back,
06:10in opting for a primarily meat-based diet, yet the momentum of the last two centuries is making it difficult for most people to correct their mistake.
06:32And of course, added to that is the heft of the meat industry, the financial power, the political power they possess,
06:47the kind of control over media that they have, and all the levers that they can pull.
06:55So that is there.
06:57First thing is, so a lot of people, so first my question is like, I do understand there is mountains of evidence which proves the claim.
07:06But there have been lobbyist groups or say there have been contradictory scientific research, which now and then make headlines.
07:15Say for example, we have been carnivore, so it was recently on the Times of India, we have evolved as a carnivore.
07:25And other adding being meat is not as unhealthy as we see.
07:32So I mean, I do understand say from past 40-50 years, there have been mountains of evidences.
07:39But say now and then, there are some evidences which contradict the claim.
07:44So which make people believe that there is a kind of confusion within the scientific community.
07:51So what do you have to say on that?
07:5440s, 50s, right into the 60s, in the last century, it was still being upheld that cigarette smoking keeps you vital and active.
08:13And it was a popular belief that cigarette smoking specifically among men is a driver of masculinity as well.
08:35When it started becoming evident that cigarette smoking has a whole range of very very harmful effects,
08:51when cancer cases started piling up.
08:55Then the tobacco industry started sponsoring lot of so-called scientific reports that would say that there is nothing wrong with tobacco and that cigarettes are not at all harmful for human beings.
09:19And they kept up the propaganda for another 10-20 years, almost till the end of 70s.
09:33They kept trying it till it became ridiculously impossible for them to keep pressing on with their claims.
09:49So why will they not do it?
09:52Their money is at stake. Greed can make man do anything.
09:57Greed can make man present any kind of pseudo-scientific evidence which is nothing but blatant cheating and lying.
10:05Most of the reports that still try to defend meat consumption are sponsored by groups having vested interests.
10:17Take the case of climate change as well.
10:21That climate change is happening and there is a clear scientific basis for it was evident not today but even four decades back.
10:35But then the fossil fuel industry kept sponsoring report after report that said firstly that there is no climate change.
10:48Then they said oh there probably is climate change but it does not have to do with human activity.
10:56Global warming they said is not anthropogenic.
11:01Even today they come up with something or the other that would confuse the population.
11:12That's their objective.
11:13To not let it become certain, absolutely certain, conclusively and finally certain that climate change is happening and man is responsible for it.
11:25If you can instill some doubt in the mind of the compulsive cigarette smoker regarding whether or not cigarettes are harmful.
11:52You have given him a lease of fresh hope.
11:57He will say you know it is not yet quite proven that cigarettes are harmful.
12:02So I feel licensed and entitled to continue with my cigarettes till a final proof is established.
12:15That's the little ray of hope that the addicted and the greedy mind needs.
12:25The issue has to be closed, sealed and stamped.
12:33It is final that meat eating is stupid from all kinds of reasons and they will not let that final conclusion arrive soon.
12:54It will arrive just as it arrived in the case of cigarette smoking.
13:00Just as it finally had to be accepted by the tobacco industry that cigarette smoking is highly injurious.
13:10Today you see on cigarette packs not only is there a warning but there is a gruesome warning.
13:19There is that terrible face cancer struck.
13:31It was unimaginable that the tobacco industry would agree to it four decades back.
13:37Today they have had to agree because now there is popular scientific consensus.
13:43But they agreed only after claiming millions of lives by spreading misinformation.
13:57Same with climate change.
13:59Now everybody is coming around to agree that yes there is climate change and climate change is due to human activity.
14:11But they are trying to delay the inevitable.
14:16They are trying to delay that there would be ultimately a consensus.
14:21That is also what the meat industry is trying now.
14:2550 years back it was the tobacco industry.
14:31Two decades back and still it is the fossil fuel industry.
14:42And we have the meat industry which will continue definitely with its propaganda and lies.
14:56Right till the end of the next decade maybe they will evidently have to agree and submit.
15:09But then by that time they would have caused just too much and probably irreversible damage.
15:19The thing is to speeden the process.
15:24The thing is to bring it more swiftly and more deeply into the popular consciousness.
15:36That what meat eating really is.
15:42Guruji moving to next question.
15:44So my next question is on dairy.
15:46So what do you feel is the best approach to bring awareness about the cruelties of dairy industry
15:51given that most Indians are heavily reliant and unaware of the realities which go in the dairy industry.
15:59Social media. Simple answer.
16:02If social media can be used to spread all kinds of mischief.
16:07Elections are being won and lost on social media.
16:12You know of the e-commerce volumes now.
16:18So much is happening on the internet.
16:21Then the social media is the best means to demonstrate the horrors of the meat industry to the world.
16:38Today you have trends and trolls.
16:43Anything can go viral overnight.
16:47You need dedicated people who can bring these things out.
16:50You need videos and gruesome videos.
16:56You need to promote them.
16:57You need to pin them.
16:59You need to frequently circulate and broadcast them.
17:04And more and more people need to do that because the meat eater is a self deluder.
17:15Self deluder.
17:18You cannot eat meat without firstly lying to yourself.
17:24He will not want to know what the reality of meat consumption is.
17:29He will not want to know how animals are kept and how they are slaughtered.
17:37He will not know what the conditions of milk cattle are.
17:43He will just want to happily and blissfully in complete ignorance consume packaged meat or packaged milk or milk products.
17:58It has to be shown to him what is it that he is really putting in his mouth.
18:04From where is it coming?
18:06What is the process?
18:09It is not a factory product.
18:11It is not coming from a conveyor belt.
18:16It is life.
18:18You must see what that life has to go through and how that life ends just to satisfy your taste buds.
18:27So, I think a lot of change can happen if just the reality of the animal farms can be brought to people.
18:43Obviously, that will not have an effect on everyone.
18:46Because there are people who have reached stages of neurosis where they love to see blood flowing,
18:58where they actually want their meat slaughtered right in front of their own eyes.
19:05And there are perverts who love to actually slaughter with their own hands.
19:09So, we are not talking of extreme cases of perversion here.
19:17But the normal folk, the so-called gentiles, kids, kinder folks, women,
19:41who live by some emotion, some pity, who still have not become dead, hardened and fossilized.
20:02They will be impacted, surely, when these photos and videos reach them.
20:11And if you can create that kind of a wave, a constituency on social media,
20:21then even the mainstream media will be forced to take it up.
20:27Mainstream media, you know, is totally commercial.
20:31They will go where the numbers are.
20:36They will go where the viewers are.
20:39And if the viewers are in the vegan zone or the vegetarian zone,
20:49then the mainstream media will have to tilt towards that, cover that, use that for its own ends.
21:05And you need to go to schools.
21:09They are the consumers of the future.
21:15And they are the ones who are not yet fully conditioned.
21:19They are the ones you can talk to.
21:22I think any vegan movement must make the 8 plus age group a key priority.
21:46It could even be 6 plus.
21:51They are the ones who must be converted.
21:54They are the ones who must be told that it is very important to know what really is there on your plate.
22:01Next question with respect to dairy is, I had recently met a doctor because of my fever.
22:08So when I spoke to her about being a vegan, she immediately came to me and said,
22:13what about your protein?
22:16Where I had to take my time and explain milk is not even close to the best source of protein
22:23or milk doesn't even have abundance of protein.
22:26So with this kind of lesser nutritional knowledge with the doctors,
22:32and majority of the people tend to believe what doctors say.
22:36So how is that we should work?
22:38You need to then educate the doctors, you know.
22:41Simple.
22:44You might be an MBBS or an MD or a DM, but you could still be quite illiterate.
22:50You might still not have basic knowledge regarding the nutritional value of various food products.
22:59You could have a quack graduating even from the best medical college.
23:07And you are right.
23:09So many doctors just do not know that milk or meat are, as you said,
23:17nowhere close to being the best sources of protein or vitamins or iron or calcium, anything.
23:32In fact, there is a lot of misinformation even on vitamin B12.
23:39So just as everybody else needs to be educated,
23:47doctors too need to be educated because the public believes the doctors.
23:52So go to the doctors and tell them.
23:55Otherwise, yes, it is very, very common that you go to a doctor and if you are a vegetarian,
24:04he kind of scoffs at you.
24:08It's a very disdainful glance that he throws at you.
24:12Vegetarian, I mean.
24:14And that too you see is a relic of the 50s, 60s, 70s.
24:19It has gotten into the popular culture that to be big and strong, you have to have meat.
24:26Whereas this is so foolish.
24:34Have you never looked at an elephant?
24:39When you say that to be big and strong, you need to have meat,
24:44then surely you have never ever seen what an elephant looks like.
24:50Neither have you seen a horse.
24:54Not a rhinoceros.
24:58Not a gorilla or a chimpanzee.
25:02If you believe that meat eaters are all
25:09This is ridiculous.
25:14There are two categories of professionals who are adept at
25:25turning even the staunchest non-meat eater to a meat eater.
25:33One, the ill-read doctors.
25:42Two, the totally illiterate fitness instructors.
25:49Young people like to have some mass on their body
25:53or they might just want to keep basic fitness.
25:57The moment they show up at a gym
26:00and if they go to a trainer and seek advice,
26:05first thing the trainer would ask is what is it that you eat?
26:08You are not having chicken?
26:10How will you build mass without chicken?
26:12Which is such a fallacy.
26:16And it is not coming so much out of ill-intention
26:21but out of the fact that the fellow is ill-read.
26:25He simply does not know the facts.
26:27So he needs to be educated.
26:29So target that constituency as well.
26:31Tell them that there is no need to turn the entire gym
26:39into a club of carnivores.