(apologies if this is an old discussion subject?)

first, i fully understand, and advocate that sea vegetables are definitely not optimal food, designed for our species, however, i am not here to debate that issue. my question today:

is it really vegan? ie. compassionate? does nori or assorted other sea veg contain fish or parts thereof, or is harvested causing disruption, or destruction of the lives of other beings? sure, plankton are harmed, as we do with micro-organisms when picking fruit or land veg, but what about larger beings? kindness, intention and awareness is important to compassionate vegans like myself.

please people, if you could stick to the sea veg - is it vegan? facts, as i just popped in to the forum for a few moments due to this question arising from a client discussion today, who was dismayed at the fishy taste and aroma of nori.

many thanks!

love, peace and respect for ALL life and the earth.

love n liberation comrades)

Hi liberation,

Did you live in Santa Monica a few years ago and have tons of bumper stickers on the back of your car?

I think I may have met you once.

why, did you recognize the strident stance;o)

so yes, both venice beach and sm) big gob strikes again!!! ...and you are? and where did our paths cross - farmer's mkt? co-op? old client? apartment? activism?

It is my opinion/observation that there probably would be some kind of organisms (fish, shrimp, etc.) that might be killed during the harvesting of any seaweed. Similar to the way some bugs or worms might be killed during the harvesting of many vegetables. Vegan, in my opinion, is about doing as little harm as is feasible for you to do....given the foods and lifestyle that you feel you HAVE to live.

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

Very interesting question - this has thrown up a big discussion with my partner which is very thought provoking. How far can you take this question? Any mono growing is a disruption of the natural order of things but the whole world cannot forest garden (or can it). I realise that this has nothing to do with eating seaweed so

to return to your post (sorry for deviation but that's what a good question does)

I don't eat seaweed but I suppose if I did I would try and gather it myself along the coast. Commercial seaweed must be dredged up in large quantities with little concern for much else other than the yield and profit I would imagine.

I am a bit old and cynical but I can't imagine any commercial organisation dives down and hand picks/thins the seaweed with minimal disruption to all other sea life.

liberation

Here is my take on your question..

Going by the very strict interpretation of vegan that you seem to be leaning towards, then the answer is no..

Whenever I hear this question arise amongst vegans I am reminded of something that Tom Brown teaches in his classes, and writes about in some of his books..BTW, I have attended his Basic Class..

When Tom Brown and his childhood friend Rick asked Stalking Wolf, their Apache elder teacher of the ancient aboriginal American ways of life (and Rick's grandfather), a similar question regarding the ethics of killing animals for food, clothing, and tools; his answer went something like this..(I am paraphrasing here)

His reply to them was that one should never take the life of another animal lightly..That it should be done only after great thought and prayer were observed..That the spirit of the animal should be thanked in the most reverent and respectful way for its ALLOWING you (the human) to take its life in order that yours might continue..That none of the animal should be wasted as this was disrespectful, in addition to being wasteful..

Later in his teachings he took them both to task for not showing respect to the spirits of the plants that they were harvesting in the Pine Barrens..When Tom mouthed off to Stalking Wolf that animals had souls while plants did not, Stalking Wolf's reply were the following questions..(Again, paraphrased)

""How can you be so sure that a carrot does not scream when it is pulled so violently from the ground in order to feed you??".."Just because YOU cannot hear the carrot scream, does not mean that it is not doing so".."Just because the carrot is not an animal like you are, does not mean that its spirit does not cry out in agony as it dies in order to provide you with food""..

I often hear vegans getting all worked up to defend animals, while at the same time showing the utmost disrespect for the fruits and vegetables that are the backbone of a vegan, or raw vegan diet..

I agree with you that sea vegetables are probably not optimal for human consumption..Too high of a salt content, especially for raw vegans that have reached a high level of detoxification..

As regards to the compassionate side of things..To any disruption during harvesting..To the destruction of habitat during harvesting..To the destruction of any animals during harvesting..

The above points that you so insightfully raise go directly to Stalking Wolf's points that he was raising with Tom Brown and Rick..There is a saying that, "No man is an island"..Conversely, humans cannot exist on the planet Earth without disrupting, to one degree or another, all life that exists in the sea, in the air, on the land, and IN the soil of the earth itself..

When we harvest fruits and vegetables we are damaging, and or killing, the plant that is providing the food we desire..Annual plants grown specifically for human food consumption, we kill..Biennial plants we damage harvesting what we want in the first year, then we kill the plant after harvesting what we want the second year..Perennial plants, shrubs, and trees we damage every year when we harvest..

ALL animals damage plants this way in order to survive in the wild..Both herbivores and carnivores damage, and or kill plants in order to exist..NO animal can exist within a cocoon without interacting with other forms of life, and the planet itself..

It is my opinion that a plant screams when we humans harvest it..It does so silently, on a level that humans cannot hear..I make no distinction between taking the life of a carrot, and taking the life of an animal..To me they are both sacred..I cannot, and will not, place a higher value on the life of a carrot than I do on the life of a towering redwood tree, than I do on the life of a mosquito, than I do on the life of a steer, than I do on the life of a blue whale, than I do on the life of a protozoan that I kill when I walk on the soil in my garden to harvest that very carrot that feeds me..

Each person that chooses to become a vegan, or raw vegan, will have to decide for themselves what is compassionate, and what is not in regards to the foods they choose to eat..What is compassionate for one person might not be compassionate for another person..

As raw vegans, life is disrupted and killed every waking minute of every single day in order to provide us with the fruits and vegetables that we require for our existence..It will happen thus until humans cease to exist, or the planet as we know it ceases to exist..It will happen thus regardless of whether the produce is grown and harvested with petrochemicals using the most corporate of farming methods; or whether that produce is grown organically in one's own garden using the utmost respect and reverence for all life..

Respectfully yours,

Bruce

liberation Colin,

I'm glad you are back on the boards. I wish you peace and wellness.

I eat hand-harvested seaweed, mostly for therapeutic value, and am thankful that I cannot stomach large amounts due to its pungency. I am wondering, given the nature of some of your posts, whether you aren't tending toward Jainsim? There is doing little damage, and then there is doing imperceptible damage. You seem to be leaning latterwise, an impossible though admirable way of living. Truth be told, we are always in the process of crushing something, underfoot or with our very breath. If I couldn't find hand-harvested seaweed, I'd probably not eat it. I am thinking of phasing it out and just finding a vegan iodine supplement. If you are still in Cornwall, maybe go down to the coast and see what you can find for yourself.

I've always found the concept of thanking an animal for 'allowing' us to take its life deeply repugnant. And, oh, of course, because it's an 'Apache Indian' talking the suggestion is that this is some sort of deep wisdom! Men do come up with all sorts of things to justify their behaviour, and, yes, they've always done so.

We can quite easily see that an animal suffers horribly when it is bred for then taken to slaughter. We've been given senses, and intelligence, to see that.

To try to convince ourselves that a carrot suffers as an animal does to justify killing helpless creatures that do not in any way ever 'allow' us to kill them...wow.

No, carrots do not scream, they do not suffer when they are picked, and, no, that's not because we 'can't hear them' screaming! Why do I know that? I just do. As most people do.

no

but neither is land fruit or veggies their are tons of microscopic organisms and larger that accidently get consumed unless you are terribly precise in cleaning your produce and even then ...

perhaps its not so much a fishy taste but an oceany taste .. i mean .. fish must taste oceany ..or does the ocean taste fishy ?

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

liberation

I apologize for hijacking your thread, but this is something I feel needs to be said, and I wanted to say it within the context of your thread..

debbietook

The point that Stalking Wolf was trying to make with Tom Brown & Rick was that ALL life on the planet is sacred..Period!!!..That putting a higher value on the life of a deer because it resembles we humans, than on the life of a wild carrot, is fundamentally wrong..

Talk to anthropologists that have studied the few remaining aboriginal cultures on earth and they will tell you that most of these peoples have a strong reverence for all of the life, plant and animal, that they kill in order to survive..And, the operative word here is KILL..All life on this planet, regardless of the form it takes, exists tenuously..Some life comes into being and only exists for minutes before dying..Other forms of life have life spans measured in hours, measured in days, measured in months, measured in years, measured in decades, and finally, some life can be measured in millenia..

In order to exist, humans, indeed ALL animals, need to kill other forms of life in order that they may exist..Even those species that only eat plants KILL in order to exist..They take a once living plant, or part of a plant, and it dies as they ingest it in order for their existence to continue..

Plants, all plants, are living organisms..Just because they respirate carbon dioxide instead of oxygen does not make them less important than mammals, birds, insects, fish, or reptiles..Just because they do not have brains connected to central nervous systems doers not make them less important..Just because they do not have bright red blood flowing through circulatory systems does not make them less important..Just because they do not have mouths and vocal cords connected to lungs does not make them less important..Plants have existed in differing forms on this planet for billions of years longer than have humans..Without plants in all of their myriad forms humans and ALL other animal life would simply cease to exist..Period..Without plants to scrub the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and to produce oxygen no animals could exist..Without plants to create an oxygenated atmosphere those billions of years ago, animal life, to include humans, would NEVER have been possible..Period..You and I would not be having this conversation if it were not for plants..

When Stalking Wolf said to Tom Brown and Rick that carrots could scream he was speaking in metaphors..I do not believe that he ever meant that carrots had lungs filled with air that passed over vocal cords that vibrated to produce the sounds of agony as they died when pulled from the earth..I believe that he meant, and I believe this myself, that all living organisms, both plant and animal, have a life force flowing within them..It does not matter what label one gives to this life force..Call it atomic energy, call it spirituality, label it whatever..What is important is to believe that it exists, to accept that it exists..

I have always found it interesting that so many of the vegetarians, vegans, and raw vegans that I meet are willing to protest the killing of, for example, a redwood tree while showing the utmost disrespect for the fruits, vegetables, grains, and nuts that they consume..Why do so many people put such a high value on a tree, while denigrating the plants that provide us with the foods we need in order to exist??..I believe that it is a way of compensating for, and denying that DEATH is involved in the process of eating..Regardless of whether a human partakes of plants or animals for sustenance, death is involved..To deny this is to deny the very core of what it means to be human..Most of us are so far removed from the process of putting our food on the table that we have forgotten just what is involved in that process..I believe that the entire vegan / raw vegan movement is fraught with the misconception that it is perfectly justifiable to exploit food plants for human consumption, while it is not in any way justifiable to kill an animal for food..

As humans we seem to be willing to forget that all plants are living entities, just as are all animals..It seems to me that we humans have established a value system for the sanctity of life in order to justify our taking of those plant and animal lives for food uses..As I stated in my first post on this thread, I refuse to differentiate between the various life forms that I coexist with on this planet..The tiniest protozoan in the soil is as valuable to me as the tallest redwood tree as is a chicken raised for food as is a blue whale swimming in the ocean as is a noseeum fly trying to bite me as is a condor soaring over the Andes mountains..They all represent the same thing to me..Life..In all its differentiated glory..

What I find even more repugnant than the needless slaughtering of animals for human food consumption is the absolute arrogance within the vegan community that the lives of animals should somehow be valued higher than the lives of all other living entities on this planet..This I will not accept, and I will fight this belief to my dying day..

Respectfully yours,

Bruce



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/31/2008 03:40PM by baltochef.

right on debbietook, yes, i too am completely dismayed at this perpetual and idealised use of american indian practices as some sort of compassionate benchmark.

sure, their way of life leaves a softer footprint upon the earth compared with us bizzy, push, shove, me, me modernists, and they did once eat a higher percentage of their diet in a raw/wild state; but please ask the fish, bears, bison, whales, deer etc. how they feel about being killed, however much ritualising and rationalising is involved in the indian's denial of the facts of the humyn diet and overall lifestyle as designed by nature.

now comrade bruce, you are most aticulate and clearly a broader thinker, but you state, i presume with a straight face, that there is no difference between a humyn killing a whale or cow for the flesh and by-products, or when picking fruit n veg, and an insect or many micro-organisms being harmed'killed in the process?????? on this one you are very deeply deluded...and as for our fellow non-humyn beings "allowing" us to kill them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

please post your address bruce, because there are some online boasting humyn flesh eaters who would love to slay and eat you, and of course you will allow this after they say a few native indian prayers first. so that makes it all ok right;;;;; (and please everyone, easy on the overreaction to my attempt at making a point with blunt, british humour/irreverence here

referring to my previous "compassion or not" postings, this "you kill carrots don't you" assertion typically comes from those who got the health angle, before the cruelty one. also rather telling, i field this same "you kill carrots" comment incessantly from flesh eaters at ar/al activist protests or outreach tabling.

certainly, all life has universal energy flowing through it, and especially eletrical energy, but the "flow" in fruits and veg is not connected to a central nervous system etc. and the necessary sentience that can feel and transmit pain. (btw, i do not defend commercial fruit n veg production and selling as yes, that does disrupt and kill beyond that which is necessary when just picking a single piece of fruit in the wild.)

plus, i think most of us can unite on this one: we humyns are designed by nature to consume juicy fruits, leafy greens, and my feeling is that the jury is still out on nuts and seeds, for a variety of already discussed reasons, and more that i have explored that clearly make them an occasional (at best) choice in my estimation.

anyway, i know many raw foodists have chosen sea veg as a key diet item, i suppose for the (obviously toxic) salt-iness as i did for a while, and i posted the question to see if anyone had awareness of the possible fish content of commercially harvested sea veg, (again, not micro-organisms which we kill in all aspects of otherwise compassionate lives desopite our careful intentions). so still no definitive answer from experience here thus far.

additionally and key to my original posting, is that while advising my client that sea veg is not humyn food, for a whole range of fairly obvious reasons; if they still had questions as a self-proclaimed raw and compassionate vegan, then their recoiling response to the (ocean - thanks jodi) and fishy smell/taste, provide a palpable answer. (note, i will not comment on supposed therapy value, as i have taken hygiene several stages foreward in terms of my life choices, and my professional guidance.)

(...thank you sincerely tamukha for your kind personal words)) my connish care is drawing to a close as my mum has journeyed on to "pastures new", as i too will in a coupla weeks, well, on to the tarmac and concrete of el-lay - i know, i know, i don't defend this professional choice for one moment.)

re being back at the forum, i feel like al pacino in godfather 3 was it - i was out...but you pulled me back in!!!:O))))

cheery bye...

love n liberation

Liberation

'please post your address bruce, because there are some online boasting humyn flesh eaters who would love to slay and eat you, and of course you will allow this after they say a few native indian prayers first. so that makes it all ok right;;;;;'

Exactly!! :-) :-) :-)

PS Liberation

Returning to the thread topic, I'm currently raw vegetarian, ie I eat raw vegan food 98% of the time but have a little raw goats cheese and/or a spoonful of honey every couple of months or so.

Right now I'm happy to eat sea veg and I suppose I'd go with those who argue that when harvesting little things are bound to be caught up with it, as they would be if I pulled up a lettuce from the garden, and one can only go so far (though I know that phrase is to some extent a cop-out).

But I do find your posts thought-provoking. Please accept my apologies for poking fun at your language a few weeks back; I hope you keep posting. Lucky lucky you 'having' to leave England for LA. I'm in Reading, UK, but was in SoCal (LA area, San Diego) September prior to Arizona for Raw Spirit. Loved it!!

liberation Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> why, did you recognize the strident stance;o)
>
> so yes, both venice beach and sm) big gob
> strikes again!!! ...and you are? and where did our
> paths cross - farmer's mkt? co-op? old client?
> apartment? activism?

Hey Colin,

We had a conversation outside the co-op.

I recognized your affable stridency.

hello compadre debbie, many thanks, and re apology, v nice of you, but i am looooong over taking offence as i am perpetually in "rabbit, rabbit" mode, so there is plenty to which people take exception; though i must emphasize that i am constantly "looking in the mirror" and honestly assessing my own incongruent choies.

re "having to" leave blighty for la, it's a choice, as will be my eventual next choice to sunnier/moister climes in one of the earth's rainforest regions - i am still waiting for an invite from some compassionate vegan compadres who have already fled the chaos, but so far nothing(


happy moments people,

love n liberation

Balto chef - I don't know many vegans so I have to bow to your superior knowledge and accept what you say about them. I would like to point out though that my two vegan friends and I ARE VERY aware of the plants we eat - we grow them and harvest them ourselves with great respect for them and the soil - and all the animals, insects and micro organisms that co-exist with us. We garden biodynamically, feeling the rythm of the planet. I give reiki to the plants in my garden and I always offer a murmer of thanks when i harvest things.

Liberation - I agree with you on paragraph 5 and 6 of your last post.

First, let me say that I would not be a member of these forums if I espoused the killing and eating of animals..Period..

Second, I fully admit to being verbose..There!!!..I said it!!!..I love language and I love to use language in conversations, both virtual, and in person..I especially like to converse here, and on several photography forums where the level of discourse is generally high..

Third, I used the Tom Brown, Rick, and Stalking Wolf references as an illustration that there are many people from all walks of life that hold all life on this planet sacred, not just animals, and not excepting animals..Disagree, if you will with any one person's reasoning's for hunting, or eating the flesh of animals..I have met many moral people that eat animal flesh..As raw vegans, I do not think that we should be so sure to condemn others, and to think that we hold a high moral ground in this regard..

Fourth, I never intended to espouse the killing of animals by referencing Tom Brown, etc..I was pretty sure in my first post that I had not done so..I am completely sure that in my second post on this thread that I had not done so..

Fifth, I have attempted ever since I became a member here to conduct myself with civility and respect..I do not believe that that I have ever, in any post, directly denigrated someone, nor cursed at them, nor used hurtful and derogatory language towards anyone..Liberation, I believe that you owe me an apology..To suggest that my postings are deserving of being eaten by other humans is very repugnant to me..I do not care if it was meant in jest..If it was, it was in very poor taste (no pun intended)..Regardless, I have remained civil towards you, and towards debbietook who took the time to laughingly post while agreeing with you..

Sixth, the purpose of both of my previous posts on this thread was to suggest that there is something fundamentally wrong with having a hierarchy established by humans, read vegans, that grades the value of every living organism's life according to some set of arbitrary rules..With warm-blooded mammals at the top of that list directly below humans, and all other forms of life in some form of descending order..

Lastly, I will state again that I personally try to hold ALL forms of life on this planet in the EXACT same regard..Regardless of what form those lives take..I also understand that it is impossible to feed myself as a raw vegan, regardless of where the produce comes from, without other forms of plant and animal life being disturbed and killed by that process..As humans nothing we do to exist can be accomplished without disturbing, and or, killing other forms of life..The absolute best that we can hope to accomplish is to proceed through life making as little of an impact to our planet and its life forms as possible..

Bruce

hey brucie baltochef, completely concur with your final paragraph)

re point 6, do you actually know any compassionate vegans? i say this because i have not observed any such "warm mammal" preferences outside the cosy "welfarists" and their dolphin/horse/whale/dog n cat clubs. most lifestyle vegans unite on the importance of showing respect for ALL life and the earth.

re point 5, i wholeheartedly stand by all i have stated, and as for any apologies, if your phone doesn't ring, that will be me!:O)!

re point 3/4, simple question then: is it "moral" or showing "respect", to kill and destroy just because we humyns physically can via our fear-fuelled minds, and to make choices such as flesh eating/hunting that clearly contravene nature's design plan for our species?

you invited my comments with your various absurd assertions, together with your constant view that compassionate vegans who may not have got the raw message fully, are myopic in their veganism. quite the opposite in my long and broad experience, indeed compassionate vegans really get the universal thread and are often the first to act and speak up on eco-issues, for worker unions, prisoners, the global oppressed, whether in occupied palestine, haiti, chechnya, iraq, afghanistan and generally for other humyns under the u.s./euro or "compliant/client state" jackboot, as well as for ALL acts of oppression against non-humyn life.


compassion and liberation for ALL life and the earth,
c

When you wash your hands or brush your teeth you're killing millions of little life forms.

Vegetables are vegan. Whether they're from under the sea or on the land, don't know about beyond the rainbow.

once again, i only questioned if anyone had clear experience/knowledge as to whether actual small "fish" were caught up in the harvesting and compressed in the nori sheets etc., ie, the fishy smell, and NOT that (of course), we disrupt the lives of, and kill micro-organisms and insects in our (compassionately intentioned vegan) fruit n veg consumption or various other life choices. so again, there is still no response here based upon sea veg industry experience to my original question...

Maybe you should contact Maine Coast Sea Vegetables.

Millions of animals are displaced in the growing of fruit, vegetables, any food you can eat. Even sprouts (wheatberries, beans, whathaveyou) are generally grown on huge monocrop farms that were once home to millions of little beasts.

Growing your own, permaculture style, is the most moral solution.

I cannot answer you re:the extent of ecological damage inflicted by growing/harvesting sea vegetables. I'd imagine it's probably about on par with growing fruit or vegetables but I don't know for sure. Good luck.

communitybuilder Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Maybe you should contact Maine Coast Sea
> Vegetables.
I use Sea Lettuce from Maine Coast Sea Vegetables in
all my Green Smoothies. I'm constantly finding Shrimp, Snails,
Soft-shelled Clams (most of all), and even Rocks that have been
harvested along with the seaweed. I have to draw-the-line somewhere,
and will continue with the sea lettuce until I can find a source of
organic, fresh greens......WY

I've found a rock or two (and a shell or two) in with my dulse but that still doesn't prove it's more harmful than fruit, nuts, vegetables or even wheatgrass. Just that it's easier to see the evidence of the unattainability of pure "ahimsa" as a goal.

Not to say it's not a worthy ideal to get as close to it as possible.

liberation Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> once again, i only questioned if anyone had clear
> experience/knowledge as to whether actual small
> "fish" wer

ahh ok the seawater has subsided and i understand your question yes in the past i have found the odd little remenants that would have been a critter .. as above small snails or a teeny shrimp ... 20 years ago when first eating it i dont recally finding such things but i suspect the stuff i would have bought more recently is machine harvested and not the hand harvested stuff (that was expensive back then !) of 20 years ago

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Whether or not you eat meat yourself, baltochef, I've seen the Tom Brown thing quoted before by those who would like to make themselves feel better for eating meat, and I did find it amusing the way liberation turned this on its head.

(I've done similar in the past for those who think they're being 'compassionate' by only eating organic meat. It's like saying 'yes, we wouldn't dream of eating humans who have lived miserable lives in ghettos, eating unnatural diets and shot through with this and that - we only eat humans raised in beautiful surroundings, where they've led happy lives and, most importantly, always eaten organic.')

ALLL RIGHT debbie took! yes, muy compadre! such silly, tired old assertions from baltobrucie and soooo easy to bat away!

btw, i thought this forum was supposed to be minimum vegan?

also dt, your privates were full when i tried;

Hi Liberation

Yes, this forum is raw vegan; did you mean that I shouldn't be posting here because I said I have a bit of raw cheese occasionally? (rest assured I won't start waxing lyrical about it :-))

Re 'privates full' - didn't realise the box got 'full up. I've just deleted the five messages that were in there - obviously doesn't take much to fill it - thanks for educating me!

no debbietook, i was referring to balto's stubborn defence of the humyn right to murder, just because we can! in contrast you seem to be questioning your diet with a view to soon making a more compassionate, healthy choice!

I am trying not to eat seaweed. It is very dehydrating, keeps me up at night,makes me feel unhappy etc. it sure tastes good though when I eat it so it is very hard.


To say that Laver or Dulse, is an animal like a dog or a cat sounds a little orthorexic to me.

To say we kill little snails when we eat it, what about the bugs on organic lettuce? B12 right?

Well, you decide what is right for you.


I am not making fun of you, just kidding around. Am I right?





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/01/2009 07:49PM by suvine.

is it only life forms that can thrive without killing others that can be labeled as compassionate or not compassionate?

is it only life forms that can ponder these questions that can be labeled as comp or not comp?

are beings that are designed to eat other beings exempt from discussions about compassion? is compassion only a human imperative?

iow, are tigers not compassionate?

if compassion is not universal, does it not dilute its imperative nature?

random thoughts