17 July 2014 - QA 6

What about the meat industry? Is it violence?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Meat industry, I would say is outdated now because people have started understanding how our whole system is made for vegetarian food. We are herbivorous because our immediate ancestors, apes are vegetarians. Monkeys, cows, zebras are vegetarian. Most of the domestic animals are vegetarian and our system is made for vegetarian food.

Personally, if you see the way the animals are tortured to make food for you and you look into their eyes, nobody will touch that food because we all have a human heart, compassion and sensibility. The meat industry keeps unaware of how it is produced and they only give you the meat to consume it. But once you see how it is produced and how much torture the animal undergoes, you will abstain from it. Today with the growth of natural food, people have changed their preferences. In North America, a large section of the population has found health in vegetarian food.