“I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I may not complete this last one, but I give myself to it.” So wrote German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, in words perhaps echoed by Albert Einstein and Albert Schweitzer, who each advocated enlarging our “circle of compassion.”
For me that “widening circle” includes the entire community of life. That’s why I simply cannot eat the flesh, mother’s milk or ova (eggs) of tender, caring, intelligent creatures. And I’m not alone. Veganism — a diet free of animal products — is exploding in the United States and abroad. (The most vegan country in the world as a percentage of the population is Israel!)
Vegan grocery-store chains, restaurants, new food products galore, even a vegan “butcher shop” (!) are opening across the U.S. and Europe. And who is the driving forces? Millennials. Young adults in the prime of their lives.
That is the future we’re moving into — an evolutionary leap into healthy, compassionate “wining and dining” (beer, too!). The idea of a slaughterhouse producing “artisan meats” is laughable — or rather painfully “cry-able” [“The Art of Butchery: An Ancient Craft is Reborn in Asheville’s Food Scene,” July 15, Xpress]. It is so not Asheville, which on a per-capita basis may well be the most cruelty-free, vegan city in the world. Let’s stop this deadly notion of “artisan” killing in its tracks!
— Cynthia Sampson
Asheville
Excuse me, but who are you to decree what is “so not Asheville?” There are lots of people who live here. Some are vegans, some are merely vegetarians and some are carnivores. To decree that your diet is “Asheville” and that other are “son not Asheville” is presumptuous and arrogant. Perhaps it is time to step out of your little bubble and meet the diversity that really is Asheville.
My apolgies if my tone sounds harsh, but I’m tired of people claiming to identify Asheville by their own little circle.
The title of this section is “Opinion” If the writer feels in her opinion that making slaughtering animals an art form is not Asheville, she should do so. People don’t want to admit that their outdated diet causes suffering and environment harm so they attack the messengers.
I couldn’t agree with you more, Cynthia. It’s time for people to wake up and smell the Compassion in the air rather than the fetid, blood-curdling scents of death and suffering. Choose Vegan today!