Practice What You Believe: Faith Panel on the Relationship between Religion and Veganism, Part 2 of 4

In today’s episode, we’re going to hear about some of the ingrained cultural convictions and habits which act, in many people of faith, as impediments to espousing a mindful meat-and-dairy-free lifestyle, and how religious vegan activists address these sensitive obstacles in the heart of their worshiping communities. “So now, just to get to the dairy association, where it’s instructed on how to look after the cows. There’s associated scriptures with the Bhagavad Gita called ‘the Vedas’ and the Atharva Ved Part 2, 3 and 4, 5 goes into explaining and instructing exactly how to look after cows. So, at that time, the Atharva Ved says that, you only take milk from cows that are free and grazing in the sun, that are eating grass, and that have had their calves fed first. It also instructs us not to kill any cows. And we are not to drink any milk from cows that are not looked after in this way.” “And again, this reference that people make back to Genesis, that God gave humans dominion over the Earth. And historically, that that’s been kind of received as being more like domination, and an excuse to use and exploit the Earth’s resources. And it’s actually been used to justify colonialism, patriarchy, racism and is now used to justify the way that we treat the planet basically, and its inhabitants. And I think there’s a shift in people’s thinking in Christianity which is really refreshing - that to understand dominion not as domination but as stewardship. And that means that we have responsibility towards and for God’s creation, not our kind of playground and resource pit. So, we’re looking after it on behalf of God, and we’re actually thinking about the consequences of what happens when we don’t look after it.” “And a lot of the work that we do is trying to persuade people that you don’t have to choose between your religion and your diet. And so, what we’ve put a lot of effort into, is taking these very stereotypically Jewish dishes and veganizing them. And saying to people, look, you can have 90% of the taste and it’s vegan and you don’t have to make such a sacrifice.” Indeed, we don’t have to abandon religious culinary traditions to adopt a vegan diet. We can integrate and embrace both thanks to the ever-burgeoning cornucopia of plant-based substitutes that are readily available in the markets today, and thanks to the proliferation, on the internet, of delicious, healthy and ingeniously creative vegan recipes which emulate time-honored dishes.