Not A Lifestyle Preference

By Paul Erlandson

After more than 15 years since my last visit, I returned to the Zen monastery I originally trained at, for a 3 day silent retreat. Someone asked if it had changed much. My answer was a lot, and also not at all. It was good to see old friends, make new ones (silently!), and slowly drop into the routine. 

During meal prep, the question was asked if anyone had dietary restrictions. I responded that I do not eat dairy or eggs. The response was: “we meant medical restrictions, not lifestyle preferences”. 

I suppose that’s fair. My position here is not the result of a medical condition. Lactose intolerance aside, I CAN eat those foods. 

But I did get a bit stuck on the label “lifestyle preference.” Maybe there are some on this path for whom that is true. For me, though, abstaining from these foods is at the very heart of my Buddhist practice. It is my embrace of Ahimsa (non-harming), and a way in which I put it into action in my life and choices. It wouldn’t have been appropriate to explain all of this at the time. I hope to have the opportunity now though. In truth, the kind and wise guidance along the path of mindfulness illuminated by my Zen teachers, helped me land where I have.

It seems to make sense to present this framing in the context of the 5 thoughts we recite during mealtimes at the monastery. They are:

We must think deeply of the ways and means by which this food has come 

We must consider our merit when accepting it

We must protect ourselves from error, by excluding greed from our minds

We will eat, lest we become lean and die

We accept this food, so that we may become enlightened

1. We must think deeply of the ways and means by which this food has come 

One of my earliest impressions of the Monastery way, was assisting monks and retreatants with meal preparation. I was so struck by the care taken in every step. The intention, reverence even, with which vegetables were prepared, how every thing found unsuited to eat was sent to the compost for the worms’ dinner, and the care with which food was made to taste great and be nourishing. Such a contrast to the often careless disregard and waste we bump into in the workaday world. 

My wife and I opened a farmed animal sanctuary on our property in Temecula a few years back. It is a place where we provide a forever home for refugees from our food system, beings that have an opportunity to live in comfort and safety and to teach us humans a thing or two. They teach us, with remarkable clarity, that homo sapiens do not have an exclusive on joy, grief, love, and community. Each goat, pig, and chicken is completely unique. The degree to which this is true is easy to miss if simply visiting them. It is the daily interaction, when trust is secured, that the truth of this becomes multi-chromatically expressed. I can provide dozens of examples, but that would be a different article. 

In our efforts, we have come to know others who provide sanctuary to farmed animals, and we have learned from them. We have heard the stories of their rescues. 

One such story was Mama Joy. She was a dairy cow that was rescued at five years of age. As some of you may know, milk is not produced just by female cows, it is only produced by mothers. Joy had birthed two calves and was pregnant with a third when she was given to sanctuary because of a medical condition she had. Like virtually all dairy cows in America, her first two calves were taken from her the day they were born. Can we imagine the suffering a mammal mother experiences, when their newborn is taken away? Normally, Mama Joy  would have been sent to slaughter after her third birth.

Because of a persistent  medical problem, she was allowed a different end. She was sent to sanctuary while still pregnant. When I met her, she lived with her calf who was three years old at the time. He was friendly, curious, made eye contact with me, and showed connection in the cow way: by engulfing my hand with a massive slobbery tongue. He was a delight. Mama joy would not come near. Her caregiver told me that she never recovered from her distrust of humans. There were only two people she would allow near her. “Some never bounce back from the trauma” I was told. They said when her third baby was born she did not tend to it, as any cow mother normally would. She presumed he would be taken as the other two had. She just looked deeply traumatized. 

Of course that is anecdotal, but Mama Joy is an image I carry within me. The truth is, dairy farming in America has little in common with the production of milk in the Buddha’s time. Then, as is now the case in parts of India, the baby calf would nurse from the mother. The milk humans took was the surplus available. Cows will overproduce milk by default, and regular manual milking stimulates this production. A Sri Lankan monk I met said that as a child, their family had a cow that was considered a member of the family. They would milk her, but they also played with her and she lived with them until her natural death. Then she was buried. Similar to the Buddha’s time. 

In the factory farming system adopted in America in the 1960s, the emphasis is on maximizing production and minimizing costs. Today, most U.S. milk comes from large, industrial-scale dairies. In 2022, about two-thirds of U.S. milk was produced on farms with at least 1,000 cows. It is not uncommon to have 15,000 to 20,000 dairy cows in a single operation. It is called “factory farming” for a reason.

Under this system, dairy cows are artificially inseminated shortly after one year of age. They begin producing milk towards the end of their pregnancy. When the calf is born, it is allowed to nurse once, if at all, and then is taken from the mother. The calf is kept in a small hutch with a tiny yard (the less space per “unit”, the higher the yield on investment), and fed a formula that is a milk replacer. Mama is milked 2-3 times a day by a milking machine. The amount of milk produced is so much more than would originally be the case for bovines, that sores and infections are common from the unrelenting production. The density of cows in confined spaces is also a threat to their health. As a preventative, the cows are given antibiotics regularly (this is known to be a huge source of antibiotic resistant infections in the human world). If the milk is organic, the cow cannot be treated with antibiotics, or the farmer cannot label the milk as organic. The financial pressure to cull a chronically sick, yet medically treatable animal, is hard to avoid. 

So this process happens usually 3 times: Impregnation, removal of calf, and daily milking. After the third birth, the mother’s milk production will decrease. At this point she will be sent to slaughter for low grade meat. Cows can live to be 20 years old, or even more. The dairy cow will be killed between 5 and 6 years old. In human years, that would be in our 20’s.

There is an easy way to tell if the milk or cheese you consume was produced by the system . If it was purchased in a supermarket, then it is a near certainty that it came from a cow that was impregnated, had her calf removed shortly after birth, and was slaughtered for meat at a fraction of her natural lifespan. This is true whether she lived on a small farm, or in a massive industrialized operation. 

As with dairy, there was a time when eggs could be produced ethically. At the sanctuary, our hens produce eggs naturally. Without a rooster they are infertile. Taking those eggs produces no harm to the hen. It is even an important source of protein and calcium to occasionally feed the eggs back to the chickens, which is a bit counter-intuitive. 

Such a life for egg laying chickens would never be cost-effective in a competitive market place. Nor would it come anywhere close to the demand required by our current consumption levels. The standard used to be battery cages. This is where three hens were crammed into a tiny cage, could never spread their wings, and could barely turn around. In such cramped spaces, they would often peck at each other out of never ending frustration. Mercifully, Californians voted to restrict these unbearable conditions for egg-laying hens with Proposition 12. But the alternative guarantees little more than the surface of a single sheet of 8 1/2 X 11” paper per bird. None of the chickens' instinctual behaviors, scratching the dirt, dust baths, self grooming, etc., are possible under these conditions. Establishment of a pecking order, the foundation of their social organization, is also not possible. But there are other practices, even more misaligned from ahimsa in egg production. Only hens produce eggs, but roosters are born in similar ratios.  Half of the eggs hatched have no commercial value. So the males are destroyed the day they are hatched. I will not detail the method by which this is done. It is very cruel.  Like dairy cows, hens’ egg production will decrease long before their natural end of life. When that day is approaching, some producers still continue the process of food withdrawal to force molting and start a new laying cycle. This is widely considered a very cruel practice. When egg production declines, spent hens are sent to be slaughtered for low quality meat (this is the meat in Campbell’s chicken soup, for instance). 

Most store-bought eggs in the U.S. still come from large, industrial systems, even if labels like ‘cage-free’ or ‘enriched colony’ are used. This is simply how the industry operates. 

It would be tempting to think these practices are simply the result of cruelty on the part of the farmers, but they seem to have little choice in the matter. If you were to keep animals alive after their production had diminished, your product would be vastly more expensive than your competitors. The marketplace would not reward this position. Additionally, most farmers are locked into contracts with gigantic distribution networks. Those companies (Tyson foods, etc) require these practices for the products they distribute. Often these practices are mandated conditions of loans provided to the farmers. To retreat from these practices would be to retreat from the marketplace as it is. 

To me, thinking deeply about the ways and means that our food has come, requires us to know something about how it has come. In this case, the knowing can weigh on one’s conscience. When this is seen, it cannot be unseen. When I observe my chickens greeting me exuberantly in the morning, hopping on my lap for pets,  and dust bathing luxuriously, it is no longer possible for me to ignore the alternative life that these beautiful beings could have faced…

2. We must consider our merit when accepting it

Abstaining from these foods is a kind of boycott. It is a way also to acknowledge that when we pay for harm done, we ourselves own some of the effects of these causes. Unlike so many arenas where our species causes harm, this is one where we wield a fair amount of control. What can we do about the foreign policy of our country? About the unrelenting sales of weapons? About the support of regimes that deal in death and harm?

We can vote for politicians that we hope reflect our values. We can make our voices heard through correspondence, or participating in protests. But our ability to influence these harmful courses is profoundly limited. 

Our food choices are nearly direct. As a child I remember my mother refusing to buy iceberg lettuce and table grapes, in solidarity with Cesar Chavez and the UFW. Eventually, the pressure from this boycott was effective in changing conditions for these workers. 

If we do not feel the practices used to produce dairy and eggs align with our values, we can stop purchasing them. The effect is not perfect, but over time, it changes things. I did a quick calculation of how many pigs were not killed for meat because I stopped eating pork 45 years ago. The number is 12. 12 pigs. I bow to these 12, recognize that each was a fully unique individual, and I am proud I did not pay for their harm…

I can imagine a kind of mutual symbiosis where animals produce eggs and milk without immense suffering to them. I cannot imagine that being possible when their products are sold for profit. My position is that a sentient being should not become a product. Once a product, the levers to increase profit or reduce costs, generally involve obliterating their well being and happiness. That conflict seems unresolvable in our current financial system. Thus, I feel the only ethically consistent way forward is to abstain from these products entirely. 

3. We must protect ourselves from error, by excluding greed from our minds

I love cheese. I mean, I really do adore it. It is one of my favorite things to eat. The melty gooey kind, the stinky kind that pairs so well with hearty crackers, the hard kind on top of pasta. 

Despite my adoration of this food, I have not eaten it in years. 

There was a period, after I had been aware that the dairy industry created so much harm, that I abstained from all liquid milk products and used plant alternatives, but I could not free myself from the grip of cheese. Someone told me that goat cheese was different. That goats would produce milk without pregnancy, thus, no need to take their kids from them. Hurray -a loophole! I switched to goat cheese to feed my addiction. 

Of course, it wasn’t true. Goats are not different. 

My desire for cheese prevented me from checking to see if that information was true or not. It could have been resolved with a 5 minute google search. I did not explore it, because I really really wanted to keep eating cheese. It seems, some version of that faustian bargain exists in all of us. 

As is so often the case with our clinging, the fear of release is so much worse than the release itself. I’m perfectly happy without cheese now. Instead of a bean, rice and cheese burrito, beans, rice and avocado works just fine. And is healthier as a bonus! 

Many will read these words and experience a resistance to them, perhaps even anger. I would encourage the reader to take a moment and sit with that feeling. From where does it arise? This is good ground to explore…

4. We will eat, lest we become lean and die

When I walked away from eggs and dairy, I was concerned what the health consequences would be. I had heard all the dark whispers of mineral deficiencies, inadequate protein, vitamin B12. I do take a B12 supplement. It is cheap, easily assimilable, and convenient. 

I started getting blood work done every 6 months after making this dietary change, and the results were remarkable: protein levels were great, glucose went down. Sodium up a bump, my persistently high cholesterol dropped a bit. But no warning signs lit up. The doctor commented on how good the panels looked. 

It seems I will not become lean and die! 

There has been some very good research about the actual health results of plant-based diets. Like with omnivorous diets, it is hard to make sweeping declarations. You can subsist on Pepsi and Lays potato chips and call it vegan. Good nutrition requires thoughtfulness. The fact is, in our modern world we can do without animal products and still enjoy excellent health. Research supporting this claim has been published by Stanford, Oxford, Harvard, The Mayo Clinic, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, The NIH, AHA, ADA, etc.
My own bloodwork aligns with that observation.

5. We accept this food, so that we may become enlightened. 

One thing I bumped into early in my plant-based journey was a kind of rigid clinging to labels, foremost being vegan. It had a lot of baggage. Vegans are often perceived as being moralistic, pushy, judgmental. I know some who are like that, and many who absolutely are not. Even though that perception seemed largely distorted, it had caused me to, again, consider the trap that identity presents for us. 

The identity of Buddhist even. 

When people ask about my religion I do not answer “ I am a Buddhist.” I answer, “ I practice Buddhism.”

This distinction strikes me as important. Buddhism is not something I am; it is something I do. Specifically, something I do about this whole “I” business…

I see this boycott as a practice, and not as an identity. It is difficult to describe with words, but mealtimes become an expression of compassion. Three times a day, I can choose this path. It is often very uncomfortable, as a private person, to be the one who says “I have dietary restrictions, and they are not medically based”. It can cause me to be perceived as fussy, and I do not like being fussy.  It can cause me to be perceived as self-superior and elevated, and I wish to be humble and easy going. 

It is difficult for me to go out to dinner with family, and be the only one with unusual food requirements. It puts attention on me that I do not enjoy. There are side-eyes. Mumbles about “some diet fad” and “why can’t you just eat what everyone else is eating?”

The food I choose is the easy part. It is remarkably easy to avoid animal products. The social part is the hardest. 

When it arises, I remind myself: this is my practice of Ahimsa. 

I try to navigate my way with kindness and reason. I try to extend grace to those who question my motives. 

It takes effort. It is a practice. 

But not a lifestyle preference.