Thursday, January 7, 2010

Addictive foods

We live craving for shopping. Life is a never ending search for sex, food, drugs or companionship and only rarely is it a genuine thirst for self discovery. Hedonism rules. Our providers satisfy us, but they own us. This ‘pit’, this inescapable maze, this bog that sucks us down … but when you look at it more closely, it’s really all smoke and mirrors.
The whole edifice crumbles as soon as we puff some passionate resistance at it. If we are driven by compassion for animals and a need to educate others about it (and about loving the earth) it’s no good if we remain exploited ourselves. We can’t defend animals if we eat them!
We have a choice. With some education (and if we’re living in a relatively free, so called ‘developed’, country we do have some choices) there’s a chance to stay in control of our own lives and reduce the impact of the exploiters. But food addiction is like a lump of concrete in our gut. The food constipates us but more importantly our addiction to it prevents our egress from the pit.
They know how ‘animal foods’ bring us in from the cold, to the emporiums and malls and even the corner shop. They are there, always, providing the treats and tit bits for us. This is where we eat it or buy it and salivate over it. Our providers know how to pleasure us. They know things about our weaknesses, with the help of their tame scientists tampering with flavours and additives, we don’t know about ourselves. They know we’ll put aside our thoughts of the badly treated animals. They know we’ll be hooked on tastes and textures, and they know that, by eating their foods, we’ll fit in with others and enjoy social acceptance. By ‘eating together’ we ‘stay together’.

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