Hazon Shechita debate - 1st ltr sent

Hazon Shechita debate - 1st ltr sent

... to The Jew and the Carrot blog-piece The Debate: Eating Meat (or not) at the Hazon Food Conference

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[USA] Hazon Shechita debate continues

Pete Cohon wrote on December 30th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
"On behalf of the 800 members of VeggieJews, please be advised that Richard Schwartz does not speak on behalf of the entire Jewish vegetarian community. While he may think that Hazon's commitment to reduce comsumption of meat by 50% by 2015 is a Kiddush HaShem, we believe that it is nothing but an illusion rather like saying that child abuse or spousal abuse should be cut in half by 2015."

As a current member of VeggieJews (before Peter or another moderator should kick me off or somehow "dissuade" me from remaining), please be advised that Richard Schwartz DOES partially speak for this member of the Jewish vegetarian community and that I must disagree with Peter's multiple statements as expressed above. Oh, I believe that I DO understand Peter's statements. Additionally, I believe that Shmuel's and Richard Schwartz's above comments concerning this thread should CERTAINLY not be skimmed over or just ignored completely. While Peter may think that Hazon's commitment to reduce comsumption of meat by 50% by 2015 is anything BUT a Kiddush HaShem, I would believe otherwise.

I'd like to equate here the continual craving to eat meat as a type of "addiction" so-to-speak.. Gradual REDUCTIONS in eating meat -- similar to gradual reductions in abuse of many types of addictive substances -- are MUCH more effective than going Cold Turkey, if you readers will pardon this particular non-vegetarian expression ;-)

There is a Wikipedia on this "Cold Turkey" expression at webpage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_turkey

It is now just after New Year's Day 2010, and many of our secular Jewish brothers and sisters are acting upon their New Year's resolutions to lose weight and be in better physical shape for the upcoming year. Improvements in diet and increasing regular physical exercise are, of course, the primary means of carrying this out, as nutritionists and other health professionals can certainly attest to. And keeping a completely vegetarian diet certainly is ONE major way, among other ways, to improve one's diet. OTOH, those who go too far and all of a sudden completely avoid ALL food, such persons will no doubt suffer negative health effects from their continuous, uninterrupted fastings (e.g., anorexia nervosa and/or increasingly compromised immune systems). We all realize that nervous-system collapse and death are the eventual and extreme results of such Cold Turkey starvation weight-loss tactics.