Theodora Scarato is the Executive Director of Environmental Health Trust – the world’s leading think tank promoting a healthier environment through research, education, and policy. As a policy analyst Theodora Scarato maintains the comprehensive EHT database on international policy that documents the 20+ nations that have protective policies in place to reduce public exposure to cell phone and wireless radiation. Also, as a practicing clinical psychotherapist, her two decades of work with children and adolescents includes intensive research, not only on the effects from radiation exposures, but also the social emotional effects of technology overuse. Theodora Scarato lives in Maryland, and has long worked on children’s environmental health issues in the schools and was instrumental in the Prince George’s County School System move to address lead contamination in the schools drinking water. She raised the wireless and health issue to the Maryland State Advisory Council on Children’s Environmental Health Protection which moved to issue first ever state advisory recommendations to the Department of Education to reduce radiofrequency exposures in the school setting. Scarato also coordinates scientific programs with scientists and research institutions internationally on the issue of cellphones and health such as the 2017 Conferences at Jackson Hole Wyoming and at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies.
What goes around comes around. We are called as a species to stop the violence that is inherent in our meat habit. This should be of paramount importance for all religious movements and teachers. It is the call of spirituality. If our religions don’t hear this call, we must revitalize them or create new ones that do.
The real secret to personal and planetary peace and happiness is veganism rightly understood as the ancient and timeless teaching to include all living beings within the sphere of our kindness and respect, and never to treat any being as a mere object to be used or abused. This is the awakening of our true human heart, not for a self-centered happiness, but for a happiness that includes everyone. This is positive thinking beyond mere positive thinking; it’s living the truth that we are, and being the transformation we long to see in our world.
When we come to this Earth, we find ourselves in a culture that is at its very core organized around confining and killing animals for food. We are forced virtually from birth to look at beings as mere commodities and to treat them as such by eating them in the most powerful daily rituals we engage in: our meals. All cultures naturally propagate themselves through their various institutions, and ours is no different. Our scientific, religious, governmental, educational, and economic institutions all reflect the same underlying mentality and reinforce it, which is why veganism is so strenuously resisted, and also why it is so urgently needed as well. Fortunately, as we awaken and stop disconnecting from the suffering we cause others by our choices, we resensitize ourselves and begin to be a force for kindness and respect that can impact others, and we can work through our culture’s institutions to raise consciousness and spread the light of inclusiveness. The more clearly the inner light shines in us, the more clearly we can shine it into the world.
Looking around, we can see the tremendous urgency in the task required of us: to do all we can to influence our culture to evolve and embrace the vegan ideals of interconnectedness, freedom, and caring. The same urgency is required in our inner lives as well. Going vegan is much more than minimizing the cruelty and suffering we cause others; it is awakening the heart of loving inclusiveness and realizing that there are, ultimately, no separate selves. We are all connected.
Each of us is radically and profoundly interconnected with all other living beings, and by blessing and encouraging and seeing the best in others, we help everyone, and by condemning or turning away from others, we harm everyone, including ourselves. Shining compassion to everyone, even our apparent opponents, is the essence of the benevolent revolution that is veganism.
Veganism is a litmus test of religious teachings and religious teachers. To the degree that religious teachings do not explicitly encourage veganism, which is the practice of nonviolence and lovingkindness, to that same degree these teachings are hypocritical and disconnected from their spiritual source.
We must, if this process is actually happening in us, be drawn toward veganism, and it is in no way a limitation on us, but the harmonious fulfillment of our own inner seeing.
There are strong voices in all religious traditions emphasizing that our kindness to other beings should be based on compassion. This is more than merely being open to the suffering of others; it also explicitly includes the urge to act to relieve their suffering. We are thus responsible not just to refrain from harming animals and humans, but also to do what we can to stop others from harming them, and to create conditions that educate, inspire, and help others to live in ways that show kindness and respect for all life. This is the high purpose to which the core teachings of the world’s wisdom traditions call us. It is an evolutionary imperative, a spiritual imperative, an imperative of compassion, and, in reality, a vegan imperative.
Thirty years after a National Academy of Sciences study warning of the dangers posed to children by pesticides, 75% of non-organic fruits and vegetables sold in the U.S. are still riddled with the potentially toxic agricultural chemicals, according to the Environmental Working Group’s “2023 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce.”
Thirty years after a landmark National Academy of Sciences study warning of the dangers posed to children by pesticides, 75% of non-organic fruits and vegetables sold in the U.S. are still riddled with the potentially toxic agricultural chemicals, according to the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) “2023 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce.”
This year, blueberries and green beans join the Dirty Dozen, the Shopper’s Guide section listing the 12 non-organic, or conventionally grown, fruits and vegetables with the highest amounts of pesticides, based on federal agencies’ tests. Some of the pesticides detected have been banned in the U.S. or Europe because of concerns about how they harm people.
“Despite the abundance of science linking exposure to pesticides with serious health issues, a potentially toxic cocktail of concerning chemicals continues to taint many of the non-organic fruits and vegetables eaten by consumers,” said Alexis Temkin, Ph.D., EWG toxicologist.
The Shopper’s Guide compiles EWG’s analysis of the latest fruit and vegetable testing data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The 2023 edition includes data from 46,569 samples of 46 fruits and vegetables, covering 251 different pesticides.
In addition to the Dirty Dozen, the guide includes the Clean Fifteen, EWG’s list of the fruits and vegetables with very low or no traces of pesticides.
“Everyone — adults and kids — should eat more fruits and vegetables, whether organic or not,” Temkin said. “A produce-rich diet provides many health benefits.”
“But in the ongoing absence of meaningful federal oversight, consumers concerned about pesticide exposure can use EWG’s Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce to navigate the produce aisle in ways that work best for them and their families,” Temkin said.
EWG recommends that consumers buy organic versions of Dirty Dozen produce and choose either conventionally grown or organic versions of Clean Fifteen items.
Blueberries and green beans
Both blueberries and green beans — 11th and 12th, respectively, on this year’s Dirty Dozen — had troubling concentrations of organophosphate insecticides, pesticides that can harm the human nervous system. Nine out of 10 samples of each of the popular foods had residues of pesticides — with some showing traces of up to 17 different pesticides.
Even though people may resist hearing it, spreading the vegan message is the greatest gift we can give, for it is ultimately liberating for everyone. With study and practice, we can articulate it skillfully, passionately, and effectively, and help other people to understand as well!
Every person who authentically goes vegan is a person who is rediscovering the lost chalice of intuitive wisdom, and by refusing to participate in the killing and enslaving of mothers and babies, and honoring the sacred dimension and reclaiming intuitive wisdom, is helping to transform our culture in profound and significant ways. As Goethe said, “To know is not enough. You must apply.” Spiritual teachings emphasize that whatever we deeply desire we must first give to others. To recover the lost chalice, we are called to give the female animals we exploit the opportunity to express their maternal wisdom again.
Veganism is actually a spectrum of psychospiritual development, and the most basic level of veganism is refraining from buying foods and products that cause suffering to animals. As our veganism deepens, we realize that veganism is radical inclusion, and that it calls us to act with respect and kindness in all our relations with everyone, all the time. A tall order! In short, veganism is an ideal that is perhaps ultimately unattainable, but that draws us ever onward to greater love and compassion in every dimension of our lives.
We must, if this process is actually happening in us, be drawn toward veganism, and it is in no way a limitation on us, but the harmonious fulfillment of our own inner seeing.
Veganism is the natural flowering of consciousness freed from the continuous programming of the inherent violence in our culture. The word vegan is precious, inspiring, and demanding, because it questions the core mentality of our culture and it is the key to our culture’s transformation and to its very survival.
So please, let’s love, defend, respect, understand, and propagate this word and what it stands for as if all our lives depended upon it; they very well may.
Corporations were created for one reason: to avoid responsibility; spirituality and veganism, if they are expressions of anything, are expressions of taking responsibility. In the big picture, we are all responsible for our treatment of others, as well as for our failures to act to help others. To finally solve the dilemma we see reflected in political corruption, we must cut the root of the problem, which is the herding mentality that commodifies animals and the weak and gives rise to the corporate worldview. Veganism is the only lasting solution.
Veganism, which is a committed effort to live the ideals of mercy and kindness to others, is indispensable to all spiritual paths, because it emerges from and deepens the understanding that all beings are completely interconnected and interdependent. It is an inclusive movement that advocates a plant-based diet because it includes all sentient creatures within its sphere of concern. The towering spiritual geniuses who have blessed this earth have typically been vegan but have been little concerned whether their foods were cooked or not. For example, when we look at the great Zen masters of China and East Asia of the last 1,500 years, we find people who invariably ate a vegan diet of both cooked and uncooked foods. The desert fathers of the Christian tradition are similar.
Veganism is the essential healing force that our culture desperately needs, because the mentality of domination that starts on our plates reverberates through our various cultural institutions as authoritarianism, oppression, and violence. Healing this mentality requires cultivating vegan values: concern and caring for others weaker than us, and refusing to exploit them. As vegans, the improved health we naturally experience is a side-benefit; it’s not the main focus because we sense there’s a higher purpose in life than just being physically healthy.
We must, if this process is actually happening in us, be drawn toward veganism, and it is in no way a limitation on us, but the harmonious fulfillment of our own inner seeing.
There are strong voices in all religious traditions emphasizing that our kindness to other beings should be based on compassion. This is more than merely being open to the suffering of others; it also explicitly includes the urge to act to relieve their suffering. We are thus responsible not just to refrain from harming animals and humans, but also to do what we can to stop others from harming them, and to create conditions that educate, inspire, and help others to live in ways that show kindness and respect for all life. This is the high purpose to which the core teachings of the world’s wisdom traditions call us. It is an evolutionary imperative, a spiritual imperative, an imperative of compassion, and, in reality, a vegan imperative.
Dr John McDougall, MD, is a physician, speaker, and best-selling author who teaches the importance of a whole food, starch-based diet in order to halt, reverse and heal chronic disease. His book The Starch Solution: Eat the Foods You Love, Regain Your Health, and Lose the Weight for Good! Is a book that allows you to pick up that bread! This doctor-approved method lets you keep the carbs and lose the pounds! John McDougall, MD is the author of 13 national best-sellers books on Amazon, He is a clinical instructor for four medical schools in the United States He is a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American College of Lifestyle Medicine.
To Contact Dr McDougall go to DrMcdougall.com
Dr. Michael Klaper is a gifted clinician, internationally-recognized teacher, and sought-after speaker on diet and health. Dr. Michael Klaper resolutely believes that proper nutrition — through a whole food, plant-based diet — and a balanced lifestyle are essential for health and, in many cases, can make the difference between healing an illness or merely treating its symptoms.“Health is having a body that moves without pain, breathes without distress and allows us to perform the activities of life with complete presence and focused energy. Then, we can love fully and enjoy our lives to the fullest.”
To Contact Dr Michael Klaper go to doctorklaper.com
Dr. Geo Espinosa is a Naturopathic Functional Medicine doctor recognized as an authority in Urology and Men’s health. He is faculty and holistic clinician in Urology at New York University Langone Health and faculty for the Institute for Functional Medicine. As an avid researcher and writer, Dr. Geo has authored numerous scientific papers and books, including co-editing the Integrative Sexual Health book, and author of the bestselling prostate cancer book: Thrive, Don’t Only Survive. He lectures internationally on the application of science-based holistic treatments for urological conditions. In his free time, Dr. Geo enjoys delivering content on his popular website, DrGeo.com, spending time with his wife and three kids, reading, strength training, and practicing martial arts.
Anthropologists refer to the five prohibitions as the five universal taboos, which cross-culturally prohibit, against other humans, the actions of killing, stealing, lying, sexual misconduct, and forcing drugs or toxic substances on others. In our culture today, we are evolving toward an understanding of these prohibitions that includes animals as well: seeing that just as it is a violation to harmfully interfere with Spirit’s experience of being a human, it is also a violation to harmfully interfere with Spirit’s experience of being an animal.
As we evolve spiritually, we become more awake to the truth of interbeing, that all living beings are profoundly interconnected, and that by harming others, I harm myself because the life in that apparent ‘other’ is the same life that lives in this apparent ‘me.’
When love is born in our hearts, we want only the best for others, for we directly see them as ourselves. The imprisoning illusion of a fundamentally separate self, struggling against other selves for its own rewards, is transcended, and our life becomes dedicated to bringing peace, joy, and fulfillment to others. This brings us our greatest joy, and is the flowering of the highest form of love, which is compassion.
Veganism is not “veganism.” That’s all looking from the outside. We live, serve, and give thanks for this precious life arising through All of Us. It may look like and be called veganism, but it is not an option. It is simply the expression of our own true nature: seeing beings to be respected rather than things to be used.
I hope that all vegans or aspiring vegans have the opportunity at some point in our lives to live in a vegan community for a while. I have had this opportunity a few times and it’s been transformative. Many of the difficulties we encounter in living a vegan lifestyle, for our families and ourselves, arise because we are basically alone in a culture that is hostile to our values. I found when I was immersed in large-scale vegan communities, contradictions and complications evaporated in a remarkable feeling of inner wholeness.
We will hopefully be able to create more and more opportunities for people to experience vegan community in North America and elsewhere. Practicing compassionate living together can send boundless waves of healing energy into our world and help awaken the slumbering conscience of our species.
As we practice leaving home by examining our own societal indoctrination and questioning all the propaganda continually spewed forth by the military-industrial-meat-medical complex, we can liberate ourselves and live a life of greater compassion based on vegan ethics and a plant-based diet, and be a voice for those vulnerable sentient creatures who have no voice. In this we fulfill the universal teachings that promote spiritual living. We are practicing compassion and making connections, and our life can become a field of freedom and love as we continually affirm our interdependence with all life, and practice non-cooperation with those forces that see beings as mere commodities.
We must, if this process is actually happening in us, be drawn toward veganism, and it is in no way a limitation on us, but the harmonious fulfillment of our own inner seeing.
There are strong voices in all religious traditions emphasizing that our kindness to other beings should be based on compassion. This is more than merely being open to the suffering of others; it also explicitly includes the urge to act to relieve their suffering. We are thus responsible not just to refrain from harming animals and humans, but also to do what we can to stop others from harming them, and to create conditions that educate, inspire, and help others to live in ways that show kindness and respect for all life. This is the high purpose to which the core teachings of the world’s wisdom traditions call us. It is an evolutionary imperative, a spiritual imperative, an imperative of compassion, and, in reality, a vegan imperative.
There is no greater act of love and freedom than to question the core of violence and disconnectedness churning unrecognized in the belly of our culture, and to switch to a plant-based diet because of compassion for the countless animals, humans, and future generations to whom we are related. All life is interconnected, and as we bless others, we are blessed. As we allow others to be free and healthy, we become free and healthy.
The boundless joy that accompanies leaving the prison of delusion draws us irresistibly, and this joy is ultimately inevitable for everyone. Veganism is love for all, expressed as respect and kindness, and is both the path and the goal of spiritual life. It leads, when practiced mindfully, to the awakening that there is no fundamentally separate self at all. We are all infinitely interconnected manifestations of boundless, radiant love, and we are here to discover and share our unique gifts, and allow this love to shine and flow through us, as the lives we live.
The destructive agricultural system now in place devastates millions of acres of forest and grassland in order to grow corn, soybeans, wheat, and other grains and legumes for animals, who convert plant carbohydrate into profitable and unhealthy fat and protein. The food and medical industries are guaranteed lucrative incomes at the expense of starving people, wildlife, aquifers, biosystems, and future generations. Ironically, we’re growing far more grain than we could ever eat ourselves. The billions of dollars invested in hospitals, drugs, and pharmaceutical and medical facilities require a reliable and steady flow of clogged arteries and cancers to stay profitable and pay back the bankers in the background.
Indoctrination, social pressure, and the self-centered pursuit of pleasure have been behind all the atrocities we humans have committed, and when we shine the light of our awareness and truth on them, they are seen for the weak, erroneous delusions that they truly are.
The great philosopher Schopenhauer, in criticizing how some Christians treat animals, wrote, “Shame on such a morality that fails to recognize the eternal essence that exists in every living thing, and shines forth with inscrutable significance from all eyes that see the sun.” All of us are celebrations of infinite mysterious Spirit, deserving of honor and respect.
It seems there are three main reasons why people continue to eat animals in spite of the horror and tragedy this behavior generates. The first and essential reason is that eating animals is not a behavior people have ever chosen freely. It has, instead, been forced upon them, starting at an early age. People have been indoctrinated to do it. The second reason is because of social pressure. Being so gregarious, we humans like to fit in and be part of the group, and this militates strongly against questioning the eating of animal foods. The third big reason is that people like the taste: they get a certain pleasure that they are loath to give up. Fortunately, these three fundamental reasons for eating animal foods are all ultimately invalid and indefensible.
In the Japanese language there is a beautiful word, “shojin,” roughly translated into English as “abstention from animals foods and products for religious or spiritual reasons.” The existence of this word reveals the culture’s recognition that abstaining from the use of animal products is a valid dimension of religious practice and of spiritual aspiration.
There are strong voices in all religious traditions emphasizing that our kindness to other beings should be based on compassion. This is more than merely being open to the suffering of others; it also explicitly includes the urge to act to relieve their suffering. We are thus responsible not just to refrain from harming animals and humans, but also to do what we can to stop others from harming them, and to create conditions that educate, inspire, and help others to live in ways that show kindness and respect for all life. This is the high purpose to which the core teachings of the world’s wisdom traditions call us. It is an evolutionary imperative, a spiritual imperative, an imperative of compassion, and, in reality, a vegan imperative.
Theodora Scarato is the Executive Director of Environmental Health Trust – the world’s leading think tank promoting a healthier environment through research, education, and policy.
As a policy analyst Theodora Scarato maintains the comprehensive EHT database on international policy that documents the 20+ nations that have protective policies in place to reduce public exposure to cell phone and wireless radiation.
Also, as a practicing clinical psychotherapist, her two decades of work with children and adolescents includes intensive research, not only on the effects from radiation exposures, but also the social emotional effects of technology overuse.
Theodora Scarato lives in Maryland, and has long worked on children’s environmental health issues in the schools and was instrumental in the Prince George’s County School System move to address lead contamination in the schools drinking water. She raised the wireless and health issue to the Maryland State Advisory Council on Children’s Environmental Health Protection which moved to issue first ever state advisory recommendations to the Department of Education to reduce radiofrequency exposures in the school setting.
Scarato also coordinates scientific programs with scientists and research institutions internationally on the issue of cellphones and health such as the 2017 Conferences at Jackson Hole Wyoming and at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies.
The pollution of our shared consciousness-field by the dark agonies endured by billions of animals killed for food is an unrecognized fact that impedes our social progress and contributes gigantically to human violence and the warfare that is constantly erupting around the world.
Our cultural predicament—the array of seemingly intractable problems that beset us, such as chronic war, terrorism, genocide, starvation, the proliferation of disease, environmental degradation, species extinction, animal abuse, consumerism, drug addiction, alienation, stress, racism, oppression of women, child abuse, corporate exploitation, materialism, poverty, injustice, and social malaise—is rooted in an essential cause that is so obvious that it has managed to remain almost completely overlooked.
Question everything this culture says, throw off the chains of harming and stealing from fish, birds, and other mammals, and join the vegan celebration! We will love this world and each other so deeply that we will all be transformed.
Our meals and institutions reflect each other and reinforce the delusion that we are violent and competitive by nature. Spiritual and religious teachLab-Grown “Meat”ings say otherwise. The Bodhisattva ideal that Buddhists emulate, for example, embodies the understanding that our true nature is wisdom, loving-kindness and cooperativeness.
Veganism is the essence of inclusiveness and nonviolence: seeing sacred beings when we see others, never reducing them to objects or commodities for our use. It is the ancient wisdom of the interconnectedness of the welfare of all, and is also the dawning mentality that is foundational to sustainability, freedom, and lasting peace. Our children’s world will be vegan, or the alternative is unpleasant to contemplate.
If lab-grown “meat” becomes available, that will reduce our killing and waste of resources. And it may help us move toward veganism, since our meals will no longer require us to disconnect from the suffering we’re causing animals. However, there are countless ways we oppress and abuse animals besides eating them, and if our culture doesn’t evolve to the vegan ethic of compassion to all beings, and continues to use and prey on animals, our technology will magnify our violence and we’ll do the same to each other.
When we realize that we’ve all been given the gift of bodies that require no nutrients we cannot get from plant sources, we can become, ourselves, the change we want to see in the world. This is the heart and soul of the vegan revolution of love, joy, and peace that is beckoning and to which we are all called to contribute.
There are strong voices in all religious traditions emphasizing that our kindness to other beings should be based on compassion. This is more than merely being open to the suffering of others; it also explicitly includes the urge to act to relieve their suffering. We are thus responsible not just to refrain from harming animals and humans, but also to do what we can to stop others from harming them, and to create conditions that educate, inspire, and help others to live in ways that show kindness and respect for all life. This is the high purpose to which the core teachings of the world’s wisdom traditions call us. It is an evolutionary imperative, a spiritual imperative, an imperative of compassion, and, in reality, a vegan imperative.
The Plant Strong Club 