People in the English-speaking world (especially the United States) have the benefit of enjoying a vegetarian diet high in variety and can engineer their diets to ensure that a good amount of vegetable-based protein is included. However, to ensure that a human being can exist on a vegetarian diet and remain in excellent health involves quite a bit of commitment and nutritional knowledge. Countries suffering from drought, floods, disruption, or a simple lack of complementary foodstuffs are unable to provide their people with a properly-balanced vegetarian diet. It is hardly wrong of those people to eat meat, if meat should become available. Therefore, it is ethnocentric to suggest that just because we privileged Westerners can achieve vibrant health on a purely vegetarian (or vegan) diet, anyone on earth should be able to do so. And they don’t – people all over the world eat meat unless their religion constrains them from doing so, and even then many Buddhists still eat meat. These people, however, eat very little meat. Traditional Chinese cooking uses meat as an accent, not as a main course. This is what proper meat consumption should look like.

If Heifer, Intl. does what it says it does – provides grass seed, veterinary care, training, etc. for animals that are meant to continue as a source of income or assistance for a family, then that is a good thing. Some people criticize the “forced pregnancy” aspect of dairy farming; however, many kinds of dairy animals go through a period of heat every year. If those animals were in the wild, and had access to adequate food, they would become pregnant every year anyway. Some other people have pointed to lactose intolerance in certain populations of the world – the most recent criticism I have seen involved Africans and their supposed lactose intolerance. Whole tribes of Africans living on the savannah, such as the Nuer, traditionally made their livelihoods off of cattle-herding, including milk consumption. This predates Heifer. Lactose intolerance does seem to develop in some groups of people who do not consume dairy products after they’re weaned, but consumption of milk products is not at all a modern development and not dependent upon geography. The mongols of central Asia, for example, drank milk and ate yogurt throughout their lifespans well over one thousand years ago.

If the animals are humanely and compassionately treated, if the environment is cared for and not allowed to degrade, then I see no harm in helping the destitute of the world by supplying them with animals. All beings die. Life is transient. It is just as good, or bad, for an animal to die and be consumed to give life to other animals as it is for the animal to consume and rot into the ground while other animals starve for lack of food. Wolves are not evil, and humans are not special. It can be no more harmful than these tree-planting schemes which purport to provide erosion control and plant-based foods to people but which really create monocultures, destroy native plant life, chase off the natural mix of forest-dwelling creatures, and tend to go to scrub if they are not carefully tended by people. Planting an acre (or ten thousand) of trees is not reforesting and it, too, is not particularly good for the environment. Observe, if you will, the bee crash currently happening.

“Put all your beliefs into harmony with science; there can be no opposition, for truth is one. When religion, shorn of its superstitions, traditions,and unintelligent dogmas, shows its conformity with science, then will there be a great unifying, cleansing force in the world which will sweep before it all wars, disagreements, discords and struggles–and then will mankind be united in the power of the Love of God.
–’Abdu’l-Bahá, Paris Talks, p. 146

Other than this person’s postings (the same posting in multiple locations), I’ve heard nothing else, read nothing else, about this. No one seems to be addressing it. And when someone posts as “anonymous,” who can take him/her seriously? Anonymity allows people to take potshots at public figures too easily.

Sorry, anonymous…don’t quite buy this. I just finished Lama’s book, btw, “Letting Go Of The Person You Used to Be,” and found it tremendously helpful. If he’s an imperfect teacher, well, so be it…his teachings are very good, and I would need to know the full details of his transgressions before I cease buying his books or listening to him. This would be big news in the Buddhist community, and no one has said anything about this but you—whoever you are.

Here it is in your words “I think you should be proud of your self kids can look this up if need for homework like i needed it today”

The discussions in this blog is dead serious. Please take it seriously because hundreds of thousands people had died in India fighting evil Hindu system, injustice, still fighting caste system and fighting the fake Mahatma (Mr. Gandhi). The evil caste system is also migrated to UK, USA and other counties.
With respect,