I was a vegetarian absolutist for 12 long years, a fair half of it featuring an additional bunch of yogic restrictions, Ayurvedic guidelines and so on. I have since joined the omnivores again, and in fact was originally led back to a more open diet during my days as a Buddhist anagarika wandering in North India, as for them all almsfood was equal and not a subject to discrimination.

Vegetarianism is not something that can be conclusively proven to be natural or necessary by any scientific measure. see more Like all things, it has its pros and cons. If we argue for vegetarianism on the basis of diverse spiritual reasons, we merely open another Pandora's Box of loosely defined ideas as food for an endless and futile debate. There is no point debating if there isn't a shared conceptual framework.

In this particular case, why not rather talk about what Andrew originally wrote about, which as I see it had to do with his appreciation of the kid's compassionate emotion for the animal.

Regardless of eating habits, compassion should be encouraged and taught as a general principle to children. As far as the details of application go, it's better to teach a method than teach a definitive solution.