To the Editor:
I miss Mardi Gras. I miss being in crowds on Fat Tuesday. I’m hoping for a speedy recovery from the pandemic so we can all congregate again. After Fat Tuesday, Lent begins. Lent is the 40-day period before Easter when Christians stop eating meat and dairy in remembrance of Jesus’ 40 days of reflection.
As a Christian, Lent has meaning to me. For me, I already don’t eat meat and dairy. My plant-based diet helps reduce chronic diseases, environmental degradation, and animal abuse. Countless reports have linked consumption of animal products with risk of heart failure, stroke, cancer, and other diseases. A.U.N. report named meat production as a source of greenhouse gases and water pollution. Investigations have revealed animals raised for food under horrible conditions of caging, crowding, drugging, and mutilation. These actions go against what I believe.
Lent offers an opportunity to honor Jesus’ powerful message of compassion and love for all living beings, stop subsidizing the meat industry, and choose a nonviolent plant-based diet. It’s a diet that goes back to The Bible (Genesis I:29) and observed in the Garden of Eden. Enter “plant-based Lent” in Google and explore hundreds meat-free recipes.
Dwight Bentham
Newton