Attachment and Addiction

1340: 

Edited by CJ Tointon

We all have the capacity to become powerfully attached to something sensually pleasing, especially when we’re emotionally moved.  It could be a romance, or something as mundane as food.  If it sets off our sense of excitement, we feel renewed - at least for a time.  When the feeling wears off, we want it back!  The memory of the experience enters our mind throughout the day in the form of a longing or an anticipation.  Like falling in love, we're incapable of thinking about anything else.

With food attachment/addiction,  we can experience a powerful level of sensation simply by tasting a new or favourite dish.   People can spend substantial sums of money on a wide range of foods at the best eating houses where the chef is guaranteed to produce cuisine whose impact will have a powerful and pleasing effect.  Or people only have to visit the local fast food outlet to be guaranteed the types of dishes that keep them coming back time and again.  Whether it's golden puffed chickens roasted with whole lemons in their cavities or a simple $2 KFC Grilled Taster Box, there's a certainty there that it’s 'going to work'.  But there’s a downside!  With powerful attraction comes the potential for 'attachment and addiction'.  We experience something we like very much and we'll do anything to get it again.

Whether we're introduced to an exotic dish or an affordable fast food, the memory of its deliciousness along with it’s availability is enough to cloud normal judgement.  These great likings have the capacity to be larger than life, seducing us beyond common sense and on into common danger.  It starts in the head, by suspending reasonable thinking.   "Can I afford that restaurant tonight?  Can I afford to eat this amount of 'fried calories'?  Can I afford to ignore the animal suffering behind this food"?  When we let go of our normal restraints, we give in to addiction and it becomes stronger the more we indulge it.  When we find a food that 'works' for us, it takes on a prominence and after the eating sensation has passed, the attachment remains - pressing in on us!   As with any drug that we get used to, it relieves some of the low level strain of daily living.  But if we can't get it or if it’s denied us, we can experience something akin to 'loneliness' or 'depression'. 

Daily strains, however, have a purpose in life and we shouldn't always try to deaden them.  They slowly train us to make self-protective decisions, which in turn bring us a deeper experience of life, and even deeper consciousness.  When we use rich, animal-based, potentially addictive foods to enhance our life quality, we get a quick fix.  But we lay aside our trusty checks and balances and are led into the classic trap of using something because it's accessible and seems to be there for our taking (or buying).  It’s a little like the seduction of the sirens.  It tempts us away from our intelligent-self and lures us into the comforting arms of 'sensation'.  Today, in our food choices, we have let ourselves be led into an animal-dependency.  Humans have become totally dependent on the present vast army of domesticated animals at our disposal. 

In a nutshell then, we are collectively hooked on any number of products that originate from animals.  There's something fine-feeling and protective (apparently) about wearing skins and furs of animals just as there is something particularly attractive (apparently) about the flavours and textures of animal flesh and various animal secretions.  We perceive, at our most primal level, that our survival depends on eating 'substantial' food and we've been led to believe that this food should come from animals.  We're aware of the other food groups, but somehow we're attached to the belief that without the animal content in our diet, we'll end up malnourished and unsatisfied.  We can make  animal-derived food look 'attractive' and coupled with the addictive demands of our bodies, there is plenty and enough to persuade us that animals MUST always be available for us to use.

"What's the point then of trying to make a case against their use?" you might wonder.  "There certainly seems to be a powerful urge within us to use them!"  Vegans would say that animal-derived foods are harmful to humans on many levels.  They're addictive and totally unnecessary for our survival.  Vegans would go on to say that an alternative, inexpensive, plant-based food regime does exist and that the addiction-element associated with animal-based foods can be overcome with a little self discipline.

Addictions and attachments to animal-based foods stand in the way of humans' development of ethics and good health.  It's the same for the wealthy as for the less well-off.  Each, in their own way, is emotionally and gastronomically attached to certain foods from which they can't easily escape.  

It's a 'mind game' that has to be played out in order for things to change in the omnivores' diet to bring them into the sane and satisfying world of the clear-conscienced herbivore.