At the Ravens’ we are guided by the fact that we live within a predatory planet. It is violent and the very way we eat fosters violence. Some of here are vegan for that very reason. However, vegan is not a another name for “righteousness.” We know that as we have compassion for the grains, fruits and vegetables we do eat, we must have compassion for those who eat animal products as well as for the animals themselves. Below is a quotation from our Ravens’ Cookbook. It speaks to this issue:
“Food is energy - it is energy trapped, bonded to life. We digest destroying the integrity of the food and freeing the proteins, carbohydrates, fats and micronutrients needed to build and sustain our bodies. We are molecular beings, transferring bits and pieces of other molecules to function molecularly - that is, to organize, replicate, regenerate and repair ourselves.
“Using energy extracted from our food, we interact, exchanging information between each other and this information exchange is most often about finding, holding, building sources of energy of one sort of another, be it money, some idea of power, or food itself.
“Food is life and we eat life - or a product of life like dairy. Life eats life in a seemingly meaningless cycle. Even in those instances where we think we might avoid eating life by drinking milk we learn that dairy and eggs are seemingly innocent foods that do not demonstrate obvious sentience and are obtained from animals who are bred for the purpose. Those unable to lay an egg or produce milk – the males – are killed, usually after a six week life in a cage for a chicken, de-beaked and pumped full of antibiotics or after a few months in a calf pen or three years in a feedlot.
“We eat life: it is transformed into our lives. Our planet appears predatory and dangerous when looked at from purely a materialistic viewpoint. This is not a happy realization. Many of us separate ourselves from the violence of procuring food: we go to the supermarket. But if we eschew violence how can we ask another to procure our food, kill for us? We cannot.
We see ourselves as a nexus of change – from a violent and not particularly conscious relationship to the food we eat to a more conscious relationship. We “know” that eating is always killing, and we believe that remembering this honors the plants, fruits and grains we eat and in so honoring these foods, we eat what we need to eat and waste far less. Here, we do not serve animals but do serve dairy and eggs with the hope that many guests will try vegan dishes. This is what we hope to be the first step for many of our diners toward conscious dining and a vegan lifestyle.”(Copyright 2006 – Used by permission.)