Why should one not eat meat or animal food?

One should not eat meat or animal food because meat and all animal substances with the exception of milk, butter and cheese cannot be used as food without the carrying out of murder and thereby the destruction of highly developed conscious life. As the law of life for the human being and thereby the condition for a healthy organism and happy fate is the fulfillment of the fifth commandment, "Thou shalt not kill", a food which is based exclusively on the killing of conscious life cannot possibly, according to this law, be food for human beings. It is permissible for the beast of prey since it is a condition of life for this being. When people to such a great extent as is the case place themselves by their meat-eating at the same stage as the beast of prey it is due to their not yet broken habits or old ways inherited from their previous animal state. That the human being is not relegated to having to live on the food of the beast of prey is a fact because animal food is not in any way whatsoever a condition of life for him as it is for the beast of prey. But quite apart from this, the unfortunate intervention in the creation of fate and the destruction of health to which this wallowing in corpse-substance will gradually give rise, all according as the human being in his development becomes intellectual and ethically refined, will in itself be enough to remove the animal products from his sphere of nourishment.