Question: You have said that animal consciousness enters into us when we eat meat. Are we affected in the same way when we must take vitamins containing animal by-products?

Sri Chinmoy: I maintain the conviction that animal consciousness enters into us when we eat meat. But we have to know that vitamins do not have the same animal consciousness. We can see that when an animal is butchered and cooked fresh the animal consciousness remains in a most powerful manner. But when it goes through all the chemical processes to make vitamin pills it loses considerably its strangling animal quality. The animal power still remains to some extent, but it will not affect the consciousness the way eating meat will.