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The Meaning of a Vegetarian Diet
Bhaktivedanta Center • Woods Mill, VA / Bhakti Center • Charlottesville, VA
Excelllent presentation!
I saw the presentation and here are some problems I have with it:
Humans, as far as I remember from school, are supposed to be omnivores. Which means we can eat both meat and plants. Sure, risks like heart attacks are increased if you eat too much meat, but excess of anything is bad-excess soy results in cancer. And that is what I know of with my limited knowledge about food and human anatomy. I am sure eating too much of anything will result in adverse health effects.
About the famous people, I have not bothered to find out which ones were non vegetarians.. I guess Newton would eat meat. And those body builders-come on-their diet does not matter-they take steroids/external forms of proteins. I hope this slide is not encouraging hopeful Schwarzneggers to use steroids instead of meat!
Now, I don’t have a problem with anyone eating anything-its their life and they are good to choose, provided they choose a healthy balanced diet. Sure meats don’t have any fiber and carbs. That’s why you supplement it with vegetables and grains. And that is why humans are omnivores-not carnivores. Non-veg does not mean people eat only meat like the lions. And just because we need those supplements does not mean we are not meant to eat meat. The only thing that got me to post this entire passage was the line ‘carnivores don’t need to cook meat and humans do. Ergo, humans are not built to eat meat’. *Rolling eyes.
Why do we bother cooking rice and daal and vegetables. Let us all chabao raw karela because if we are ‘built’ to eat it, our bodies might as well digest it as it is present in nature right? (by the way, the Japs do eat sushi and sashimi which is raw meat. They also have the healthiest culture because of their diet AND lifestyle. And I don’t think they are a prevalent vegetarian community)
When reading/learning about diet, most people forget that LIFESTYLE is a major part of health. Eating right, at the right time and giving your body the right amount of workout that it needs are what will ensure a healthy life, albeit, the slowest way to die. 🙂 I don’t know why do most vegetarians feel the need to change the world to a vegetarian place. Non-veggies are not sitting and eating endagered species. But then again, to each their own.
I thought I would stop there but I have a few concerns about world hunger as well-the amount of grains and soy required to feed livestock in USA for a year would feed x no of people. The above statement does not provide complete information. How many people would that equivalent amount of livestock feed? Also, what I would like to know is, if the 56% of land is converted to growing food for humans rather than tend to cattle, there would obviously be an excess production of vegetables/grains in the US. Do you think they will give all that for free to the African states where food is required?
I don’t know much about animal cruelty and deforestation-I need to read up on that so I cannot comment here. But here’s a question that I have by just reading the above facts. If we do all turn into vegetarians, we still need dairy products right? Won’t we still need dairy farms to give us those products? And isn’t it also cruel to take a cow’s milk when it is her calf that needs it most?
Doctors say cow’s milk can lead to iron deficiency anemia, allergies, diarrhea, heart disease, colic, cramps, gastrointestinal bleeding, sinusitis, skin rashes, acne, increased frequency of colds and flus, arthritis, diabetes, ear infections, osteoporosis, asthma, autoimmune diseases, and more, possibly even lung cancer, multiple sclerosis and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Let us stop that too. (Please do not do that-I have incomplete information thanks to 10 seconds of google. I am sure there is a catch in there as well)
People, please consume what you need in moderation. This applies to food, things, energy, everything. If your family is vegetarian but you have one car per person and need to drive to fetch groceries three blocks away, that is not going have a positive effect on the planet. Global warming the result of eating meat and wars a result of karma from eating meat?! I am not even going to get into that. At the end of the day though, believe what you will and do what you think is right. By the way, will killing plants not result in any bad karma? Sure it is less compared to meat, but it will still add up right?
Hence, we offer the vegetarian food to Krishna
>>carnivores don’t need to cook meat and humans do…
This is a very good point you made. But how do you explain the difference in the rest of the anatomical features. Honestly we don’t have claws and many other attributes compiled in an article called The Comparative Anatomy of Eating by Milton R. Mills, M.D. at http://www.earthsave.ca/articles/health/comparative.html If you leave a human and a carnivore in a forest, the human will survive on fruits/ leaves/roots etc. You might say that a human could use tools and fire to catch and then “condition” meat to eat it. But carnivores have all these naturally inbuilt. They do not have to condition or make some arrangements to eat meat.
>>Humans, as far as I remember from school, are supposed to be omnivores….
In 1800 students would have read and “believed” that atom is indivisible. But now it is known that even electrons are divisible. Similarly with geocentric theories… The point is humans are omnivores is not a physiological or anatomical analysis but an observation of a widespread “western” philosophical/cultural trend.
>>About the environment, you can visit…
Agreed but letting something wrong happen just because there are so many other wrongs occurring is not justified. Livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions as measured in carbon dioxide equivalent, reports the Food and Agricultural Organization of UN. This includes 9 percent of all CO2 emissions, 37 percent of methane, and 65 percent of nitrous oxide. Altogether, that’s more than the emissions caused by transportation. http://gogreen.theconsortium.co.uk/not-so-funny-friday-fact-livestock-contributes-more-global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-than-transportation/
>>About the ethical reasons-I have…
I appreciate your saying that even plants have lives. They do. But there is a obviously a difference between life forms. Otherwise why would there be a distinction between plants, animals and humans. Plants do not have any of the five senses (touch,smell,sight,hear,taste), a central nervous system and a brain to process the sensations, to feel and express pain. Every animal/bird clearly does have it as do humans. But humans on the other hand have intelligence also. For consumption, when one cuts a plant one does bad, when one cuts animal one does worse, when one cuts a human being one does the worst. One who just sustains on fallen fruit is obviously awesome. But if one is living in a city then one can do minimum damage if one can sustain on plant products alone. If one eats animals/birds, isn’t one doing much much more damage because first the animal/bird is raised using say a 1000 meals consisting of millions of plants lives and then that animal is killed undergoing all pain and suffering which it feels and expresses at the time of its death. Also 1000 meals which go to raise that one animal in an industrial farm could have directly satisfied thousand human beings instead of indirectly and inefficiently satisfying one human being via the animal and leaving the rest hungry. So meat eating is not only a bad deal for the animal but also for 999 starving people.
>>kill pests right? Would you have rats infest your house? Or would you kill it at first sight?….
First we will try to chase the rat out. It can seek another habitat. People use mouse traps and leave them in some forest. If one is attacked by an assailant. One retaliates say using a stun gun or karate moves in order to thwart that attack and preserve the self from the uncalled for violence. What bad a chicken or cow had done to one to get death in exchange. As discussed above we eat plant for sustenance and not for indulgence knowing fully well that among the three options available for our consumption namely plants, animals and humans, eating plants is the ethically an environmentally friendliest option. We kill termites because it “has” inflicted harm on us and not for regular consumption.
>>Now about the land used for animal feed vs human food…
Let us leave the ethical and the environment part and talk in strict business terms. Lets go back to the same example of 1 guy eating an animal leaving 999 people starving. This 1 guy has not only paid for the animal but also the 1000 meals that this animal consumed during its life time. Hypothetically if we all turn vegetarian. We don’t grow excess animals/chicken and let them cohabit naturally. Definitely the cost of food is going to come down by the law of demand and supply. There will be no need to beg food from US when we will have plenty of food at home(India). As for the other parts of the world plagued by food shortages if they dedicate their existing resources to growing of crops for feeding people instead of animals they will reach out to more people. Also social organizations and charities and philanthropists trying to make a difference by distributing food to the needy will find and indeed have found that rice and beans is more nutritious, filling and cost effective in covering more people compared to meat.
What is the evidence that US will not share the excess produce. On the contrary there is evidence that with its present resources US does a lot of relief effort, probably more than any other country. http://www.usaid.gov/
In the Bhagavad-gita, Sri Krishna states, “If one offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, a fruit, or water, I will accept it.” Hence, we offer the vegetarian food to Krishna.
>>carnivores don’t need to cook meat and humans do…
This is a very good point you made. But how do you explain the difference in the rest of the anatomical features. Honestly we don’t have claws and many other attributes compiled in an article called The Comparative Anatomy of Eating by Milton R. Mills, M.D. at http://www.earthsave.ca/articles/health/comparative.html If you leave a human and a carnivore in a forest, the human will survive on fruits/ leaves/roots etc. You might say that a human could use tools and fire to catch and then “condition” meat to eat it. But carnivores have all these naturally inbuilt. They do not have to condition or make some arrangements to eat meat.
>>Humans, as far as I remember from school, are supposed to be omnivores….
In 1800 students would have read and “believed” that atom is indivisible. But now it is known that even electrons are divisible. Similarly with geocentric theories… The point is humans are omnivores is not a physiological or anatomical analysis but an observation of a widespread “western” philosophical/cultural trend.
>>About the environment, you can visit…
Agreed but letting something wrong happen just because there are so many other wrongs occurring is not justified. Livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions as measured in carbon dioxide equivalent, reports the Food and Agricultural Organization of UN. This includes 9 percent of all CO2 emissions, 37 percent of methane, and 65 percent of nitrous oxide. Altogether, that’s more than the emissions caused by transportation. http://gogreen.theconsortium.co.uk/not-so-funny-friday-fact-livestock-contributes-more-global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-than-transportation/
>>About the ethical reasons-I have…
I appreciate your saying that even plants have lives. They do. But there is a obviously a difference between life forms. Otherwise why would there be a distinction between plants, animals and humans. Plants do not have any of the five senses (touch,smell,sight,hear,taste), a central nervous system and a brain to process the sensations, to feel and express pain. Every animal/bird clearly does have it as do humans. But humans on the other hand have intelligence also. For consumption, when one cuts a plant one does bad, when one cuts animal one does worse, when one cuts a human being one does the worst. One who just sustains on fallen fruit is obviously awesome. But if one is living in a city then one can do minimum damage if one can sustain on plant products alone. If one eats animals/birds, isn’t one doing much much more damage because first the animal/bird is raised using say a 1000 meals consisting of millions of plants lives and then that animal is killed undergoing all pain and suffering which it feels and expresses at the time of its death. Also 1000 meals which go to raise that one animal in an industrial farm could have directly satisfied thousand human beings instead of indirectly and inefficiently satisfying one human being via the animal and leaving the rest hungry. So meat eating is not only a bad deal for the animal but also for 999 starving people.
>>kill pests right? Would you have rats infest your house? Or would you kill it at first sight?….
First we will try to chase the rat out. It can seek another habitat. People use mouse traps and leave them in some forest. If one is attacked by an assailant. One retaliates say using a stun gun or karate moves in order to thwart that attack and preserve the self from the uncalled for violence. What bad a chicken or cow had done to one to get death in exchange. As discussed above we eat plant for sustenance and not for indulgence knowing fully well that among the three options available for our consumption namely plants, animals and humans, eating plants is the ethically an environmentally friendliest option. We kill termites because it “has” inflicted harm on us and not for regular consumption.
>>Now about the land used for animal feed vs human food…
Let us leave the ethical and the environment part and talk in strict business terms. Lets go back to the same example of 1 guy eating an animal leaving 999 people starving. This 1 guy has not only paid for the animal but also the 1000 meals that this animal consumed during its life time. Hypothetically if we all turn vegetarian. We don’t grow excess animals/chicken and let them cohabit naturally. Definitely the cost of food is going to come down by the law of demand and supply. There will be no need to beg food from US when we will have plenty of food at home(India). As for the other parts of the world plagued by food shortages if they dedicate their existing resources to growing of crops for feeding people instead of animals they will reach out to more people. Also social organizations and charities and philanthropists trying to make a difference by distributing food to the needy will find and indeed have found that rice and beans is more nutritious, filling and cost effective in covering more people compared to meat.
What is the evidence that US will not share the excess produce. On the contrary there is evidence that with its present resources US does a lot of relief effort, probably more than any other country. http://www.usaid.gov/
In the Bhagavad-gita, Sri Krishna states, “If one offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, a fruit, or water, I will accept it.”