Vegetarianism

I have already posted an article on how I chose to become a vegetarian under the title Vegetarianism and me.

Two weeks from now I will be seven years old as a vegetarian. 

Apart from the aesthetic reasons for choosing to be a vegetarian, I also have a set of rational reasons based on scientific facts which substantiate that vegetarianism is the healthiest choice.

Plants synthesis food from water, air, earth and sunlight. The food thus produced is fresh and chemically less complex. The food thus produced is eaten by animals and digested. During digestion  a number of acids are added to it and gets deposited in the muscle tissues of the animals resulting in the growth of the animal. Animals killed for food are atleast three to four months old. So the flesh of the animal is nothing but a much more complex and older form of the same water, air, earth and sunlight combination. That's the reason why it stinks while an animal is cut open. Obviously the body odour of a vegetarian would be comparitively much lesser than that of a non-vegetarian. [provided the veggie has regular bathing habits :) ]

We all know that it takes much more time for a dead animal to decay than it takes for a dead plant to decay. Similarly the stress on the digestive system is much lesser for vegetarian food. 

The fat that is got from the animals gets deposited on the inner walls of the blood vessels resulting in the decrease in size of the inner diameter of the blood vessels. When you become a vegetarian all these deposits get washed off in two or three months and you feel like you have kept down a heavy burden.

The deposits in the blood vessels also reduce the overall blood circulation through out the body. Less blood circulation is less supply of oxygen. Less supply of oxygen to the brain is lack of briskness. Less supply of oxygen to the other parts of body is lack of resistance towards diseases. Inspite of being a non-vegetarian a individual can overcome this drawback to some extent by doing proper breathing exercises. 

When an animal is killed, it gets afraid and struggles for life. During which the body secretes adrenaline. Adrenaline makes the muscles stiff, in order to help it get less injured. This is one of the self-automated functions that happen in both animals and human body as a self defense technique. So when adrenaline is taken in along with the food it causes similar effects even under normal conditions and is very poisonous too. 

There is no reason to fear becoming week because of becoming a vegetarian. Except for Vitamin-D, all other nutrients are available in vegetarian food. Vitamin-D is generated in our skin when exposed to sunlight. 

Once I read Osho saying, "When you stop taking non-vegetarian food, a new intelligence is released in you." 

I have experienced it. Osho's statement is very true. 

(This doesn't mean that I claim to be very intelligent. But I definitely can claim that I have become less foolish. :-) )

The great Tamil Poet Thiruvalluvar has dedicated an entire chapter emphasising the importance of being a vegetarian. In one of the poem he says, "The one who doesn't kill and refuses to eat flesh is worshipped by every other creature."

I have the strength, right and oppurtunity to kill you and yet choose to let you live, will you not worship me?

Vegetarianism and me

During college days I was a non-vegetarian. I always had strong arguments as to why being a non-vegetarian is not wrong. But then one day my mom, send me to buy chicken. There when I saw the little creature struggle for its life at the hands of the butcher, a thought struck my mind. “Any creature that we eat, pleads us to let go before we kill it. But we ignore it. Why not consider?” I didn’t know. I couldn’t tell why we don’t consider that plea.

When I talked about this to some non-veg lovers, they came up with different arguments.

“Don’t tell you get vegetarian food without killing. Is that not life?”

“It is not about killing. If it is about killing I know I can’t even brush my teeth”

“All creatures are created for human beings and it is our right.”

“May be it’s our right. But what is the compulsion?”

“If eating meat is sin then what kind of vegetables, God created for Lions and Tigers?”

“First of all it is not a question of sin or not sin. It is about considering a poor creature’s plea to live. Second, Lions and Tigers don’t have a choice nor do they have a discriminating ability to reconsider what they are doing.”

Then one of the most wonderful arguments came from one of my close friends.

“If all of us become vegetarians then the eco-system will be affected”

That only makes me laugh even now. The ozone layer has depleted in some parts of the world. So much deforestation has taken place. We are not inhaling the same pristine air that our grand parents inhaled. We have done nothing to improve it. So many wild creatures have become extinct. All these and much worse things have happened because of our irresponsibility. But now my friend is very much bothered about the eco-system.

I understood these things need not be argued nor justified. It is all an individual decision.

So I decided I will be a vegetarian. Not because eating meat is sin. Not because I should restrain myself from killing. Just to give my heart the satisfaction that I am not one of the many persons who ignore a creature’s plea.