On Vegetarianism

Much hallabalooo is made about practice of vegetarianism in Indian society and its supposed superiority. With non-vegetarian food being classified as "tamsic" (foods whose consumption are harmful to both mind and body). Harm to mind includes anything that will lead to a duller, less refined state of consciousness.

But the fact of the matter remains, (a) eating preferences are largely governed by locally available foods, and (b) need for good quality protein in the diet for living a healthy life.

We Indians are lucky due to large availability of fairly good quality vegetable proteins in our lands due to which a largely vegetarian diet can be followed by many. In spite of which it does not preclude us in any way in making various concessions, such as, considering milk and milk products as "vegetarian" (which it is not by any stretch of imagination). Or inventing the concept of "ram laddoos" or unfertilized eggs which many consider to be as good as vegetarian!

From here it is just a short distance away for some Indian communities to consider eating fish to be acceptable as nearly vegetarian since it is nothing more than "jal ka phal" (fruit from the water). Going a few more steps, we have meat eating brahmins who cook their mutton without onion or garlic since these two food spices are considered tamsic.

Venturing further afield, we have Tibetan Buddhists for whom killing is a sin, but subsist on a diet in which meat forms a major component. In Tibet it would be difficult to survive otherwise since due to difficult weather and land conditions, very little plant grows, they have to perforce eat meat. They have solved the difficulty of avoiding killing animals by having a social structure where the butchers are non-Buddhist. The salve to conscience is that killing is a sin, but purchasing meat is not.

A little further away, in Middle-East sacrificing animals for food is a necessity for survival towards which two innovations have been made. The first is the practice of halal, whereby the sacrificed animals’ jugular vein is cut so that the animal literally bleeds to death. This ensures that the meat does not deteriorate fast, a necessity for times when refrigeration was not known. The second, is the practice of reading aloud portions from Holy Books to the dying animal.  I do not how much help that would be doing to the sacrificed animal, but I am sure it would be putting salve on the conscience of the meat eaters.

An interesting innovation in prohibiting meats of some kinds was also made in the Middle East. I refer to the proclamation of pigs as unclean animals and religious prohibition in eating pork. The connection between eating pork and disease (which is now known as trichinosis) was initially discovered by ancient Jews who justified prohibition in eating pork on religious grounds. The practice was later also adopted by Islam. It was much later that the modalities of the connection between trichinosis and pork eating was unravelled and the solution found (cooking meat thoroughly at high heat).

In recent times, there has been a lot of revulsion in public on the practice of eating dog meat in some societies. Dogs are friendly animals and have been one of humankinds very faithful friends and therefore even thinking about eating dog meat can be quite revulsive to most people. But as Jared Diamond explains in Germs, Guns, and Steel the practice of eating dog meat is generally due to absence of alternative means of partaking of animal proteins in the diet in some areas of the world. He in fact extends the logic to cannibalism too.

In all the confusion about the supposed superiority in the practice of vegetarianism it is refreshing to find a few sane and logical voices. For example, Swami Vivekanand. Not only was he partial to meat and fish, he did not proscribe a non-vegetarian diet for this disciples.

This is not supposed to be a polemic justifying eating of non-vegetarian food but an earnest request not to make vegetarianism into a fetish. After all mankind is the only species which kills for pleasure.