Be vegetarian, prevent wars

NOVEMBER 22: Here is some food for thought from the be a vegetarian, achcha hai'' brigade: To produce every kilogramme of meat that you...

NOVEMBER 22: Here is some food for thought from the 8220;be a vegetarian, achcha hai8221; brigade: To produce every kilogramme of meat that your butcher sells, the animal requires one week8217;s supply of food grains. This food grain supply thrives on gallons of water and the simple economics of the entire eating business will tell you that being a non-vegetarian is a 8220;colossal waste of resources8221;.

Having said that, the Vegetarian Society of Mumbai, in their attempt to promote vegetarianism, organised its sixth annual award ceremony on November 19. Honouring the efforts of Dr Phichai Tovivich in spreading vegetarianism in Thailand, the Society said what vegetarians are saying the world over human beings were not 8220;designed8221; to eat meat.

The logic is simple. Humans don8217;t have claws to tear the meat, they don8217;t have sharp canines to bite into it either. So, they were never meant to be carnivores.

Using such simple explanations, vegetarian societies are working on building a movement that will ensure thatpeople dig their forks into carrots and not chicken. The latest ingredient they have stirred into their movement is the economics of eating. The bottomline is that being a vegetarian is cheaper and of course, a whole lot healthier.

In the West, the vegetarian brigade is already going places. With an increasing number of people deciding on a diet of carrots, beans and pulses, being vegetarian is hip and happening. Organic food is in, everything else is out.

Trying to convince people to stay away from that juicy tandoori chicken or spicy rogan josh, the Vegetarian Society of Mumbai is hollering about the mad cow disease and the chicken infection. 8220;Today, people whose staple is a non vegetarian diet have to spend considerable time figuring out whether the meat they are going to devour has come from a mad cow,8221; says Tovivich, a Chemistry professor. 8220;Then there is this chicken infection and pig diseases. People also talk about chemicals used to grow vegetables, but most of these can be washed away. In caseof animals, it is injected into them and subsequently, meat eaters receive it. All this is very unhealthy.8221;

Also, according to the green brigade, vegetarianism is not just about eating veggies. 8220;It8217;s all about ahimsa,8221; says Jashu C Shah, general secretary of the Vegetarian Society. 8220;It is also about better environment and economics. Killing an animal is violence, it disturbs the ecological balance and meat is more expensive. On all three counts, vegetables and fruits score over all kinds of meat.8221;

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Tovivich, who runs The Vegetarian Centre of Thailand, has come up with an interesting theory about the connection between the food we eat and the wars we fight. He believes that if everybody was a vegetarian, there would be no wars. Explaining, he says: 8220;Animals can sense when they are going to be slaughtered and secrete toxic substances into their bloodstream. When people eat that meat, it induces anger in them, makes them poisonous. The best example I can give is of myself. When I ate meat, I was thisshort-tempered man. Now, my vegetarian diet helps me maintain a peaceful state of mind.8221;At this point other advocates of the vegetables jump in and say that vegetarianism is the answer to all problems in this strife torn world. Chew on that.