Vegetarianism is a heavy and difficult topic to cover for me without getting preachy. It’s one of the few subjects that I simply cannot see the “other side” of, no matter how hard I try. I suppose to an extent, the reason my feelings on this matter are so strong, has been largely coloured by the fact that, growing up in Australia, I have always been on the defensive end… outnumbered in the playground by a sceptical crowd with raised eyebrows as I attempted feebly to explain the concept of not eating animals. I think that if my parents hadn’t moved and I had grown up in India, I wouldn’t have even thought about it at all. I have been vegetarian all my life, being born into a pretty typical Tamil brahmin family. I’m not sure exactly when realisation dawned on me that my habits were different to most people around me, but it was hard to cope with. Young children can be so judgemental. In fact, the term "vegenathan" was coined by a friend who thought she was being derisive even though I thought (and still think) it was hilarious.
A major problem is the inability for people to make connections between the meal on their plate and actual animals, or the death. A mention of this aspect will invariably draw the response, “oh I’d rather not think about it in that way”, or “eugh you’re putting me off my meal”. But that is cold reality! It is the reality of every single time you sit down to eat your chicken wings or whatever, that they once came from a squawking chicken. For your moment’s pleasure, is it not too great a sacrifice of another creature that owes nothing to you? I simply can't understand this. In my opinion, life is God’s alone to give or take.
In their defence, some claim nutritional reasons. Meat gives you iron, protein, etc. Those beef ads on TV even claimed that eating meat was the reason for human evolution. Well, as I mentioned previously, I have been vegetarian all my life. So too have my parents. So too have their ancestors, going back, let’s say, five millennia? Though I understand it may be small on the evolutional scale, but if something was wrong here over such a span it would show. I hardly ever get sick, am a reasonably healthy size (a bit too “healthy”?) and maybe I’m flattering myself… but I don’t think I’m stupid :) Plus, vegetarians are proven to be friendlier and live seven years longer, but then again, I suppose this may also be based on the shaky "science" that claimed the evolution thing =p
I've heard people say WAY too many times that they don't feel bad eating animals because that is the natural order of things. You really think humans were meant to eat meat? Fine, I'd like to see you cut a cow open and eat it. Go ahead. Without the cooking process that makes it digestible...
I've heard people say WAY too many times that they don't feel bad eating animals because that is the natural order of things. You really think humans were meant to eat meat? Fine, I'd like to see you cut a cow open and eat it. Go ahead. Without the cooking process that makes it digestible...
This said, certain concessions have to be defined. It is ok for animals to eat other flesh because that is what they MUST do to live. Same applies for tribal people who would otherwise perish. Survival is one’s first responsibility. However for the large majority of us (and presumably 100% of those reading this) who do not fit into this group, the advent of agrarian societies/civilisation has afforded us the ability to survive and flourish without resorting to such things. What is crucial is a shift from the popular understanding of humans as being a set of folk that live ON the world, to one where they live IN it, as part of a system, without divine right over the rest of the planet. Might does not necessarily mean right.
