Why Vegetarianism?

Why Vegetarianism?

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egetarianism encompasses the practice of following plant-based diets including fruits, vegetables, etc. Vegetarian diet may or may not include dairy products or eggs. Certainly vegetarian diet excludes meat - red meat, poultry, and seafood.

Abstention from by-products of animal slaughter, such as animal-derived rennet and gelatin, may also be avoided as part of vegetarian diet.

Vegetarianism can be adopted for different reasons. In addition to ethical reasons, motivations for vegetarianism include health, religious, political, environmental, cultural, aesthetic or economic.

There are different types of vegetarian diets as well:

An Ova-vegetarian diet includes eggs but not dairy products.

A Lacto-vegetarian diet includes dairy products but not eggs.

And an Ova-lacto vegetarian diet includes both eggs and dairy products.

A Vegan diet excludes all animal products, including eggs, dairy, and honey. This is new inclusion in the variety of vegetarian diets.

Various foods or treats, such as cake, chocolate, chips, gum, marshmallows and gummy candies, often contain unfamiliar animal ingredients, and may especially be a concern for vegetarians due to the likelihood of such additions.

Vegetarians may vary in their feelings regarding these ingredients, however. While some vegetarians are unaware of animal-derived rennet’s role in the usual production of cheese and may therefore unknowingly consume the product, for example, others of the diet are not bothered by its consumption. Often, animal-derived products are scrutinized by vegetarians prior to purchase or consumption of a particular product.

Semi-vegetarian diets consist largely of vegetarian foods, but may include fish or poultry, or other meats on an infrequent basis. Those with diets containing fish or poultry may define ‘meat’ only as mammalian flesh and may identify with vegetarianism.

A Pescetarianism diet, for example, includes ‘fish but no meat’. The common use association between such diets and vegetarianism has led vegetarian groups such as the Vegetarian Society to state diets containing these ingredients are not vegetarian, due to fish and birds being animals.

Vegetarians do not eat meat, fish, and poultry. Vegans are vegetarians who abstain from eating or using all animal products, including milk, cheese, other dairy items, eggs, wool, silk, and leather.

Among the many reasons for being a vegetarian are health, ecological, and religious concerns, dislike of meat, compassion for animals, belief in non-violence, and economics. The American Dietetic Association has affirmed that a vegetarian diet can meet all known nutrient needs. The key to a healthy vegetarian diet, as with any other diet, is to eat a wide variety of foods, including fruits, vegetables, plenty of leafy greens, whole grain products, nuts, seeds, and legumes. Limit your intake of sweets and fatty foods.

Choosing Vegetarian Diet

Many people become vegetarian instantly. They totally give up meat, fish and poultry overnight. Others make the change gradually. Do what works best for you. Certainly it is individual choice.

Being a vegetarian is as hard or as easy as you choose to make it. Some people enjoy planning and preparing elaborate meals, while others opt for quick and easy vegetarian dishes.

Vegetarianism is the belief in and practice of eating vegetable foods and abstaining from animal food.

To what extent this definition applies, in reality varies, what it refers to is a strict vegetarian or a vegan. Lacto-vegetarians include milk and other dairy products in their diet. Lacto-ovo-vegetarians eat milk, dairy products and eggs.

A vegan excludes animal flesh, meat, poultry, fish and seafood, animal products like eggs, dairy and even honey. In addition to these he abstains from the wearing and use of animal products such as leather, silk, wool, lanolin, and gelatin too. The vegan diet consists totally of vegetables, vegetable oils, and seeds.

There are partial vegetarians too that exclude some groups of animal foods but not others. A diet that excludes red meat but includes fish is often adopted for health not moral reasons.

A Zen macrobiotic diet is another form of vegetarianism. This is a Japanese way of eating based on the ‘Yin Yang’ theory. It aims to keep the balance between Yin and Yang the positive and negative aspects of life for optimal spiritual, mental and physical welfare. Foods are divided into Yin and Yang, and a spiritual goal is aimed for by working through ten levels of diet. These gradually eliminate all animal produce, fruit and vegetables towards the final goal which is only cereal (brown rice). Fluids are also severely restricted. Many nutritional deficiencies may develop and death can result. Infants and children subject to these restrictions are particularly at risk.

This is extreme, not all macrobiotic diets are so extreme and are often equivalent to a balanced vegan diet. It is important to eat as much variety of food as possible and not limit it to one group of foods.

I do not recommend you become a vegetarian unless for a strictly religious reason. The reason being is that unless you are very careful in getting all of the amino acids, you run the risk of getting very sick. I can speak on behalf of my experience and the years of clinical researches available, that the sickest of sick vegetarians. However on the basis of this no conclusions can be arrived except that each should balance the diet. The balanced diet includes all the nutrients, minerals and amino acids. Your diet should have such considerations. The physical body is as important as others.

There are benefits to vegetarian diets for certain health conditions, and some people function better on less fat and protein. However there are dangerous effects of a diet devoid of healthful animal products.

Carefully evaluate their position on vegetarianism. You can also read the myths of vegetarians. It is important to note that there are different types of vegetarianism, including lacto-vegetarian diets (dairy products included) and lacto-Ova-vegetarian diets (dairy products and eggs included). The nutritional caveats that follow are primarily directed at veganism, or a diet totally lacking in animal products.

There are various reasons that tend the person to be vegetarian. Some of these reasons are enumerated hereunder.

The Environmental reasons:

This includes the conservation of Fossil fuel. It takes 78 calories of fossil fuel to produce 1 calorie of beef protein; 35 calories for 1 calorie of pork; 22 calories for 1 of poultry; but just 1 calorie of fossil fuel for 1 calorie of soybeans. By eating plant foods instead of animal foods, you help conserve our non-renewable sources of energy.

Efficient use of grains:

It takes up to 16 pounds of soybeans and grains to produce 1 lb. of beef and 3 to 6 lbs. to produce 1 lb. of turkey and egg. By eating grain foods directly, I make the food supply more efficient and that contributes to the environment.

Water Conservation:

It takes 3 to 15 times much water to produce animal protein than plant protein. Vegetarianism helps in water conservation.

Soil conservation:

When grains and legumes are used more efficiently, our precious topsoil is automatically made more efficient in its use. We use less agricultural resources to provide for the same number of people.

Forests conservation:

Tropical forests in Brazil and other tropic regions are destroyed daily, in part, to create more acreage to raise livestock. By not supporting the meat industry you will help irreplaceable treasures of nature. Since the forest land ‘filters’ our air supply and contains botanical sources for new medicines, this destruction is irreversible.

Aesthetics:

Decaying animal parts whether in the freezer section or served in restaurants can never be aesthetically pleasing to the senses as the foods made from wholesome vegetable sources. Only habit can allow one not to perceive this: a change in diet makes this self-evident.

Personal Health:

There is no nutrient necessary for optimal human functioning which cannot be obtained from plant food. Therefore it will be an excuse to rely of non-vegetarian items.

High fat plus cholesterol:

Animal foods have higher fat content than most plant foods, particularly saturated fats. Plants do not contain cholesterol.

‘Carb’ deficient:

Meat products are deficient in carbohydrates, particularly the starches which are so essential to proper health.

Vitamin deficient:

Except for the b-complex, meat is largely deficient in all other vitamins.

Agricultural Chemicals:

Being higher on the food chain, animal foods contain far higher concentrations of agricultural chemicals than plant foods, including pesticides, herbicides etc.

Exposure to livestock drugs:

There are over 20,000 different drugs, including sterols, antibiotics, growth hormones and other veterinary drugs that are given to livestock animals on a regular basis for maintaining health livestock. These drugs are consumed when animal foods are consumed. The dangers herein, in secondary consumption of antibiotics, are well documented.

Pathogenic Microorganisms:

There are a host of bacteria and viruses, some quite dangerous, that are common to animals. When you eat meat, you are indeed eating those organisms in the meat as well. Micro-organisms are present in plant foods too, but their number and danger to human health is by no means comparable to that of those present in meat. Similar is the case of worms and other Parasites present in animal products.

Shelf life differential:

The shelf life of Plant foods is invariably longer than animal foods. Try this experiment: Leave out a head of lettuce and a pound of hamburger for 1 day, which will make you sick?

Organoleptic Indications of Pathogens:

Plant foods give tell-tale signs of ‘going bad’. No one gets sick from ‘bad broccoli’ or food poisoning from vegetarian foods. Certainly you get food poisoning from animal products.

Poultry is still the leading cause in food poisoning outbreaks.

Chicken, turkey and other poultry accounted for 17 percent of the food-borne illness outbreaks reported to the government. Beef and leafy vegetables were close behind, at 16 percent and 14 percent.

An estimated 87 million cases of food-borne illness occur in the United States each year, including 371,000 hospitalizations and 5,700 deaths, according to an Associated Press calculation that combines a CDC formula with recent population estimates.

What are some of the easiest ways to avoid food poisoning?

Wash your food well. Many pathogens can simply be washed away off of fruits and vegetables. However you cannot wash pathogens off of animal products like meat or cheese.

Cook your food well, when possible. High temperatures kill many pathogens.

Avoid foods that are likely to cause food poisoning - chicken or beef, when possible.

Heart Disease:

Meat eating increases the risk of heart disease, Heart disease is #1 killer world over. The correlation is an epidemiological fact.

Cancer prevention:

Of all the natural cancer prevention substances discovered: vitamin C, B-17, hydroquinone, beta carotene, NDGA, - none has been found to be animal derived. Yet most meats, when cooked, produce an array of benzenes and other carcinogenic compounds. Cancer is infinitely easier to prevent than cure. Soybeans contain protease inhibitor, a powerful anticancer compound. You will not find it in useful quantities in animal based food.

Disease Inducing:

The correlation between meat consumption and a wide range of degenerative diseases is well founded and includes the following diseases:

Osteoporosis

Kidney Stones and Gallstones

Diabetes

Multiple Sclerosis

Arthritis

Gum disease

Acne - Aggravated by animal food.

Obesity:

Studies confirm that vegetarians tend to be thinner than meat eaters. Obesity is considered by doctors to be a disease within itself.

Intestinal Toxemia:

The condition of the intestinal flora is critical to overall health. Animal products putrefy the colon.

Food Transit time:

Wholesome food travels quickly through the ‘G.I’ tract, leaving little time to spoil and incite disease within the body.

Fiber deficient:

Fiber absorbs unwanted, excess fats. Fiber eventually cleans the intestines provides bulk and aids in peristalsis. Plant food is high in fiber content. Meat, poultry and dairy products are deficient in fiber content.

Body wastes:

Food from animals contains their waste, including adrenaline, uric and lactic acid, etc. Before adding ketchup and other condiments, the biggest contributors to the ‘flavor profile’ of a hamburger are the leftover blood and urine.

Excess protein:

The average American eats 400% of the RDA for protein. This causes excess nitrogen in the blood that creates a host of long-term health problems.

Longevity:

To increase ones risk of getting degenerative disease means decreasing ones chance to live a naturally long healthy life.

Well Being:

With vegetarian diet you feel better than consuming non-vegetarian diet. Vegetarianism brings a sense of overall wellbeing that becomes the core in bliss or inner happiness.

           

Personal Finances:

Being healthier on a vegetarian diet means you are spending less on health care. Vegetarian foods tend to cost less than meat based items.

Ethical reasons:

Furthermore there are ethical and the reasons of understanding that are very important for adopting a vegetarian reason. Love of animals is the foremost reason. If you love animals as you love yourself then have no desire to kill them or cause them harm. You understand that in the process of evolution you have passed through all such stages. Once you were a fish or any other animal when this is your understanding then you will abstain from meat eating.

There are people who rear chicken, duck, turkey, goat etc. simply to kill for their own consumption. This is cruelty that lacks compassion. And these people may be doing this for religious reason as Muslims rear and kill goat for the ceremonial celebration of the festival. Respect for Sentient Life. Gratitude to the Creator! Compassion for large animal kingdom is enough reasons to be vegetarian.

Natural diet:

Our hands, teeth, feet, intestinal tract even our body chemistry is that of an herbivore. Human intestine are not conducive for meat-eating.

Protecting the Temple:

Human body is the temple wherein dwells the shrine of God. Whatever affects the body has a corresponding effect on the mind and soul. Just as you cannot carry meat products to the temple for offering then how you can infuse your body with such products.

Easy substitutes:

Lastly and more potently there are vegetable based substitutes for every meat product imaginable then why do you want to remain non-vegetarian.