FB Discussions - Vegetarianism (2)

(via Sunny Narang)

I would say majority Indians already have a value for vegetarianism across religions , castes and ethnicities . And now the whole world wants everyone to start being vegetarian a couple of days a week, just like leaving your car home , three times a week.

The world will listen , but not the Indian "Secularists" and "Liberals" who will scream "Intolerance" at " Vegetarian Fundamentalism" !

Producing 1kg of meat protein is calculated to take between 3 and 10kg of vegetable protein.

Emissions from farming, forestry and fisheries have nearly doubled over the past 50 years and may increase by another 30% by 2050, according to the United Nations.

Most of the emissions from meat farming come from belching livestock and nitrogen fertilisers.

"Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says people should go meat-free one or two days a week to protect the climate.

Meat-eating was an environmental problem, with farming creating an estimated 28% of global greenhouse gases, the body-builder and movie star told BBC News.

Asking people to go totally vegetarian would be too demanding, he said.
It would better to suggest giving up meat once or twice a week, he added.

When asked how young men would achieve a body like The Terminator - the cyborg assassin in the film of the same name - without steak, he said many successful body-builders avoided meat.

"You can get your protein many different ways," he told BBC News.

"I have seen many body-builders and (weight) lifters that are vegetarians.

"My friend recommends stop eating meat. I think that's a good idea but people won't buy in.

"People will buy in to stop eating meat one or two days a week - you have to start slowly. It's a very big challenge but it doesn't mean it shouldn't be done."

SunnyNarang Aparna Many eat non-vegetarian few times a month or year but call themselves vegetarian , or have eggs regularly or have fish ! The better way is to say , how many eat non-vegetarian few times a month or week. Pure vegetarians or lacto-vegetarians would be maybe 30-40% at most , but vegans will not consider them vegetarians today !

Suraj Kumar Humans are not ruminants. We cannot go vegan. Maybe we can wallow in self deception but the vegan experiment is as self destructive and a shallow argument. It is much like "world is populated, stop reproducing!".

Aparna Krishnan Suraj Kumar Ayurveda calls a sakahari diet inferior. Milk and ghee are certianly recommended, if meat needs to be bypassed. For reasons of morality some may give up milk and meat. But overall for human health we may need to restore humane cow rearing - at least for children and old people (balavridhdha) milk is advised in the texts. Basically communities, production systems need to become smaller and humane. gramswaraj, thats all.

Sunny Narang What is the actual number of vegetarians in the country? The most authoritative study is the People of India survey, a mammoth enterprise of the Anthropological Survey of India (ASI) completed in 1993. The eight-year study was steered by its director-general Kumar Suresh Singh and covered every rite, custom and habit of every single community in the country.

At the end of it, the army of ASI researchers found that of the 4,635 communities, nearly 88 per cent were meat-eaters. And they devoured all kinds of flesh. Several communities in the Vindhyas ate field rats. Those living along the banks of the Cauvery feasted on baby crocodiles, civets and jackals. In many parts of the country, people who insisted they were brahmins—the survey, however, was based on communities and not caste—and vegetarians said they ate fish and meat.

Definition of vegetarianism in India thus tends to be fluid. One explanation is that Indians are snobbish about their food habits and culture and what they consume becomes a status symbol. Meat-eating is looked down upon by the upper castes and, not surprisingly, ASI found that nearly five per cent of all scheduled castes had turned vegetarian to avoid the discrimination and contempt. For example, the Musahars—this is a community of over two million in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh— are at the bottom of the caste heap for eating rats and reviled for their “dirty food habits” although in many other cultures rodent meat is acceptable.

Sunny Narang A 2006 State of the Nation survey conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) for Hindu-CNN-IBN reinforces the ASI report that the overwhelming majority is non-vegetarian. It revealed that only 31 per cent of Indians are vegetarians. The figure was even lower at 21 per cent for families in which all members are vegetarian. Another nine per cent of the population are vegetarian who eat eggs. Says CSDS director Sanjay Kumar: “The figures did not come as a big surprise. It is a perception, and widespread, that India is vegetarian.”

Sunny Narang And for the time being, India is still the centre of the vegetarian world with the largest number of vegetarians across the globe. But if the current trends on meat eating accelerate, the image of a vegetarian India of the kind associated with Gandhi will fade soon. The myth has already been shattered.

India has 354 million vegetarians , that is more than rest of the world put together , after India it is China with 54 million ! The USA and Brazil , 16 million, 7 million UK and Germany.

  Buddhist restaurants: the concept of vegetarianism as a complete denial of meat is a basic principle in Mahayana Buddhism that is dominant in China. Most Buddhist monks in China do not eat meat, while on the other hand less orthodox followers of Buddha rarely avoid meat. Therefore, this form of vegetarianism is a religious custom and does not appear as a call to stop animal suffering in contemporary times. Buddhist vegetarianism meets modern vegetarians under the roofs of Buddhist restaurants throughout China. For many vegetarians these are the only places where they could be truly confident that no invisible pork oil or fish sauce is hiding in their dish. Most dishes on the menus of Buddhist restaurant are imitation of meat dishes. It is a known fact that vegetarians in the world can be divided to those who like the taste of meat, and therefore like to eat 'mock meat', and vegetarians that like their food to be nothing like meat, not only in content, but also in appearance and taste. Buddhist restaurants are suitable only for the former type