I was brought up as a vegetarian and coming from a conservative brahmin background I was told not to eat meat, that it was not in my custom and consuming it is a sin. Remember when we were little , when our parents told us not to play cricket or not to do something in the house, but we would still do it when they were not looking ,thats exactly happened to me in IIT, I was not under the observation of my parents , there was no one to stop me, to scrutinize my actions, no one to answer to , so I started tasting non-vegetarian food to the point that my stomach got upset with the sudden change in the diet and I was restricted to the bog for two days.
Then this video comes up in you-tube showing the grotesque killing (killing is never pleasant , except maybe in video game and its not you who's dying) of these animals for food. Victims in concentration camps had a better life than the animals that were raised in mass production for food. That affected me, it changed the way I looked at an egg completely, not as an omelette but as wasted life for what, for food.
But the next natural question cropped up, How is killing a plant different from killing an animal? Well most of the food from plants is obtained as a side product of a plants natural life cycle, trees grow fruits to make birds eat them and spread the seeds, we obtain rice at the final stage of the plants life cycle after which the plant dies, and there is no "pain factor" involved, basically we are not "killing" the plant at any stage to obtain food (removing a limb of a pig is definitely different from removing a branch of a tree).
My friends argued that it was in nature to kill for food, lions have to kill to survive, and so does man. Well they are right, I cant argue the fact that I used to enjoy the chase of a hunt in discovery channel, when a tiger crept up to its prey and lunged for its neck and killed it by suffocating it. But we as humans have a choice animals dont, we were given the gift to search for alternatives, to discover, to adapt, why not in the case of food. I agree people in Antarctica don't have a choice in their meals but most of us have access to vegetarian food which is equally tasty and nutritious if not more than non-vegetarian food. Why kill a poor defenseless animal, when you have an option to eat a vegetable.
To be a vegetarian or not is purely subjective and depends on how one sees the issue. As the great Dumbledore from Harry Potter says "Who we are is not about what we are doing , but its about the choices we make." So make your choice, become a vegetarian :) .
8 comments:
I disagree with your opinion there is a marked difference between killing an animal and cutting a bark. It is just that we are quite similar to animal form than the plant that we can recognize its pain. Also eating vegetarian food in no way means you are eating the end product of a plant. In most of the cases like rice they are specifically grown for this case and then removed. Also as far as i remember reading it somewhere that world by itself cannot sustain the population by just vegetarian food. So just think more about your stand.
I really appreciate your move and I dont think that your effort will completly stop eating nonveg stuff by all those who came across this blog...but i am pretty sure that these people will atleast abridge eating it!! to some considerable extent ....or atleast when they have a path which diverges in to two paths one is chicken grilled stuff and other is vegan stuff ...they prefer the vegan stuff
but i hope this blog will definetly make think to think twice after they get the gist of this thing!!
Nice 1 ...
I wouldnt mind killing an animal if am in a desert and there is absolutely no food or water other than a lame animal that I can kill.
There comes the choice, 'I have no choice'. I firmly believe that no human should kill another animal till he is in a situation where he speaks the above quoted sentence.
I am glad, yet another person became a vegetarian for life. Or so do I hope.
@ ashirwad
I dont agree with the fact that world population cannot sustain on veg alone , it can , why spend millions of dollars fattening pigs and chicken when u can spend on agriculture and fatten humans ;) (humans are quite similar to animal form) . As for the blog as anvesh says I dont expect everyone who comes across it to change to veg but just try for an alternative whenever there is an option. As far as my stand goes, I'll still be a veggie.
@ czar
Yeah hopefully , the urge to eat egg masala ( my x-favourite dish) in mess is driving me crazy. lets see.
great post.
whatever comments i wanted to say has been said by the above people. but i strongly take the side of julie.
great going dude.
Humans are intelligent and Lions are not. Humans have the "gift" of "intelligence" and to act not out of "compulsion" but out of "choice". Before you go ahead and make such sweeping statements can you prove if not conclusively but at least convince a moron that no species other than humans have those "divine" "qualities"?
@ patan
Lets not go into the technicalities, lets not say "Can u prove that plants cant feel pain?" or "How do you know Lions have the option of eating grass but instead eat meat out of choice?". As far as the human intelligence goes I would suggest you look up in Google why we are the most dominant species on this planet or read some science article whatever.
I dont want this discussion to be too technical with proofs and statements etc, lets go by what we know as being obvious or intuitive. Hope I could convince you ;).
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