Replace meat with beans

Prevent human blood shed, start at the dinner table :

by Chula Weerakoon Watugala

Vegetarianism is generally considered to be the avoidance of eating meat. But actually, there are many types of vegetarians. The most pure form, vegan, is when one avoids all foods of animal origin.

Then there is the ovo-vegetarian; who excludes all animal flesh and milk but consumes eggs, and the lacto-vegetarian; who excludes all animal flesh and eggs but consumes milk. There are also other lesser forms that avoid some kinds of meat.

People become vegetarians for all sorts of reasons, but mainly they do so for health, ecological, and religious concerns, a dislike for meat, compassion for animals and belief in non-violence.

Although some people consider vegetarianism a trendy new fad, in reality it has a long history. Buddhism, Brahmanism and Jainism, all long-established religions, advocated abstention from flesh foods, as did such early philosophers and thinkers as Pythagoras, Plato and Socrates.

I have been a lacto-vegetarian since the day I was born. Being a vegetarian is one of the traits that I most admire in myself. Most plainly, I became a vegetarian because I belong to a Buddhist family. Lord Buddha preached to love all beings, advocated non-violence, and disapproved of meat-eating, and thus my whole family is vegetarians.

But being a Buddhist does not mean you are required to be a vegetarian, although the Buddha did preach it. It is a matter of choice. Although I am privileged to be a Buddhist, I would like to think that I would have turned vegetarian even if I wasn't born one.

Since my childhood, most people considered me unlucky because I had no chance of eating the delicious and scrumptious meat that they could eat. Once, in junior school, one of my classmates put a piece of chicken in front of me during recess, thinking that I would not be able to resist eating it.

He was surprised when I showed no signs of interest and laughed at his futile attempt. I pitied People like him, because they did not know what they were actually doing. People around the world yearn for world peace and harmony among human beings, but they consider the chicken that they had for lunch as unworthy of any respect as a living entity.

Humans can go for years or decades without war; but animals face suffering and death every day. For most people, chicken is made to be eaten. For them, animals don't deserve to live. Animals do not feel basic emotions such as pain, fear, love or happiness we humans feel. Obviously they don't value an animal's life.

My views might seem preposterous to some, but I would imagine that if anyone had a chance to visit an animal slaughterhouse they also will understand my reasoning. People mercilessly kill animals that are trapped in cramped cages barely big enough to contain their bodies.

These frantic beings panic when they see their fate through the deaths of their own kind. The pain of creatures on the road to our table is not some fanciful concoction; it is excruciatingly real. For example, live shrimp and crab meet their end by being cooked in water. It is not unlike being sent to a boiling hell.

Their desperate but doomed efforts to crawl or jump out betray the unbearable pain they experience. Finally they give their life in sorrow as they turn bright red. Can anyone say that animals do not value their life after that? For meat eaters, every banquet means the death of hundreds and thousands of animals.

Is this any different from human war? A British promoter of vegetarianism named Dr. Walsh once said that "to prevent human bloodshed, one must start at the dinner table."

An article about Vegetarianism I read recently tells a story that will convince anyone that all living creatures are not without feeling and intelligence. Once, when a scholar named Chou Yu was cooking some eel to eat, he noticed one of the eels bending its body such that its head and tail were still in the boiling point liquid, but its body arched upward above the soup.

It did not fall completely until it died. Chou Yu found the occurrence a strange one, pulled out the eel, and cut it open. He found thousands of eggs inside.

The eel had arched its belly out of the hot soup to protect its offspring. He cried at the sight, sighed with emotion, and swore never to eat eel. Of course, animals aren't as intelligent as human beings, but does that warrant wantonly breeding them just for the sake of their meat? All beings love their life. Don't they deserve to live?

The truth is, humans evolved to be omnivorous because they had to survive - not because they liked the taste of meat. The Neanderthal didn't hunt animals because they were tasty, but because he had to survive. It was a case of kill or be killed. So naturally, we evolved into the humans we are today. But this is where we hit a small snag - do we need to eat animals to survive now? Do we get hunted if we do not eat meat now?

Most people believe that meat is necessary for a healthy diet. But that has been proven wrong by medical research and living proof alike. The American Dietetic Association has confirmed that a vegetarian diet meets all known nutritional needs.

Being a vegetarian does not deter child growth either. Vegetarian diets can meet all nitrogen needs and amino acid requirements for growth.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, our bodies contain uric acid and other toxic waste products which turn up in our blood and body tissues. Compared to the 65% impure moisture content of beef, protein obtained from nuts, beans and legumes is markedly purer.

Vegetarian food is indeed much cleaner than meat, and it also retains its freshness better than meat. According to the World Health Organisation, a vegetarian on a well planned diet has no trouble exceeding the daily protein requirement.

So it is quite clear that the myths about the risks of being a vegetarian are completely unfounded. On the other hand, eating meat can lead to serious health issues. Fast-food chains all around the world promote greasy foods that are mostly meat-oriented, and adversely affect our health.

Americans are among the world's most obese people as a result of this. Vegetarians can easily maintain a very healthy diet that can keep them slim and fit. Eating meat also carries the risk of many diseases - most commonly the Mad-Cow disease that spread throughout Asia, Europe and the United States and more recently a new form of influenza called bird-flu that left millions of chicken dead when the government of China slaughtered them as a precaution.

Vegetarians, on the other hand, have benefits for maintaining their healthy diets. The International Vegetarian Union states that many studies have shown that vegetarians have a lower risk of obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and some forms of cancer.

The final argument most desperate people bring about is that meat is delicious. They think that a vegetarian diet is made up of raw beans and carrots. On the contrary, there are millions of delectable vegetarian recipes from every region of the world.

Although I am more used to vegetarian curries served by my mother, various recipes are readily available on the web. The Indian vegetarian buriyani, the green pea palav and the Mysore pagu are just some of the more mouth-watering dishes I have tasted.

Being a vegetarian is nothing new, and many renowned people are known to have advocated vegetarianism. Among them are Leonardo Da Vinci, Leo Tolstoy, George Bernard Shaw, Mahatma Gandhi and Albert Einstein.

In fact, Albert Einstein, who was named Time magazine's Person of the Century, stated that "nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.

The vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind." He went on to say that "it always seems to me that man was not born to be a carnivore." Pythagoras, widely regarded as the first great mathematician, believed that "for as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other.

Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love." Leonardo Da Vinci thought that "the time will come when people will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of human beings." Renowned Russian writer and philosopher Leo Tolstoy echoed my sentiments in his conversation with a retired soldier who was also a butcher.

The butcher was surprised by Tolstoy's assertion that it was pity to kill early on, but afterwards he agrees: "especially when they are quiet, tame cattle. They come, poor things, trusting you. It is very pitiful."

Leo Tolstoy commented on his experience as follows: "This is dreadful! Not the suffering and death of the animals, but that man suppresses in himself unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity - that of sympathy and pity toward living creatures like himself - and by violating his own feelings, becomes cruel.

And how deeply seated in the human heart is the injunction not to take life! But by the assertion that God ordained the slaughter of animals, and above all as a result of habit, people entirely lose their natural feelings."

Most people and organisations try to save animals only when they are becoming extinct or endangered, but as human beings we should be responsible for the welfare of the living beings we share our planet with.

So next time you eat that chunky piece of chicken, think of those poor animals who are given steroids just for some extra meat and who suffer endlessly just to satisfy our heartless appetites.