BE A VEGETARIAN

A Key to Good Health

Once a farmer asked Thoreau, U.S. naturalist and writer, “I hear you don’t eat meat, where do you get your strength?” Pointing to the husky team of horses he said, “ Where do they get their strength?”

Vegetarianism has been a way of life for many people for centuries. There is no need for humans to eat any animal product. An adult male requires 44-56 grams and an adult female requires 44-48 grams of protein daily. A pure vegetarian diet provides 83 grams of protein to men and 61 grams of protein to female according to a Harvard research. Amino acids necessary for growth and maintenance can be obtained from dairy products or by taking a combination of two plant foods. Plants are far richer in vitamins and minerals compared to meat and fish.

Human teeth and intestine are designed for eating and digesting plant foods so it is no wonder that major health problems can be traced to meat consumption. World Health Statistics consistently show short life expectancies among heavy flesh eating people like the Eskimos, Laplander, Greenlanders and Russian Kurgis tribes.

Cancer is often correlated in scientific studies with a high meat diet. Many researchers consider meat with its high content of cholesterol as the leading cause of heart attack. The uric acid deposits in the muscle fibers of meat, in addition to the body’s own daily production of uric acid is too much for one’s kidneys and liver to eliminate causing rheumatism, headache, epilepsy, hardening of arteries and nervousness. Vegetarians demonstrate far greater endurance, stamina and quickness of recovery from fatigue than meat eaters.

Non-vegetarians take a greater amount of residual agriculture, chemicals, industrial pollutants, antibiotics and hormones than vegetarians. According to The Meat Handbook, seventy known animal diseases can be transmitted to man through non-vegetarian food.

Vegetarian helps to prevent world hunger and waste of natural resources. An acre of land used for cereals can provide five times and used for legumes can provide ten times more protein than used for meat production. Therefore, the meat of rich consumes the bread of poor. According to Dr. Aaron Altschul, a vegetarian diet requires 300 gallons of water each day for one person as compared to 2500 gallons of water required for a non-vegetarian diet.

Many great people like Annie Besant, Mahatma Gandhi, Alexander Pope, George Bernard Shaw, Leo Tolstoy etc. have been vegetarians.

Animals are living creatures with feelings and capable of suffering. The more helpless a creature, the more it is entitled to protection by man. The production of non- vegetarian food causes pain, suffering and ultimate death of animals from whom they are taken. So, we are morally bound to give up non-vegetarian diet.