Vegetarianism: an endless debate

The most longest debate on the earth is what should one eat? Either be Nonvegetarian or be Vegetarian? Ohh, leave it. It's old one. Now one new word has been coined from the type of diet we encounter and that is vegan. Now the debate is going more complex. Diet type is totally a multi segment question which may touch your locality, your religion, your spirituality, even sometimes humanity but the most necessary part of the diet type is our body requirements or health necessities. We always enjoy our food as an entertainment rather than a health supplement. That's why we are networking ourselves into baseless points instead of a scientific approach.

We can see the community vise  difference in diet. All the sources are consumed by the human and that makes the homo sapiens a wildest animal of the earth. Most of people in India are flexitarians. It means they eat anything which is eatable. They are not fixed in their diet. Sometimes they eat grains and somethimes they enjoy meat. So basically a flexitarian diet is primarily a vegetarian diet with the occasional intake of meat. Along it we can also classify some vegetarians.

Lacto ovo vegetarians who don't eat meat but consume milk products and eggs.

Lacto vegetarians who don't eat meat and eggs but consume milk products.

Ovo vegetarians who don't eat meat and milk products but eggs are favourite for them.

Vegans who don't eat meat, milk products or poultry products and eggs. They are only reliable on vegetables. 

Pescaterians are basically non-vegetarians but they only consume fish and poultry products with veg food.

So these all are the type of food from which we belong to atleast one segment.  Now the question is about the food output. As we discussed earlier the debate on mighty food never ends. But let's have some glimpses of the major points of the debate all around the world.

1. Risk factors:

Vegetarians are lower at risk than non-vegetarians. This is not a myth but reality. Cholesterol levels are higher in nonveg products which may lead to sevear diseases after a period of regular consumption. Even in this era of corona virus we are very much aware that most of the viruses are coming out from the animals to humans. So it will be always a risk factor for a non-vegetarian. Vegetarian diet is associated with a lower risk of death from ischemic heart disease. Vegetarians appear to have lower low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, lower rates of hypertension and type 2 diabetes than meat eaters. Vegetarians also tend to have a lower body mass index, lower overall cancer rates and lower risk of chronic diseases.Vegetarian diets are usually high in fibre and are loaded with phyto nutrients and antioxidants which also lead to make a statement on a long healthy life.

There are numerous research-proven health benefits to follow a vegetarian diet, but only if you’re doing it properly and not substituting meat with processed or high-fat vegetarian products. If I am eating high calorie veg fast foods every alternate day and believing that I'm more healthy than a non-vegetarian, I may be a foolish man on the earth. 

2. Health supplements:

When we talk about risk factors definitely veg takes over nonveg. But the same way non-vegetarians argue about the supplement intake and muscle tone. Human body needs 20 amino acids but unfortunately 9 of them are not produced inside the human body so we have to acquire them from the nature. Though variety of vegetables and beans are the rich source of these amino acids, we can only get 1 or 2 types of amino acids from a single type of bean or grain. While from animals all the amino acids are available at one place. So we can say that meat and chicken eaters get all the protiens more easily than a vegetarian. Here I said 'easily'. It doesn't mean that vegetarians are always lacking those essential amino acids. They can get them by allowing a wide variety of calculated food on their dishes.

People who follow a vegetarian diet and specially a vegan diet may be at risk of getting insufficient vitamin D and vitamin K, both needed for bone health. Although green leafy vegetables contain some vitamin K, vegans may also need to rely on fortified foods, including some types of soy milk, rice milk, organic orange juice, and breakfast cereals. They may also want to consider taking a vitamin D supplement. B12 mostly found in animal products or dairy products. Vegan have to take special supplement for it.

3. Body alignments:

One of the hot topics to justify a non vegetarian is the dawn man theory. Yes we were non-vegetarian from the ancient era. Gradually we shifted towards agriculture and after that we could make ourselves into vegetarian category. But basically we all were just like wild animals. 

The function of the canine teeth for human beings is to tear food. Proponents of a non-vegetarian diet mention that God has given us canine teeth so we can consume a non-vegetarian diet. This is no argument. It is like saying that just because we have nails we should scratch others as animals do. Just because humans have canine teeth, it doesn’t mean that they should eat non-vegetarian food. It is not the justification to be a devil.

The same way vegetarians throw their own theory on digestive pathways. They say our digestive system is not made for animal foods. We can not digest all the non-vegetarian food as easily as the wild animals can. But at the same way I want to ask the vegetarians whether they can digest the cellulose of the plants. So both the categories can argue on this topic whole life and they can also get facts on it but unfortunately they can't make it universal.

4. Nature imbalance:

Every creature on the earth is an established element of food chain. None can skip the chain rings. At every step there is well defined lives are present to survive. We can eat everything above the food chain but that doesn't mean we cut a piece of food chain from anywhere. If it's a matter of survival, everything is fair. But as a shake of taste none has right to disturb the nature. Uruguayan air flight crash in Andes glaciers in 1972 is the symbolic example for survival. The flight carried 19 members of a rugby team, and their family, supporters, and friends. Among the 45 people onboard, 28 survived the crash. Facing starvation and death, the survivors reluctantly resorted to cannibalism (means a human eat other human organs). After 72 days on the glacier, 16 people were rescued. With no choice, the survivors ate the bodies of their dead friends. 

Sometimes nonveg lovers say they are eating meat and savings grains for vegetarians. It's totally clueless. This type of justification make them unicellular IQ level. Meat production requires a much higher amount of water than vegetables. Production of 1kg meat requires between 5,000 and 20,000 litres of water whereas to produce 1kg of wheat requires between 500 and 4,000 litres of water. Though it's not enough numericals, here we didn't added the grass and other vegetables considered to develop a massy meat. So the principle is simple. Energy never dies. It is just transferred from one form to another. So non-vegetarians are not really helping the vegans by selecting the nonveg diet. Even they are adding more disturbance to the atmosphere by processing the food at multistage. 

Land occupied by human for agriculture is not larger than occupied by animals for survival on the earth. Even seafoods are also the territory of animals afterall. So vegetarian source is limited compared to animals. But the another aspect is that more than 50 % animals are also reliable on plant products. So it's totally a complicated equation for anyone to solve the excess of food type. I put this query up to you.

5. Religious views:

This is the major point of debate on which we can debate untill the death. People always put their religious view very first before any other argument on this topic. Vagetarians argue for the life of an animal and the non-vegetarians apply the same principle to plants and trees and scientifically they nullify one another's points on diet type. Some of the vegetarians put the vibrations and grief of the slaughtered lives on the arguement floor which is quite acceptable to understand. 

As per Ayurveda the satva, rajas and tamas are the key of life which is balanced by cough, pita and vayu elements. It means the food which is balanced by these three elements stands towards satva proportion in life. Some of the researchers claim that nonveg are always obtained by slaughtering and killing the sensible lives and that's why their negetive energy entres to the non-vegetarians. This is the reason why religious views are most influencers on the type of diet. Though most of religions teach us to be vegetarian directly or indirectly, only 8% people in the whole world are pure vegetarians.

India was known as a vegetarian country once upon a time but now only approximately 30% population is vegetarian till date though people are prone towards being vegan or vegetarian not only because of religious convictions but also considering the animal welfare and chaos use of antibiotics in livestocks. The plethora of information is available on google but as much as you go deeper, you'll be confused by all the facts. As a pure lacto vegetarian I am very much satisfied with my food style and lifestyle. The sameway I request all of you to choose your diet as per your lifestyle. And the most important thing we should keep in mind is that we should eat food to survive rather than we survive to eat the food. So it's up to you to decide which is more appropriate and you can run this debate further by adding your novel ideas in the comment section.

Final Funda: someone offered me a glass of wine and I rejected by saying that I'm vegetarian. The guy replaced the wine with beer and asked me to rethink on my decision.