Logical Reasons to choose vegetarianism
Transcript of Logical Reasons to choose vegetarianism
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Are there any logical reasons to
choose vegetarianism?
Question: Are there any logical reasons to choose vegetarianism?
Answer: Yes; there are many. Let's discuss four logical reasons
here based on scientific research in terms of an acronym that
encapsulates the benefits of vegetarianism: HELP (Health,
Environment, Livestock, Poverty). When we choose vegetarian food
instead of non-vegetarian food, we help the world in four ways: by
improving our own health, by preventing unnecessary harm to the
environment, by stopping murderous violence against the livestock
and by decreasing global hunger and poverty.
Chaitanya Charan das January 13, 2012
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Chapter 1: Health
Cows stomachs are made to digest grass, not grains. Still, most
slaughterhouses feed grains to their captives in order to avoid the costs
associated with providing for grazing land. Due to this unnatural change in their
diet, the poor animals become afflicted by many diseases. To counter these
diseases, they are routinely administered antibiotics, which lead to the formation
of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in their bodies. When we humans eat their flesh,
those resistant bacteria enter our bodies and render ineffective the antibiotics
we take. Referring to these resistant bacteria, food researcher John Robbins,
author of the widely-acclaimed Diet For A New America: How Your Food
Choices Affect Your Health, Happiness, and the Future of Life on Earth, states,
These are the new superbugs that are increasingly rendering our miracle
drugs ineffective.
Anatomy:
The following is an extract from the table The Comparative Anatomy of
Eating[1], prepared by Milton R. Mills, M.D.
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1 -Facial
Muscles
2 - Jaw
Type
3 - Jaw Joint
Location
4 - Jaw Motion
Carnivore Reduced to
allow wide
mouth gape
Angle not
expanded
On same plane
as molar teeth
Shearing; minimal
side-to-side motion
Herbivore Well-developed Expanded
angle
Above the plane
of the molars
No shear; good side-
to-side, front-to-back
Omnivore Reduced Angle not
expanded
On same plane
as molar teeth
Shearing; minimal
side-to-side
Human Well-developed Expanded
angle
Above the plane
of the molars
No shear; good side-
to-side, front-to-back
5 - Mouth Opening
vs. Head Size
6 - Teeth (Canines)
Carnivore Large Long, sharp and curved
Herbivore Small Dull and short or long (for defense), or
none
Omnivore Large Long, sharp and curved
Human Small Short and blunted
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7 - Teeth (Molars) 8 Chewing 9 - Saliva
Carnivore Sharp, jagged and blade
shaped
None; swallows food
whole
No digestive enzymes
Herbivore Flattened with cusps vs
complex surface
Extensive chewing
necessary
Carbohydrate
digesting enzymes
Omnivore Sharp blades and/or
flattened
Swallows food whole
and/or simple
crushing
No digestive enzymes
Human Flattened with nodular
cusps
Extensive chewing
necessary
Carbohydrate
digesting enzymes
10 - Stomach
Acidity
11 - Stomach
Capacity
12 - Length of
Small Intestine
13 - Colon
Carnivore Less than or equal
to pH 1 with food
in stomach
60% to 70% of
total volume of
digestive tract
3 to 6 times
body length
Simple, short
and smooth
Herbivore pH 4 to 5 with food
in stomach
Less than 30% of
total volume of
digestive tract
10 to more than
12 times body
length
Long,
complex; may
be sacculated
Omnivore Less than or equal
to pH 1 with food
60% to 70% of
total volume of
4 to 6 times
body length
Simple, short
and smooth
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in stomach digestive tract
Human pH 4 to 5 with food
in stomach
21% to 27% of
total volume of
digestive tract
10 to 11 times
body length
Long,
sacculated
14 - Liver 15 Kidney 16 - Nails
Carnivore Can detoxify vitamin
A
Extremely concentrated
urine
Sharp claws
Herbivore Cannot detoxify
vitamin A
Moderately
concentrated urine
Flattened nails or
blunt hooves
Omnivore Can detoxify vitamin
A
Extremely concentrated
urine
Sharp claws
HumanCannot detoxify
vitamin A
Moderately
concentrated urine
Flattened nails
Mother Nature could hardly have made a clearer statement about what sort of
diet is natural for humans than what she has already done through the features
of human anatomy.
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Nutrition
Let us now examine the common notion that if humans dont eat meat, they
will suffer from protein deficiency.
Commenting on this idea, The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
(PCRM), a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. and comprised of
4,500 medical doctors, state,High protein diets are unhealthy. However,
adequate but not excess amounts of protein to maintain body tissues, including
muscle, are still important and can be easily achieved on a vegetarian diet.
PCRM[2] points out that the excess proteins resulting from a meat-centered diet
contribute to osteoporosis, cancer, heart disease, and impaired kidney
functioning. For adequate protein intake, PCRM recommends the following
vegetarian protein sources:
Healthy Protein Sources (in grams)
Black beans, boiled (1 cup) 15.2
Broccoli (1 cup) 4.6
Bulgur, cooked (1 cup) 5.6
Chickpeas, boiled (1 cup) 14.5
Lentils, boiled (1 cup) 17.9
Peanut butter (2 tbsp) 8.0
Spinach, boiled (1 cup) 5.4
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Whole wheat bread (1 slice) 2.7
And yet, we may still have a residual doubt: Will a vegetarian diet give us
sufficient physical strength? Why not? If a vegetarian diet gives elephants,
rhinoceroses, and hippopotamuses their super-human strength, why would it not
provide us with our normal human strength?
Disease
In his Pulitzer Prize-nominated book How to Survive in America,The Poisoned,
Lewis Regenstein writes,Meat contains approximately 14 times more pesticides
than do plant foods. . .Thus, by eating foods of animal origin, one ingests
greatly concentrated amounts of hazardous chemicals.
Naturally, these chemicals cause many diseases in meat-eaters. Lets look at
just two of them.
Heart disease:Numerous studies have confirmed that heart disease is initiated
or aggravated bya meat-centered diet. This verdict is so unequivocal and
unanimous that that William Castelli, M.D., director of the Framingham Heart
Study, the longest-running clinical study in medical history, declared, If
Americans[3] adopted a vegetarian diet, the whole thing [the heart disease
epidemic] would disappear.[4]
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Cancer: Dr. T. Colin Campbell, one of the worlds foremost epidemiological
researchers, announces, Human studies also support this carcinogenic effect of
animal protein, even at usual levels of consumption. . . .No chemical
carcinogen is nearly so important in causing human cancer as animal protein.
[5]
The medical costs of meat consumptionbased on 1992 data, but inflated to
2011 dollars and accounting for increases in medical costs are estimated at
approximately $60 billion to $130 billion annually. If only five percent of these
costs were saved, it would amount to $30 billion to $65 billion over a ten-year
period.[6]
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Chapter 2: Environment
Assembly-line meat factories (a euphemism for hi-tech slaughterhouses) cause
enormous pollution of water-bodies. In a New York Timesarticle (2008/01/27),
specialist food writer Mark Bittmanstates stated, In Iowa [USA] alone, hog
farms and hog factories produce more than 50 million tons of excrement.
Moreover, these meat factories also generate alarming amounts of greenhouse
gas. Eminent environmentalist R K Patchauri, Chairman of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, reports in The Impact of Meat
Production and Consumption on Climate Change, A Japanese study estimated
that 2.2 pounds of beef emits as much carbon dioxide as is emitted by the
average European car every 155 miles. He further points out, The UN Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has estimated that direct emissions from
meat production account for about 18% of the worlds total greenhouse gas
emissions.
The environmental fallouts of assembly-line meat factories dont end with water
and air pollution; they extend far beyond to include the consumption of
enormous amounts of energy and the consumption of ever-increasing amounts
of grain, thus leading to staggering deforestation.
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Chapter 3: Livestock
Researcher Arthur Poletti, author of God Does Not Eat Meat,states, The
average American consumes in a 72-year lifetime approximately 11 cattle, 3
lambs and sheep, 23 hogs, 45 turkeys, 1,100 chickens and 862 pounds of fish.
. . In the United States alone approximately 660,000 animals are killed for
meat every hour.
Our meat diet causes not just death, but also torturoussuffering. Here are just
three examples of the terrible torture that is typical in slaughterhouses.
Hens: Hens are so tightly packed in battery cages that they cannot move an
inch during their encagement. The USDA (United States Department of
Agriculture) recommends giving each hen four inches of feeder space. In this
little space the birds cannot stretch their wings or legs, and cannot fulfil normal
behavioral patterns. Constantly rubbing against the wire cages, they suffer from
severe feather loss, and their bodies are covered with bruises and abrasions.
They are forced by chemical manipulation to lay about 200220 eggs every
year, leading to weakened bones and several other painful maladies.
Male chicks: Because male chicks cant lay eggs, they are of no economic
value. They are ruthlessly disposed of by being tossed into trash cans or
plastic bags, where they undergo excruciating deaths by suffocation or by being
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crushed under the weight of other chicks. In some cases they are mercilessly
ground to powder while still alive so that their remains can be made into
manure.
Veal: Newborn calves are, within twenty-four hours of their birth, taken away
from their mothers to veal factories. There, they are locked up in small boxes
where they dont even have enough space to stand. This is where they are
confined for the full duration of their lives. As if this were not bad enough, the
calves are injected with hormones and antibiotics to artificially fatten them more
and moreuntil the day they are slaughtered.
Even in pre-modern times, eminent thinkers have spoken out against flesh food
due to the cruelty it involves. For example, renaissance artist Leonardo Da
Vinci stated, Truly man is king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds theirs. We
live by the death of others. We are burial places! I have since an early age
abjured the use of meat. But in modern times, the setting up of meat factories
has aggravated the cruelty to such hideous levels that thinker William
Ralph compared humanity with the Devil: We have enslaved the rest of animal
creation and have treated them so badly that, if they were to formulate a
religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.
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Chapter 4: Poverty
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, 930 million people on our
planet live in such poverty that they suffer from hunger or malnutrition. This
starvation is not due to shortage of land, but due to misuse of land; more land
is used for growing fodder for livestock than for human food. According to Dr
David Pimentel, as quoted in The Vegan Sourcebook, the percentage of all
cereal grains grown in the US that goes to feed livestock and not people is a
scandalous seventy-two percent.
Such use of land is inherently inefficient, as is explained by researcher George
Stanley McGovern in his book Food and Population: A World in Crisis.
When animals eat grains and then humans eat their flesh, the nutritional value
that humans get is around one-fifth of what they would get if they ate the
grains directly.
A meat-centered diet is inefficient not only in nutritional value, but also in land
utilization. The US Department of Agricultural Economic Research Service
reports that 16 kg of grain are needed to produce 1 kg of beef. Consequently,
as is depicted in the adjacent diagram, the average amount of grain required to
feed one beef-eater can be used to feed ten grain-eaters.
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Chapter 5: The Appeal to Conscience
In our present times, we have scores of statistics like the ones quoted above
to make the logic of vegetarianism compellingly clear. But even without these
statistics, the resonance of vegetarianism with our essential human conscience
and intelligence is so intuitively strong that eminent thinkers throughout history
have not only chosenbut also championed vegetarianism. To illustrate, here
are the quotes of just a few reputed vegetarians:
"As long as man massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed,
he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap joy and
loveThose that kill animals to eat their flesh tend to massacre their
own."
- Pythagoras
"Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them. We live by the
death of others. We are burial places! I have since an early age abjured the
use of meat."
- Leonardo Da Vinci
"Flesh eating is unprovoked murder."
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- Benjamin Franklin
"The flesh eating is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act
which is contrary to moral feeling- killing. By killing man suppresses in himself,
unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity - that of sympathy and pity towards
living creatures like himself - and by violating this his own feelings become
cruel."
- Leo Tolstoy
"When a man wants to murder a tiger, he calls it sport; when a tiger
wantsto murder him, he calls him ferocityWhile our bodies are the
living graves of murdered animals, how can we expect any ideal
conditions on earth?"
- George Bernard Shaw
"It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect
on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of
mankind.Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for
survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. "
- Albert Einstein
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"A dead cow or sheep ly ing in a pasture is recognized as carrion. The
same sort of a carcass dressed and hung up in a butcher's stall
passes as food."
- J. H. Kellogg.
"We have enslaved the rest of animal creation and have treated so badly that,
if they were to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human
form."
- William Ralph
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Chapter 6: Breaking free from
moral cowardice
The foregoing statistics-based analysis demonstrates that the acronym HELP is
not just a mnemonic; it conveys the encouraging reality that helping the world
is within the power of each one of us. It begins by choosing vegetarianism.
To help people evolve to vegetarianism, Mark W Rosegrant of the International
Food Policy Research Institutecalls for a stronger public relations campaign in
the reduction of meat consumption one like that around cigarettes
emphasizing personal health, compassion for animals, and doing good for the
poor and the planet.
Unfortunately, information alone doesnt seem to be enough. Many meat-eaters,
even when they are informed about the harms of meat-eating, become angry
and brand the call to vegetarianism as an infringement on their freedom of
choice. American author Matthew Scully unmasks such pretentious calls to
freedom unceremoniously: When he [the meat-eater] gets angry at being
reminded of animal suffering that his own daily choices might help avoid, that
is moral cowardice.
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Of course, the cause of this moral cowardice in most cases is not an innate
evilness but an unspoken fear of losing the pleasure of eating good-tasting
food. Krishna consciousness allays this fear by providing a lifestyle that makes
moral courageousness easy and enjoyable. Lets see how.
1. Spiritual food: Vegetarianism naturalizesour diet; Krishna conscious culture
goes further to spiritualizeit by sanctifying the vegetarian food.As recommended
in theBhagavad-gita (3.17),Krishna conscious cuisine comprises numerous
delicacies offered to Krishna and taken as His remnants (prasada). These offer
such immense satisfaction to our taste buds that we can soon reject and even
forget the taste of flesh and blood. Moreover, prasadagoes beyond satisfying
our material senses to whetting our appetite for spiritual happiness.
2. Spiritual happiness: Prasada is just one of the many aids offered by
Krishna consciousness to re-connect with Krishna, who is the reservoir of
unlimited spiritual happiness. This re-connection helps us reclaim the spiritual
happiness that is our right as beloved children of Krishna. Once we experience
just a fraction of that happiness, we can eschew harmful sensual indulgences
like meat-eating that were earlier irresistible not reluctantly, but joyfully
(Bhagavad-gita 2.61). Just as the candle that was indispensable at night
becomes entirely dispensable once the sun has risen, the tastes that were
irresistible during our night-like spiritual unawareness become entirely
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dispensable once we are spiritually illuminated. Self-restraint no longer remains
an exercise in self-denial; it becomes a welcome choice for catapulting us to
further spiritual happiness. The easiest way to experience this happiness is by
regularly chanting the Hare Krishna maha-mantraas a spiritual discipline and
additionally as a spiritual defense mechanism at those times when we feel
tempted by our previous habits.
To conclude, objective logical analysis provides a clinching case for
vegetarianism, and Krishna consciousness helps us clinch the case.
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References:
[1]http://www.vegsource.com/articles2/anatomy_mills.htm
[2]All PCRM references are from http://www.pcrm.org
[3] I have focussed on American statistics in this article because, firstly, the
most systematic and extensive research on this topic has been done in
America and, secondly, America is the trend-setter for most of the world.
[4]http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/eating-for-health.aspx
[5]http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/cancer.aspx
[6]http://www.pcrm.org/search/?cid=2836
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