This is one of the articles that I wrote for a website. I hope this would in a good way help you change your eating and living habits.
SINS OF THE TASTE BUDSPrehistoric men; this noun does help us picturise humans: half naked, long un-kept hairs, clad in dirty pungently smelling animal skin with spear like weapons in their hand, running in groups after a hapless animal, encircling, trapping, butchering and with blood smeared hands eating its flesh raw, with drops of blood dripping down their chin. It was their daily food; their means of living. Had they hadn't, they might have vanished from the face of the Earth. They didn't have a standard language. They didn't have any knowledge about agriculture. They ate whatever they found; fruits, nuts, eggs, animals and sometimes each other. Only the strongest survived.
Imagine a modern man hunting like prehistoric men. Will it suit the modern human, who has travelled more than a million years in terms of knowledge and intelligence, to enact his ancestor's actions and means of livelihood? Earlier, men used to hunt and make a living on animal and animal products. They didn't have other means of feeding themselves. They lacked the knowledge, wisdom, judiciousness and superiority of the modern man. Then, in that age, it was truly a lack of all these put together that made humans display animalistic behavior. But modern humans, armed with the knowledge of the pros and cons of adopting a non vegetarian life pouring from all sides, are still turning a deaf ear to the call.
Why vegetarian? It's a question one can ask oneself and from deep within you'll hear a voice; a voice that answers you, why. It'll tell and guide you and forbid you and your conscience not to feed on any animal products. This voice is always wrestled over by other senses of your body, your desires; the taste and smell and desire of an animal flesh being the most prominent. Those strong, who fight and over come their desires and their inner voice, triumphs and turn vegetarian, while those weak that loses the battle turn flesh eaters.
Actually, these decisions are made by smart men, learned men, men with resolute will and profound reasoning ability and those who can control their desires and have the will to change; to change for the good; for an ethical compassionate, disease free, healthy and long life. It is true, only smart and intelligent people are vegetarian or are turning vegetarians and there is on other reasons. These people know the value of their lives and the contribution they can make or are capable of making to this world and hence they are concerned about the quality and longevity of their lives. They know fully well, like all of us, about the human body, its digestive functions and its incapacity to digest flesh. They also have it in the back of their minds about various diseases that comes attached by consuming flesh. Mad cow disease, avian flu are but a few of those deadly diseases that are unmasking its evil effects of non vegetarianism.
It is a misconception that flesh provides nourishments that on other vegetable or fruits can supplement and it is when nursing this misconception that men unconsciously, driven by their desires, gulp down those smelly, rubbery red stuff. The recent decline, in the past century, in the number of rhinoceros, elephants, tigers and lions is due to the sky rocketing price of their horns, tusks, and their bones for use as medicines. In the rush to satisfy our tastes buds in the form of soups of whales, shark fins, and turtle eggs, we have denied justice to those sea creatures which are on the verge of extinction and a possible breakage in the food chain which would prove devastating to all living beings on this planet. A lot many creatures are already extinct while fulfilling the ever greedy needs of humans. Necessary steps have to be taken to put a stop to innocent’s killings. The day is not far when we will be showing our children, animals, only through print and on paper.
Does Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Ford, have anything in common?
Yes, it's practicing vegetarianism.
Never in their entire life did they compromised on not being a non vegetarian or were lured into it. It is a myth that vegetarian diet does not provide adequate nutrition. In-fact more and more people are changing their lifestyles as better sense have dawned upon them. Especially celebrities and a large majority of people from the west are adapting vegetarian lifestyles and their numbers are rising exponentially. It is neither for want for media attention nor for projecting a better social image that celebrities are all turning into leaf munchers. They know about the feel good effect that green diet leaves on their physical appearance and well being . Skin looks much supple and tender, and hence, they look younger leaving a feeling of goodness deep within which radiates from the skin as beauty.
It's very sickening to see every morning, aweful sights; smelly, vomiting. Baskets full of fresh slaughtered cattle laden on the backs of porters make their way from butcher house to meat shops; bare flesh, white, pink and brownish red turning brown.
Bloods, fresh and then stinking with the passage of time, drips drop by drop from the bamboo basket onto the porter's thighs, calfs, heels and onto the road, plotting its journey from slaughter house to the kitchen. The porter's legs are drenched with sweat and blood, and the diluted cerise liquid coats his calf, ankle and feet, as though the animal were pleading him to help their kind from being slaughtered mercilessly any further.
One can't stand the smell of raw flesh but many salivate over it when embellished with spices and herbs. Why do we consume it brushing aside the feeling of dislike when it is raw?
Vegetables and fruits are a treat even when taken raw. The colours are attractive with various shades of green, red and white exciting our salivary glands. Even science says that colours do play a vital role in enticing our hunger.
Can we express similar views for flesh?
All those who consume these innocent animals, have they ever visited a butcher house and witnessed the slaughtering, the unexpressed feelings of dumb animals with misty eyes and the incessant uncomprehensible cries of help?
Can these people take a portion of it for food and relish its taste after watching it being butchered mercilessly?
Does not the thought of those pleading animals shouting for mercy haunt them on their dinner tables?
Even those who relish on flesh cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that a lot many people are increasingly going health conscious and accepting vegetarianism as means of achieving it. Inspite of knowing the ugly face of non vegetarianism, they helplessly indulge into it, habitually, and have turned slaves to its taste.
Every one has a single life to live and enjoy, but why should enjoyment be achieved over someone else's life?
Will it be ethical to let our taste buds enjoy at the cost of the life and blood and pain of a hapless creature?
If you say, you are not concerned with ethicality or any of those related with ethical stuff, then you do not have the right to be counted among humans. Lacking ethicality means lacking humanism and hence fit enough to be compared with animals.
Joining all these dots must have certainly formed a picture which convinces enough that we are on this planet on food and not for food. We don't live to eat but eat to live, and what better decision to enhance our quality of life and ridding off related ailments then by sacrificing a little and adopting a vegetarian lifestyle. The world is much brighter, more sunnier and much more beautiful from this horizon. Let those innocent animals live. Let us hold our hands, for a united endeavor, for the quest to remain vegetarian for life and be human in true sense.
