Why You Should Be A Vegetarian?

According to the Finnish Vegan Society, the number of vegans and vegetarians in the country is growing steadily.

They say that every generation thinks that it invents sex, drugs, rock’n’roll, and vegetarianism. Not four words that you might normally see in the same sentence, but it is true that every now and again certain food trends seem to be on the rise or fall. These days, with the global credit crunch in full effect and more of us feeling the pinch, it turns out that fast-food outlets such as McDonalds and Subway are enjoying something of a renaissance with their cheap, cheerful and unhealthy products. Perhaps it’s time to bring vegetarianism back.

A steady trend for vegetarianism

Well, I say bring it back, but of course despite me feeling like there was a big craze for eating veggies in the early-90s, the truth of course is that vegetarianism is as old as mankind itself, and seems to be at least maintaining its popularity in this country. Senni Kela, a spokesperson for the Finnish Vegan Society (Vegaaniliitto), suggests that the number of Finnish vegans and vegetarians is increasing.

“According to several studies, the number of vegans and vegetarians is somewhere between 3 and 5 per cent of the population,” she said. “I believe that the number is constantly growing, especially now when people are realising that their meat and dairy-heavy diets contribute to climate change.”

The figure of 3 to 5 per cent would put Finland somewhere in the middle of the global vegetarian league tables. A 2008 study indicated that 3.2 per cent of Americans are vegetarian, and a 2006 report indicated that 6 per cent of Britons are the same. The country with the most vegetarians – in fact, more vegetarians and vegans than the rest of the world combined – is India, where 40 per cent of the population, or more than 400 million people, don’t eat meat. This is mainly to do with class and religious concerns: the Brahmin caste is expected not to eat meat, while Hinduism suggests vegetarianism and Jainism demands it.

Why no meat?

In Finland, of course, there are few cultural or religious reasons for becoming vegetarian or vegan, so why do most people choose this diet? “The main reasons for being vegan are ethical, ecological or health-related,” explained Kela. “Vegans do not want to support the unnecessary exploitation and killing of animals. The vegan diet is also ecological and healthy.”

The connection between diet and the environment has become increasingly well known over the past decade. The number of cows, for example, required to fulfil humanity’s beef and milk needs is immense, and those cows produce a lot of methane gas, which is often seen as one of the main contributors to global warming. “Also,” said Kela, “they say that a vegan saves a hundred lives a year. Plus the food is delicious.”

Although there’s nothing wrong with wanting to improve your diet, I’m always bemused by those people who say that they are vegetarian ‘but eat fish/chicken’. Surely, then, they aren’t veggie at all? “I guess everyone can say that fish isn’t a vegetable, therefore these people are not vegetarians,” said Kela, providing a semi-official rebuttal for me next time I meet one of these ‘fishtarians’.

It does seem sometimes that in today’s world of ever-increasing consumption, changing your lifestyle to exclude all animal products à la veganism would require too drastic a shift in habit to be truly realistic. Is a significant change in behaviour required? “No, I don’t think so. Being a vegan is quite easy nowadays. There’s a constantly growing market for vegan products, such as food, shoes etc. When you get used to the lifestyle, you don’t even have to think about it,” said Kela.

Ethical motivations

Surely there are some areas of farming, like dairy production, where it is such a part of our economic and dietary history that it is simply unreasonable to expect people not to drink milk, for example? Kela swiftly rejects that argument: “Dairy farming is one the worst forms of animal exploitation. Dairy cows have to give birth every year to produce milk and the calfs are separated from their mothers almost immediately. They are rarely allowed to nurse their young. It is unprofitable to keep cows alive once their milk production declines. They are usually killed at 5 years of age, though their normal life span exceeds 20 years. Dairy and meat production are actually closely linked to each other.”

So there are health benefits, environmental benefits and ethical reasons for choosing a vegan or vegetarian diet. But can you give up that crispy fried bacon? “There’s nothing I miss about eating meat,” said Kela. “Vegan food just tastes so much better.”

More information in English about vegetarian-friendly restaurants and cafes in Finland from:

www.vegaaniliitto.fi

Nick Barlow - HT
Lehtikuva - Ville Myllynen

Why Vegetarian?

Warning: Due to so-called "food slander" laws, this page may be illegal! And perhaps you thought free speech was protected by the U.S. Constitution. Please oppose California State Senate Bill 1334.

"So, Brett, just why ARE you a vegetarian? Do you eat chicken? Do you drink milk? Do you eat fish? What about eggs?"

These are questions I hear often, and I must admit that sometimes I get tired of answering them. But the vegetarian lifestyle so important to me that I've decided to dedicate a page of my site to just these questions.

The short answer is, I'm a vegetarian because I care.

I care about protecting the rainforests. I care about preventing the suffering of innocent creatures. I care about preventing topsoil depletion. I care about preventing world hunger. I care about reducing energy consumption. I care about the air we breathe, and the water that flows in rivers. And I care about my own health. I honestly believe that the most significant thing I, as an individual, can do for any one of these things I care about is to consume only vegetarian food.

Health
Real food for real people. Good for every body. Incredible edible. The "basic four" food groups. And the question almost every vegetarian is most tired of answering: Where do you get your protein?

Let's face it folks, agribusiness is trying to brainwash us all. And they've succeeded! Most women I know are convinced that the best way to prevent osteoporosis is to consume dairy products, but the well-documented fact is quite the opposite. The excess protein contained in meat and dairy products actually prevents calcium absorption by the body and is a significant risk factor for osteoporosis.

That's right, I said excess protein. Most Americans eat too much protein. Most American vegetarians eat 50% more protein than they need. So protein really is not an issue at all. Even Frances Moore Lappe, who popularized the concept of protein complementarity in 1971, has long since admitted that "getting enough protein" is simply not an issue.

So what are the issues? How about heart disease and strokes, which are responsible for a whopping 50% of U.S. deaths. Data from the China Health Project suggests that about 95% of these deaths could be cut by vegetarian diets. Likewise, 80% of breast cancer deaths among women could be prevented. Wanna lower your cholesterol? It's easy; just stop eating animal fat.
"Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet." -- Albert Einstein

"I think in the next ten or twenty years, we'll have evidence [showing that a vegetarian diet is superior] that is as strong as the evidence that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer. In my view, it's plenty strong now." --T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D., director of the China Health Project
To continue the smoking analogy a bit further, I would like to submit that meat-based diets affect everyone in much the same way that second-hand smoke can affect the health of a nonsmoker. This is because of the disastrous effects that the meat industry has on the environment.

Environment
Most people don't think of diet as an environmental issue, but it is! Meat production is incredibly inefficient. By growing grain which is fed to livestock which is fed to humans, you end up with much less food than you would have by feeding grain and other plant products directly to humans. Annually, an acre of land can produce 40,000 pounds of potatoes, 50,000 pounds of tomatoes, or a paltry 250 pounds of beef.

If Americans would reduce meat consumption by just 10%, enough grain would be saved to feed the 60,000,000 people who die of hunger each year. It's a damn shame that people in third-world countries are going hungry while their land is being used to feed meat to rich people in other countries.

The grain used for livestock feed puts a heavy burden on the land and is responsible for most topsoil depletion. Topsoil depletion is a serious problem in today's world, and it's also historically responsible for the demise of many great civilizations. Will we be next?

Hey (I hear you cry), if meat production uses so many resources, why isn't it more expensive? The answer lies in tax subsidies (including water supply) to the agriculture industry. You don't really pay for meat at the grocery store -- we all pay for it when we pay our taxes. (And we pay for it again in the form of medical care for heart disease patients.) It has been estimated that hamburger meat would cost $35 per pound without subsidies.

I could get on a similar soapbox regarding gasoline products, but perhaps it's all the same thing:
"American feed [for livestock] takes so much energy to grow -- counting fuel for farm machinery and for making fertilizers and pesticides -- that it might as well be a petroleum byproduct." --Alan Durning, Worldwatch Institute

Animal suffering
Everyone is aware that animals are slaughtered for meat. But this is only the end of the suffering for food animals. In today's commercial "farms," these animals are raised in inhumane conditions from the time they are born. Arguably, the situation is even worse for dairy cows and egg-laying chickens, since they are abused for a longer time before being put out of their misery.

I've got more to say on this subject, but I haven't finished writing it yet. (Hey, this is a web page. It's supposed to be under construction.)

Now, regarding the question of just what I personally choose to eat...
I am a strict vegetarian, which means that I eat no animal flesh of any kind, not even chicken or fish. As you may know, a vegan is even stricter than a vegetarian. Vegans avoid the use of all animal products, including eggs, cheese, leather, and so on. I consider myself to be a "quasi-vegan," meaning that I usually avoid these products, but I am not always perfect. Some time ago, I posted a little essay on this topic to the San Francisco bay area vegetarian mailing list, and since I got some positive responses to it I am reproducing it here:

What it [quasi-vegan] means for me is that vegan food is what I prefer and what I eat most of the time. Everything I prepare for myself (or for anyone else) is vegan, but I am known to eat muffins and the like which, more often than not, contain hidden ingredients such as milk or eggs. If I go to a restaurant I don't worry too much about hidden ingredients -- I'll ask them to hold the cheese, but if the sauce has a little bit of yogurt in it I don't worry about it. But I definitely won't eat an omelette or cheesecake, or anything with bits of Spam in it.

[The next sentence is a response to the question, "Is a quasi-vegan like a pollo-vegetarian?"]
When I think of a "pollo-vegetarian" I think of someone who probably eats chicken as a main course at least several times a week, so there is a distinction since I never eat any kind of animal food as a main course or even as a noticeable ingredient.

My personal choices make sense to me, because ten "quasi-vegans" would consume fewer animal products than one conventional ovo-lacto vegetarian, and because (let's face it) I'm somewhat lazy and being a quasi-vegan is much easier than being a pure vegan (as I was for a number of years). I also find that relaxing my standards a bit has made me feel much less confrontational when I go out, which is in keeping with my nonviolent philosophy.

By the way, I suppose one could define "quasi-vegetarian" in a similar manner to my quasi-vegan. In fact, that's how I started down the road to vegetarianism... preferring to eat very little meat, but not being completely vegetarian. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, depending on how you look at it), what I found was that NO ONE respected my preference until I took the plunge and declared myself completely vegetarian. That was 13 years ago, so maybe it would be different now.

Anyway, I hope nothing I've said is construed as a put-down of anyone whose choices are different from my own. I think it's all a matter of degree -- IMHO, the fewer animal products of any kind we all eat, the better. And this is true regardless of one's motivation -- environment, reducing animal suffering, health, whatever. But for most people, there is a trade-off between ideals, preferences, and convenience, and it seems that everyone ends up drawing the line somewhere. And for some, the line is much fuzzier than for others.

Many of the quotes and facts shown on this page are taken from John Robbins' excellent books, May All Be Fed: Diet for a New World and Diet for a New America. I've even included the page references and (where possible) original sources, which you may see using the "View Source" menu command in your browser.

Gandhiji Learnt Ahimsa from Jainism

Atul Bafna

On the day when he returned to India in Samvat Year 1947 after completing education in England, Mahatama Gandhi was introduced to Shrimad Rajchandra by Dr. Pranjivandas Mehta. Gandhi writes in his Autobiography - "The Story of My Experiments with Truth" about his first acquaintacne with Shrimad.

"...Dr. Metha introduced me to several friends, one of them being his brother Shri Revashankar Jagjivan, with whom there grew up a lifelong friendship. But the introduction that I need particulary take note of was the one to the poet Raychand or Rajchandra, the son-in-law of an elder brother of Dr. Metha, and partner of the firm of jewellers conducted in the name of Revashankar Jagjivan. He was not above twenty-five then, but my first meeting with him convinced me that he was a man of great character and learning. He was also a Shatavadhani (one having the faculty of remembering or attending to a hundred things simultaneously), and Dr. Metha recommended me to see some of his memory feats. I exhausted my vocabulary of all the European tongues I knew, and asked the poet to repeat the words. He did so in the precise order in which I had given them. I envied his gift without, however, coming under its spell. The thing that did cast its spell over me I came to know afterwards. This was his wide knowledge of the scriptures, his spotless character, and his burning passion for self-realization. I saw later that this last was the only thing for which he lived. The following lines of Muktanand were always on his lips and engraved on the tablets of his heart:

'I shall think myself blessed only when I see Him in every one of my daily acts; Verily He is the thread, which supports Muktanand's life.'

Raychandbhai's commerical transactions covered hundreds of thousands. He was a connoisseur of pearls and diamonds. No knotty business problem was too difficult for him. But all these things were not the centre round which his life revolved . That centre was the passion to see God face to face. Amongst the things on his business table there were invariably to be found some religious book and his diary. The moment he finished his business he opened the religious book or the diary. Much of his published writings is a reproduction from his diary. The man who, immediately on finishing his talk about weighty business transcations, began to write about the hidden things of the spirit could evidently not be a businessman at all, but a real seeker after Truth. And I saw him thus obsorbed in godly pursuits in the midst of business, not once or twice, but very often. I never saw him lose his state of equipose. There was no business or other selfish tie that bound him to me, and yet I enjoyed the closest association with him. I was but a briefless barrister then, and yet whenever I saw him he would engage me in conversation of a seriously religious nature. Though I was then groping and could not be said to have any serious interest in religious discussion, still I found his talk of absorbing interest. I have since met many a religious leader or teacher. I have tried to meet the heads of various faiths, and I must say that no one else has ever made on me the impression that Raychandbhai did. His words went straight home to me. His intellect compelled as great a regard from me as his moral earnestnes, and deep down in me was the conviction that he would never willingly lead me astray and would always confide to me his innermost thoughts. In my moments of spritual crisis, therefore, he was my refuge..."

Gandhiji regarded Shrimadji as his friend, philosopher and guide. He acknowledges the debt he owes to Shrimadji in his recollections of his friendship with Shrimadji. From 1891 to 1901 A.D. for a period of ten years they were best friends.

Gandhiji says that most of his lessons for self-improvement and on truth and non-violence, he has learnt from Shri Raichandbhai. Raichandbhai is one of the three personalities that have much impressed his mind, the other two being the writings of Tolstoy and Ruskin's `Unto this last'.
To love the murderer is one of the maxims of non-violence and Gandhiji had well learnt it from Shrimadji, who was full of sympathy, forgiveness and piety for all living beings.

Gandhiji says: "I have drunk to my heart's content the nectar of religion that was offered to me by Shri Raichandbhai. Raichandbhai hated the spread of irreligion in the name of religion and he condemned lies, hypocrisy and such other vices which were getting a free hand in his time. He considered the whole world as his relative and his sympathy extended to all living beings of all ages.

Shrimadji was an embodiment of non-attachment and renunciation. He has written only that which he has experienced. He has never allowed his poetic imagination to get ahead of truth and experience. There is therefore no artificiality in his writings. They come from the heart and appeal to the very heart of the reader. He used to keep diary and a pen with him in all his daily routine and he immediately wrote down important thoughts that occurred to him. I never remember any occasion when Shri Raichandbhai got lost or infatuated in any worldly matter."