I was 8 years old and I was walking past a store which sold ‘fresh’ meat. I was curious, so I went in and saw the most horrifying scene that a young child should never be allowed to see. The butcher was chopping away chicken, goats and pigs and the heads of these animals were strewn across the floor. It has been my personal goal ever since to make people around me to understand the importance of being a vegetarian. Vegetarianism is one of the most common topics to be discussed and debated. Eating meat not only has health risks but also involves cruelty against animals and has environmental hazards. Many religions which promote vegetarianism like Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism emphasize that animals have a soul just like humans. Avoidance of killing of animals is one of the main reasons for vegetarian diets.Vegetarian foods are not only healthy but they are delicious. Vegetarianism is encouraged for a variety of reasons. But the most important reason is the health risks caused by eating meat. The American Diabetic Association confirms that vegetarian diets have various health benefits. Vegetarians have been reported to have lower body mass indices than non-vegetarians, and lower rates of death from heart disease; vegetarians also show lower blood cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer.
Vegetarianism not only has heath benefits it can also eliminate world hunger. Meat production has a large negative impact on the underdeveloped countries. Debt–burdened countries are turning over agricultural land to raise cattle and grains for feeding the cattle. According to the Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, each year in the US approximately ten billion land animals are raised and slaughtered for human consumption. Apart from the pain and torture to animals, meat eating poses environmental risks. If every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than a half-million cars off U.S. roads.
Religion has a huge impact on diet. Hinduism among other religions encourages vegetarianism.Vegetarianism is a natural consequence of the principles of ahimsa (doing no harm). Hindus know that by injuring nature’s other creatures we become a source of pain and sorrow. Contrary to the belief that killing plants is like killing animals, the Hinduism Today, justifies that, plants lacking nervous systems, do not endure pain and terror that mortifies animals at slaughter. There is a famous Sanskrit saying which is translated in English: “I am now eating the flesh of an animal that will someday in the future be eating my flesh.” Humans are considered omnivorous since they eat plants as well as animals. But human body is designed to be a vegetarian. Humans with their long digestive tract take between twelve and eighteen hours to process and digest flesh. Because the environment of the digestive tract is warm and moist, the meat rots and creates free radicals – unstable, destructive oxygen atoms that can cause cancer, premature aging and other degenerative conditions. Being a vegetarian is simple and healthy. As George Bernard Shaw aptly says “I do not want to make my stomach a graveyard of dead animals”, the more animals we eat, the more inferior we are. How can we be superior if we copy the lifestyle of animals that are lower to us intellectually and physically? In short, vegetarianism keeps us healthy and guilt free because killing plants is just not the same as killing animals. No wonder we use slaughter to refer to killing animals and not plants.
So why eat animals and suffer when you can be happy and healthy. "Live and let live!"
