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Before
attempting to answer these questions, it
was considered worth while to understand the scientific principles of Vegetarianism in
proper perspective.
1) The simple fact is the people have to depend for their food
on living-beings. But the first principle
is that one must consciously strive to limit and reduce the injury or killings
of living-creatures.
2) The second fact is that like Charles Darvin's theory of Evolution of living-beings, our philosophy also says that the
evolution of creatures is designated in different stages by the number of senses it owns or possesses. That means in
simple language, the least developed living-beings will have only one sense
with it, and that is the touch-sense. Next higher stage of development
would bring one more sense to it and that
is the mouth organ. The third sense is smell. 4th stage
of development would add eyes 5th stage would bring ears to it. The creatures having
5 senses along with mind are on the top of the ladder of
development. Man is the highest
developed creature by this reckoning.
3) It is logically and naturally expressed that killing of higher developed creatures would
attract more sins or destruction than
killing of less developed creatures. This logic is
derived from the principle of optimization of resources. Man learnt from the nature
to always optimize its resources.
Development - Man knows that he has to depend on other living beings. But he uses the
above noted principles, while selecting his food. A
Common sense would also reveal that if one can sustain oneself on least developed
creatures, then one has no right at all to kill higher developed creatures. Moreover there is a
vast difference in development of faculties of one sensed and two sensed creatures. The two
sensed is a mobile creature, which can move from
uncomfortable to comfortable
environment besides other advantages.
Quantity - A rational human being think further that amongst one sensed plants also, if
he can sustain on say 10 nos. of living-beings then he should avoid killing even the 11th
living-being. The whole approach is to minimize the
injury / killings.Thus in nature, maximum of wasteful or unnecessary
killings is avoided. This leads to conservation of natural earth resources and its environment.
4) Jain philosophy also gives great importance to
the intentions of the doer. If we have
intentions to help others
or have cruel intentions to inflict maximum injury
to living- beings, the strength of bond of karma
would vary according to these intentions. This prior does not get punishment, because he had
noble intentions of saving
the patient. But while drnciple is also applied in our daily life. If a
patient. dies, while he is under treatment by a doctor, the
doctiving a car, if any pedestrian dies due to hitting of the
car, the driver would get some punishment because of negligent or
rash driving. However, if a thief shots dead a person with intention to hide, he
would be treated as fit to get capital punishment !
As such it is advised that we should have compassion towards every living being, even
towards plant- beings, while using for our food. That means we should strive to minimize
the killings of plant-beings at its lowest number. When we
inculcate rational and scientific mindset towards all our resources,
particularly the living-being around us, we become very sensitive and by nature cannot indulge in disturbing our
ecosystem just for the sake of lust and greed. Such life-style is called Vegetarian
or non-violent life-style. When we look at the startling statistical data about
the rash and ignorant acts violence, being
committed towards the innocent
animal-world and environment by non-vegetarians, we
would feel so sorry and guilty that our hearts would bleed and cry out to stop immediately
the killings of all animals in the world without
any precondition. This data is presented
below in the fat-sheet "Did you know the efficiency." (point no. 7)
5) Metabolism : Our Rishis looked at the metabolism taking in our body after we eat food,
from a different and rational
angle. According to them
there are seven stages of
metabolism. The food is first converted in "Rasa"
(Juices), absorbed and secreted by our glands in form of simple non-living juice. Milk comes
in this category. The next stage is blood. The food juices are absorbed by
blood-cells and form blood. The subsequent
conversions are in from of 5 dhatus. viz. meat, bone fat, marrow and virya (vitality). The
second onward Dhatus are part of living-cells.
6) The efficiency of digestion : The human stomach is
considered to be the most efficient machinery for utilization of our food
intake. If we use any
intermediary machine, like stomach of animals, to get our secondary food
ingredients from the primary food-grains,
in form of meat, the gross
(ultimate) efficiency of utilization
of food-grains reduces drastically. In fact the
following data reveals that introduction
of this Intermediate machinery in food chain reduces the utilization by a factor of
12 !
7) Did one know the efficiency of vegetarians ?
Actual statiscal data reveal that :-
7.1) Fact A :- Food - Grains, down the drain ! Average consumption of food-grains per person per
year in India is about 178 Kg and
USA it is 1100 kg. That means an American consumes 7 times
more than an Indian does. But a simple observation reveals that an
American friend does not eat more than an
Indian, when they were kept together on plant-based diet !
Then a big question arises, as to how
we consume only 180 kg, whereas an American is able to gulp almost 1100 kg ?
7.2 Fact B :- Colossal wastage by non-vegs. !
i) An American Survey report reveals that on
one Acre of land in USA. if Sovabean
is grown, it would yield 475kg of protein.
ii) If any of these farm products is fed to
animals like steer, it would yield only
50kg of useable protein.
iii) A similar report by the President's Science Advisory
Committee, Vol. II May 1967 titled as "The world food problem", highlights a fact that
cattle must be fed 10 kg of vegetable protein (from grains etc) in order to produce 1 kg of animal
protein.
iv) Another report in USA substantiates this fact by
enumerating that 78% of all grains,
that are grown there, are fed to raise animals. They are
reared for slaughter houses. They have an optimum life-span of 14 months
only, because their conversion
efficiency is maximum during this period.
v) Even during this period, 14kg of grains as feedstock, would produce 1 kg of beef, and 8
kg of grains would produce 1 kg of pork.
The above data corroborates the facts, stated in the report on
productivity of land in fact B (ii) above
vi) On an average conversion ratio may be taken as
12, which translates into the simple fact that a person depending on slaughter house culture
(Non-veg or meat eater) would need 12 times more
food-grains than a
person sustaining on plant-based
diet (vegetarian) !
7.3) Fact C :- Mind boggling figures !
i) Another survey report says that an American eats 88
kg of beet and chicken, whereas an Indian consumers 3.4 kg of it per year.
ii) Based on the fact that an average
healthy person needs 140-150kg of
solid direct food-grains per year (An Indian
may be requiring 140kg and
an American may be requiring 150 kg), the direct grain consumption for an
American and Indian works out to be 62 kg (150-88) and 136.6 kg and 136.6 kg (140-3.4)
respectively.
iii) Taking into account the conversion ratio of
12 for animals, the equivalent food grain
consumption would be for
an American = 62 + 88 *12 = 1117 kg
and for an Indian
= 136.6 + 3.4 * 12 = 177 kg
These startling facts compare very well with those given
in Fact A above.
iv) A Relook at the Possible Scenario :-
a) If all Americans become vegetarian.
- After meeting the full
requirement of their vegetarian diet, American would be saving 1100 -
150 = 950 kg of food grains/person/year. The surplus food, so generated, would be
sufficient to feed fully an additional
population of 1700 mill. throughout the year
! In comparison to it, the
population of India is merely 1100 mill. !
b) If all Indians become non-vegetarian. - They would need 2000 mill. Ton of food grains
to product sufficient meat, (through secondary machines, like
animals), to feed them for a year. In comparison to it, the present day production
of food-grains, in India, in merely 210 mill. Ton.
8. Environment - During World
Environment Day Celebrations on
05.06.09 at the Institution of Engineer's, Jamshedpur an interesting fact had
emerged viz, one should
change one's attitude and life style
to achieve incremental improvement in our existing
polluting system. Having
said that, the finding
of a Report of United Nations by H. Steinfeld et al, "Live stocks Long shadow"
Environmental issue and options - 2006 was
placed on the table. It says emphatically that the meat
industry pollutes more than all the cars, SUVs, trucks, planes, and ships in the world combined ?
In view of it, the most
effective thing one responsible citizen can
do to help reduce pollution and global warming is,
to increase his "No Meat"
days in a week, and as a responsible Nation, put a blanket Ban on opening of any new
slaughter house.
9) Conclusion :
9.1) Facts ! i) The slaughter house culture
or meat eating satisfies lust
and greed of ignorant people to earn more. Conversion of food-grains
by animals for human food is a
colossal wasteful practice and hence it must be stopped
immediately. The export of meat must also be banned in India.
ii) Since Govt. of India is blindly following the wasteful
American model to convert food grains into
meat through
animal by starting several
new slaughter houses, the
knowledgeable intelligentsia should come forward with all
their might to reverse this trend and to show their commitment for conservation of resources.
iii) American companies must
stop their misplaces
propaganda for meat eating and abandon the production of meat by dismantling of facilities at
least in India.
iv) To change the existing mind-set of
offenders, dissemination of information of above noted facts and figures, at various levels on massive scale,
should be the top priority of the society to create awareness.
9.2 General - These are stunning
facts. We may feel pity on
our ignorance and the prevalent miss-information. But what next ? What should a
knowledgeable ordinary citizen do ? Can he contribute his part
of duty, at least
by sharing this
information and communicating with his neighbors !
The social organizations can use the powerful modern media
to enlighten the masses in
proper perspective, so that each city or social group is
motivated and inspired to
discard such wasteful habits like meat eating. The vested
interest, running the slaughter-houses
should realize their folly and should not dare to oppose the sensible, humanitarian, efficient
and eco-friendly life style of vegetarianism.
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