Logical Reasons to choose vegetarianism

7/29/2019 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
http://www.thespiritualscientist.com/author/chandras/http://www.thespiritualscientist.com/author/chandras/


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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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