The recent advertisement in the Rotary News, ‘Next time you eat meat, don’t bathe for a year’, has created quite a stir in the environment-conscious world. Today eating meat is being considered as an assault on the environment, jeopardising the very existence of man on this earth. Eating meat is the prime cause of global warming. Our sages and saints , perhaps, foresaw things and therefore restrained us from having flesh diet. Here are four powerful reasons to go vegetarian: Environmental, Economic, Health and Spiritual.
- Environmental: Did you know that the livestock industry pollutes more than all the cars, SUVs, trucks, planes and ships in the world combined? The Indian Vegetarian Congress believes that the single-most effective thing you can do to help reduce global warming is to say an emphatic no to all kinds of meat.
- Economic: Did you know you need 10515 litres of water to produce ½kg of Meat? While you need just 253 litres of water to produce ½kg Of wheat? That number is the total quantity of water consumed by cattle, used for cleaning them and their surroundings, polluted by their excreta and finally used for processing the meat.
- Health: According to Dr. William Castelli, M.D., “Vegetarians have the best diet. They have the lowest rates of coronary disease of any group in the country. Some people scoff at vegetarians, but they have a fraction of our heart attack rate and they have only 40 percent of our cancer rate. On the average, they outlive other men about six years.”
- Spiritual: According to Sadhu T.L. Vaswani, animals too are our brothers. This is what the truly great ones of Humanity so richly realised. They had cosmic consciousness.
“Yes, these animals are thy brothers. Kill them not.
If we could but appreciate the poetry of animal life! Some of the birds are a miracle of beauty in nature’s Wonderland. And I have wondered how man can have the heart to catch and kill them! Larks and nightingales—sweet singing birds—alas! are killed and eaten!
One day science will advance, I believe, to the position that animals have, also, a spiritual function.
I have seen God’s image shining in animals and birds. I have learnt of them lessons which have drawn my heart nearer to Truth and Love. And one of the purest aspirations of my life is to be spent more and more, in the service of these younger brothers and sisters in the one Great Family of Him who loveth all life.”
Pledge to go meatless today!
You can pledge to avoid meat at the meatless day website