Words : Vijayalekshmi S

For the Love of Eating and of the Living!
                             Towards an eco-friendly ethical eating

When it comes to doing the right thing for the planet, the thorniest dilemma is often about what we eat...

To be or not to be? I have been pondering over the question for a fairly long period. So also were many of my acquaintances, I discovered. When the problem in hand involves a major gastronomic cut from your menu for ever, it will take that much, I suppose. The question was whether or not to become a vegetarian. No, not vegan ... turning a vegan who can't even touch the bountiful milk (it is not merely milk and curd you know, but butter, ghee, kheers, pedas, shakes and a thousand other sweet and sour incarnations will come under the sword) is out of question for the ordinary mortals like us.

'It is tough to be a vegetarian', was the common refrain. So it seemed to be both on gastronomical and societal terms. Most places famous for their culinary marvels would turn a bit barren when it comes to a vegetarian meal. Their vegetarian menu will be confined to a few basic dishes and salads. And there are some cuisines which are not vegetarian friendly in nature. It is not just that they are predominantly meat-centric. Even the few veg dishes or snacks (probably made only on special request) will contain egg or have an egg-wash. Even otherwise staunch vegetarians will have to forgo a whole array of breads, cakes, puddings, pastries and biscuits which may contain egg or slaughter by-products like animal fat and gelatine.

Group dining may turn out to be a nightmare for a vegetarian. And outside India, you may even have to request for your food to be specially made at the risk of posing as an annoyance. Then shopping could become dreary when you have to train your eyes on the wrappers of each and every pick for those undesirable ingredients. It is already quite tiring for me looking for the dangerous ones like monosodium glutamate and the likes.

Why endure such pains? The religious strictures or philosophies or even concepts of mental and physical health advocating a veg diet may well seem to be simply dogmatic. They will not be strong enough to hold against the fear of being out of step with others or being left socially and emotionally out in the cold in general. For example, it is almost evident that humans are natural omnivores. Diets will have to vary per habitat and territory for any species to survive, animal or human. What if a type of food is scarce or not present in a territory? That is why diets vary widely across the earth and cultures. And going vegetarian as 'a favor to your body' may not be such a favor after all as the kind of 'low fat, high carb' diet (often translated into a an all-veg diet, though there are many veg items which are very high in fats) recommended so frequently, had not always proven as healthy as was said.

But the dilemma remained strong. That was because the full import of the 'Hurt not others with that which pains yourself' strain which we learn from our childhood days had been dawning on me for quite sometime. Ethics is not divisible. Every living being has a right to live. We wouldn't inflict pain and death on the animals or pets we love. Then why kill hapless animals when we humans have other means to satisfy our hunger? Agriculture was invented by man as a solution to his ever increasing demand for food.

Then I learned that raising animals for their meat on a large scale was wreaking havoc on other fronts too. The meat industry stands guilty of endangering entire ecosystems, aiding and abetting world hunger, and leaving the children of underdeveloped countries undernourished. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation has found the livestock sector responsible for 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions. GHGs are generated during the production and transportation of animal feeds and deforestation, while ruminants, particularly cows, emit methane, which is 25 times more effective as a global warming agent than carbon dioxide. (Carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are the most important GHGs. While methane is 25-times as harmful as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide is 300-times more harmful).Besides, the livestock business degrades land and pollutes the ever receding water levels. And the land for growing crops that can feed more people directly go wasted when it is used to raise animals for meat. And the dread and horror of those filthy prisons in which the animals and fowls for slaughter are kept (I know many who had given up meat consumption not because they were averse to the killing but for the ways in which animals were kept, treated and killed for food)!

So, no longer can we seek comfort in the old refrain that 'humans come first'. It has come to a stage where those who really care about people will care about animals too. All of us are now aware that it is either the whole or nothing in the long run. Besides, experts of the chemistry of neurotransmitters and neurobiology – the two scientific disciplines that help to explain the effect of food on human behaviour – have said to have found meat proteins very much responsible for aggression, violence and moral insensitivity.

Now I have my answers. We have to give more respect for animals and also should adopt an ethically sound-environment friendly diet. You need not fear about nutritional deficiency. All the nutrients you need can be obtained from a vegetarian diet with a little bit of research and effort. Of course, it won't be an easy task to give a sudden twist to our palates. And, even if we may not be able to stop, we can at least limit our non vegetarian intake and eat more and more greens.

The vegetarian world is not an entirely drab one as many fear it to be. I have many vegetarian friends who take as delightful a pleasure in food as others. I know from them that there are so many delicious recipes and tastes to experiment with. (And if you dig deep enough you will find a vegetarian world even in areas where non-vegetarian tradition reigns supreme.) It is only one step at a time that I take by cutting down on non-veg intakes and leathers that I use. But it's a great feeling that I am doing something!

Pushing for a climate friendly diet

Meat production is projected to double by 2050 and the situation calls for urgent adoption of ethical and viable solutions worldwide. The 'dietary aspect' of climate change challenge could well be tackled through a climate friendly, less carbon intensive vegetarian diet, says the well-known climate economist, Nicholas Stern. "Though eating food is a matter of personal choice, it is desirable to help people make informed decisions," he says. And he is not alone in taking up the issue. Earlier, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, an authority on global warming and chairman of the UN's Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), had called upon people to reduce meat intake to become climate friendly. And celebrities like Paul McCartney and others like Kevin Spacey, Woody Harrelson, Joanna Lumley and Richard Branson have joined the campaign to make people aware of the effect of raising animals for their meat on the environment by asking them to cut on their meat consumption.

© travelbird