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Non-vegetarian Food – Do We Really ‘need’ it?

Everybody of us loves to enjoy the best quality food. Most of us are ‘foodies’, ever eager to go that extra mile so that we can taste something new. However, many a times, in our passion to satisfy our taste buds, we ignore certain basic facts about life. Many people love the non-vegetarian foods. They love the fish, the chicken and its variants. The more ‘adventurous’ amongst us are ready to graze in newer pastures and also ‘try’ some other animals. All this is done for one SIMPLE and CLEAR reason – SATISFY our SENSE of TASTE at any cost. That’s it. That has become the goal of our human (?) existence.

Now at the outset, let me be clear. I am not against satisfying senses. I am not any of those sorts of ‘pious’ souls who advise people about morality. In fact, morality is a dirty word for me. Morality is always ARTIFICIALLY imposed. Neither the imposer nor the one on whom it is imposed understand the motive behind their morality theories. So, I am quite fine with us satisfying our desires, especially pacifying our taste buds when they crave for some thrill. But I want to bring out a point here, when it comes to non-vegetarian food. Just about two years back, I was a die-hard fan of non-veg food. I am a native of Goa, and our very ‘existence’ is connected with sea-food. Fish, crabs, prawns, chicken etc. formed my staple diet. But gradually, something began to happen. My passion for these foods began to fade. I didn’t had to give up the non-veg food. But that food itself began to loosen its control over me. I was slowly turning a ‘veggie’..Without much efforts on my side. But there was a reason behind this.

Just observe one thing in your life. Whenever you are enjoying a particular sense, may it be of seeing, hearing, taste, or even sexual pleasure, there is a particular mental zone that we are in. We are some sort of ‘possessed’ by that sense. We are somewhat ‘unconscious’ while satisfying our senses. We become unaware, just as a drunkard becomes after consuming liquor. So, I just did one simple thing. I just gave myself a suggestion. Next time, whenever I am eating non-vegetarian food I will eat it with my full attention to it. I shall enjoy it, but with full awareness. No step in my buying or eating the non-veg food shall go unnoticed. Secondly, I shall myself go to the market to buy the chicken and fish. There too I will follow the same rule. Just observe myself buying it. Just observe the process of the chicken birds getting killed. Just observing the screams of the birds getting killed and see fully how they struggle for their lives. Just observing the truth of the moment without running away from it MENTALLY. Just watching it with full awareness as to what is being done. Later on when the chicken is brought home and cooked, observing how it is decorated to ‘appear’ good. Observing how taste is added to it. Observing how all the efforts are made to camouflage the fact that a helpless life has been killed for our ‘satisfaction’. And then, while eating, observe myself how I eat the flesh, how I am feeling while I eat. And eating that, with the truth in mind always. Just remembering the entire process while eating. How I went to the market with full of desire. How the bird was killed.. How it was brought home by me, and now, how am I enjoying the TASTE of it. Everything is to be observed and remembered. No truth is to be ignored or JUSTIFIED!

This process of living life with awareness gave me a major breakthrough. I began to get nausea feelings while even thinking about the entire process of me eating the non-veg food. I could see things as they are, beyond the camouflages that are being created. I could see only the flesh and the bones, and not the garnishing and the decoration of ‘spices’ that is being done so that we can forget we are eating flesh and bones! I could see things beyond the clouds of my desire. I was slowly coming out of my stupor. Now I did not require any morality to tell me that non-veg food is ugly. I was ‘seeing’ it myself! Now I didn’t need Gods or the scriptures to tell me anything. I had experienced it myself. Now I didn’t had to follow the idiotic tradition of avoiding non-veg food on ‘specified’ days (to please Gods!!). Now the crime itself was going away from the criminal! The lurk for the non-veg was melting away all by itself.

When my friends came to know that non-veg food has gone away from me, they could not believe it. In fact, they tried to convince me in all possible ways that I was wrong. Some of them said that non-veg food is good for health. Some said ‘fish is good for the heart’. Some told me that their doctors advise them to have non-veg food. I decided to check the facts and whether their claims have any basis. The first fact I came across is that science has already proved that the human intestines have not been designed to DIGEST the non-veg food! Even after 72 hours of consuming non-veg, it still lies in your intestines undigested. After that it begins to decay and harm our system. If the food itself is not getting digested in the first place, from where can it be good for health? Just observe the teeth of the wild animals who eat flesh. They are so much different from ours! They are sharp and penetrating and designed to tear apart the flesh. Actually flesh, if at all is to be eaten, has to be eaten the way the wild animals eat them. It is not meant to be cooked and eaten. But we human beings have found out a way there too. We steam it, boil it and try to make it compatible with our ‘humanised’ way of living. Isn’t all this funny?

Fish is extremely difficult to digest. Now, we know that the cod-liver oil extracted from the liver of the Cod Fish is good for the heart. But again I got to know that there are several vegetables, cereals and pulses which if consumed in the right quantity and with regularity, are equally good for the heart. So why run after fish? Moreover, whatever is good for the heart should also qualify to be good for our soul! . So why not consume that food which is good for our heart as well as for the soul?.

I observed a bit more closely. I realized that it was not the non-veg food per se that I was getting attracted to. Actually, what had captivated me was the TASTE of it. I just made simple experiments. Whenever I had the feeling of consuming non-veg, I went to the restaurant and ate some very spicy vegetarian food. I satisfied my taste buds and did not let them miss something. I just tried to substitute it with another taste. So far I had taught my brain to ‘love’ the taste of the non-veg food. Now all that teaching had just to be reversed. I began to teach my brain that veg food can also be equally tasty and spicy. Now a stage has come, that I don’t really miss anything. Now I can enjoy the veg food the same way I used to enjoy the non-veg food initially.

Then there were another set of individuals who had read and listened somewhere that even the ‘great’ people of the past used to eat non-veg food. They told me that our sages, saadhus, saints etc also consumed non-veg food. One of them also told me that Swami Vivekananda was a great fan of non-veg food. I was really amused by all this! These people never remembered Swami Vivekananda’s work. They never tried to emulate him in his work. But they are instantly eager to emulate his eating non-veg food (even if we assume that he ate it). How can you justify something just because great people of the past did it? And if you at all want to emulate them, why not emulate them in their entirety? Its seems people love to emulate Lord Krishna’s ‘RAASLEELA’ immediately. Everybody wants to become Krishna when it comes to that. But when it comes to emulate something like the creation of ‘Bhagwad Geeta’, we are not even able to write a single e-mail properly without making any mistakes!!

Well, I don’t have any complaints against those who have non-veg food. In fact, even at my home, apart from me and my father, everybody has it. I have no grudges against them. Neither am I trying to change them and forcing them to follow me. Nobody in this world has ever succeeded in changing anybody else, may they be from the same family. Everybody has their own individual journey and everybody has to follow their own individual path.

For the last two years, I have been a supporter of ‘GO-VEG’ campaign. I just share with my near and dear ones the importance of being a veggie. The purpose of this article is not to give you a sermon on the harms of non-veg food. I don’t at all want that you should change, as I have already told, nobody can change anybody in this world. But after reading this article, I am hopeful, that at least the process of ‘change’ can begin in a few individuals, whose time has come to evolve..Just like my time had come two years back.

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Posts by SpeakBindas Editorial Team.

17 thoughts on “Non-vegetarian Food – Do We Really ‘need’ it?

  1. Beautifully written. The point that I liked the most about this article is that you haven’t tried to ‘preach’ the readers at any point. You have just opened the pages of your book of life, for readers to read open-mindedly and decide what they want to do in their life.

    Self-awareness is the best awareness.

  2. Anand Zen says:

    Hi Sarvesh,

    Very well put. Excellent job 🙂 <3 😀

    Love,
    Anand

  3. deepak says:

    Beautiful !!! Very nicely written and neatly explained !!! One of the best articles I have seen on this subject.
    I get surprised when people say that they can’t see the entire process of animals getting killed but still eat it , I think they MUST SEE the process and ask themselves if they want to be PART of this process Or rather if they want to Sponsor this process.

  4. Sarvesh says:

    Thanks Deepak for your appreciation.
    I totally agree with your views

  5. Jigar Patel says:

    Very well written article and makes some good point.

    HOWEVER, it is again a debate that will just remain a debate. At the end it boils down to your perception and ideology. I mean…one can always argue that if you are not consuming non-veg food just because you think it is cruel and immoral, then you should also not consume anything made out of leather & wool since you can not tell for sure if it was made out of a naturally dead animal.

    I would really like to know if the writer also keeps in mind the “process” while using anything made out of animal body.

    I think human body is also designed to be able to survive in caves! Why destroy jungles to build houses and much more?

    The bottom line is that…if we have an ideology then let us follow it to the fullest and till the end. If non-veg is animal cruelty, so is leather, wool and many more products!

    Remember, I am not saying that eating non-veg is okay! All i am saying is that …IF YOU BELIEVE THAT EATING NON-VEG IS CRUEL THAN FOLLOW THE SAME IDEOLOGY ALL ACROSS!

    1. vicky says:

      Good…i m tired of this debate and ur point is quite rite compared to this cynical article.

  6. Guru says:

    Sahi hai bhai sahi hai … Infact, its been sometime that I have been taking cod liver oil without evenknowing that it is non veg .. when searching online landed here .. Thanks a ton my friend. I have throwed the cod liver oil box now.. will be as usual veg and I have always been. Stupid idoits did’nt mention red symbol on the capsule box… May God smile on you my friend 🙂

  7. Sarvesh Mopkar says:

    @ Jigar :- Hi Jigar, Thanks for your views. Well, I dont use anything made out of animal body, at least consciously. And it is not out of morality I am doing this. Its not out of some ideology or philosophy that I am doing this. I simply don’t feel like. I cant give you logical justifications for that.
    As far as your views of following “ideologies” to the fullest are concerned, I would say that its not true for me. First of all, being veg is not an “ideology” for me. I would follow only what comes up in the moment and share my experience accordingly. Extremities are dangerous for me. Thats why I dont “force” others to become vegetarian. The second last para is the most important para in my article. 🙂

    @Guru:- Thanks friend for your beautiful words!

    1. Jigar Patel says:

      Not eating non-veg can be something as simple as ‘I just don’t feel like’ (which is what you just mentioned) or it may have to do with animal cruelty & morality. Although you clearly stated that you don’t want people to change their habits just because you ‘don’t feel like eating it’ — somewhere as a reader i felt that your article did want to send out a message that eating non-veg is an animal cruelty, which is why i wanted to ensure if you get same feelings wearing leather clothes.

      Having said that, i understand that you don’t have to have a solid ideology or a firm position on everything that has to do with animal cruelty. ‘I don’t eat it because i don’t feel like’ is a good enough reason and i totally respect that.

  8. Vinay says:

    Great Article.
    I am a vegetation too, not because of religious or moral background. But because I want to do so.
    Rather to follow someone’s belief (whether it is for veg or non-veg food, or any other thing in life) the experience within ourself is the best guide. Your article beautifully written to highlight that.
    Keep posting about other topics too.

  9. Deven M says:

    Hi Sarvesh,

    Really surper
    b article you have written, i think i am so
    lucky to come accross this article. Every day i pray to god that god dont
    give me anything just make all ppl happy of this world and also
    i ask him god please guide me whenver i go wrong, and this
    has happened today that in every soul god is their and you came
    accross me as a god today … Really thanx ton. I will try this 100 percent
    from now onwords.

    Also i will share this your article to many of my frienz to guide
    them.

  10. Sarvesh Mopkar says:

    Thank you everyone for this response. I appreciate that all of you look at this topic not as a sermon from me, but a very simple and humble personal experience. I am sure the purpose of this article has been served. Thanks again to all of you, especially my good friend Devang Vibhakar who is doing a fantastic job of providing platform to creative writings….

  11. Nitish Raj says:

    very well written and one of the best articles i ve ever come across

  12. ybraoadonkey says:

    swAmi vivEkAnanda the so called weight lifter of this Indian Nation of 1.2 billion, misled the whole Nation. If you wish to have a look at a pain-staking study, see vivekanandayb.blogspot.com. I do not want to spam. You can delete this comment, after you see it. If you read what I wrote, you will probably blast me. That you can freely do at my blog which is not a popular blog. I have not written it for popularity.

  13. Sourabh says:

    Dude, Meat don’t grows on plants, neither Milk products. Cows suffer equally compared to meat animals like chicken and goat in modern industrial milk production, If any grown person( not children) thinks that there’s animal cruelty going on he must not only stop eating meat and meat products, but also Milk and milk products like Ghee, butter paneer, cheese, Ice cream etc. There is nothing like vegetarian consuming milk products, If any one really cares he must become Vegan, ie consuming only plant products. Or he must have his own cow for milk products. Say no to industrialized dairy farm products, they are no different from meat products.

  14. To start with, moderation in using industrial dairy products. Gradual promotion to abstinence. Abut wool and leather, we can stop altogether, because alternatives are available.

  15. chandrani says:

    very well written

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