Yes I'm vegetarian by birth. When I say by birth it means that it came to me as part of my family tradition. Looks like my ancestors have been a vegetarian for several centuries. I don't believe the fact that vegetarianism is not something that surfaced only in recent times. As part of our family tradition, we have some traditional food items that we cook for a special occasion. We also have a kind of rule book that describes our day to day life and how it should be. In such rule books, we have been given instructions to stay a vegetarian. I even find it highly convincing to follow whatever my family tradition says. I'm not saying this blindly but I find it more comfortable to be a vegetarian and I strongly believe that it will only suit my body and mind.
People sometimes say that vegetarian food is not as tasty as non-vegetarian food. Maybe it is just their perspective. But according to me, there are so many options available for cooking vegetarian food items. The food will also be really tasty and not so hard to cook vegetarian food.
Why I'm a vegetarian?
Until my school days, I was into vegetarianism just as a tradition from my family. I did not have any personal opinion on that I even did not think otherwise. I was so convinced that our lifestyle was supposed to be only vegetarianism. I grew up in an environment where nearly 90 % of people whom I see and speak were vegetarians. This is how my school life went. I was so used to vegetarianism and that's why I never paid any attention to understand what non-vegetarianism was all about. There was also another perspective in my mind that I should never hurt any living being. That was one main reason why I used to be a blind follower of vegetarianism in my young age.
As I grew up and went to college, I got exposure to so many people who were non-vegetarians. I come from an orthodox family where we don't even sit with people who eat non-vegetarian food during our meal. I was so hesitant in the beginning and later I got used to it. In my college days, over 90 percent of my college friends were non-vegetarians. So it was no longer a weird thing for me. But the only fact is that I never experimented this in my life. I was so much fond of eating half boil egg. That was the only non-vegetarian that I ever consumed. During those days I never knew that it was a menstrual waste of a hen. Just because it had proteins I consumed them initially and later I got used to the taste of eggs and started consuming more.
I'm a very ethical person who believes in values. As I mentioned earlier, I had a strong feeling in my mind that I should not be hurting any living being. Especially for food, I should not trouble any living being in this would live a life. With this base principle, I started exploring more about the advantages of being a vegetarian. People eat non-vegetarian food for getting the proteins they require. Even in some family people even have a perspective that they will never get proteins if they don't eat meat. I started analysing that further and got convinced that it is not true. There are so many vegetarians including my family members who have never had non-veg food for generations. They are still strong and they are even sharp in thinking and acting.
I have a feeling that non-vegetarian food is not necessary for me. I don't need that kind of heavy protein for the work that I do. The maximum exercise that I do every day is a 1 KM walk. I don't do anything more than that. So too much of protein is unnecessary for me. This is one perspective. The food that I consume is going to be a part of my body. So I make sure to choose the right food that is going to become a part of me. That will only define who I'am. Having this in mind, I choose my food wisely. I don't even eat onion, garlic, spicy items etc.
Apart from the above mentioned points, I have two perspectives for being a vegetarian.
Health perspective
This is one of the main reason why people mostly prefer to be a vegetarian or non-vegetarian. People want to be non-vegetarian thinking that they will not get enough proteins they need for their body. That is the reason why most of the people consume meat every day. In my perspective, there are so many vegetarian food items that can provide enough amount of protein a body needs. Some researches even say that aging process and body metabolism can be maintain in a really smooth manner if we look forward to consume a vegetarian diet. There is no doubt that we get all the required nutrients from a vegetarian diet. The digestion process will also be very smooth for vegetarian diet as our body will not need any extra effort to break down the vegetarian food compared to that of non vegetarian food.
Spiritual perspective
From a spiritual perspective, many great saints have always been a vegetarian. Those who have attained great heights in spiritual realization even preach others to be a vegetarian as vegetarianism helps in spiritual life. There are even strict monks who consume only fruits and even those fruits should not be plucked from the plants or trees directly. It should fall automatically from a plant and they consume only those fruits. Their level of intellect can be evidently seen if we have a conversation with them. I will not say being a vegetarian is great but I will definitely say that in a spiritual life there is definitely a great difference in the behaviour and realization of both extremes.
Why not vegan?
As per my family tradition, we are good with just vegetarianism and no where it says that we have to be vegans. And maybe that is the reason why I don't feel like experimenting what vegan food is all about. But I would like to say that I never had a good feeling towards a vegan food at all. I found it a little too much. We respect cows in our culture and the milk we get from cows is offered even to god and consumed. Of course it is definitely the blood of cows but we are okay to have milk. Maybe that is the reason why cows were sent to earth to help humans. But when I say this, all the non-veg people will even argue saying that even goats were sent to earth to help humans. I will not agree that both are same because, if we milk a cow, the cow will still live and provide us milk the next day. If we kill a goat and eat it, we are not going to get the same goat again tomorrow.
So it is not quite convincing for me to be a vegan as it doesn't make sense to me. I definitely support people who are a vegan. It is a great thing to be. But I will definitely continue to be a vegetarian and I will also teach the importance of being a vegetarian to my family members. We can also name so many animals or living beings that went extinction because of continuous human consumption.
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