The Way of the Veggies

For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.

I've been a hardcore non-vegetarian. And I couldn't live without fish. I adored the fact that the human race has a pair of canines. But things nearly took a U-turn when I recently came across this passage:

You ask of me then for what reason it was that Pythagoras abstained from eating of flesh. I for my part do much wonder in what humor, with what soul or reason, the first man with his mouth touched slaughter, and reached to his lips the flesh of a dead animal, and having set before people courses of ghastly corpses and ghosts, could give those parts the names of meat and victuals, that but a little before lowed, cried, moved, and saw; how his sight could endure the blood of slaughtered, flayed, and mangled bodies; how his smell could bear their scent; and how the very nastiness happened not to offend the taste, while it chewed the sores of others, and participated of the saps and juices of deadly wounds.

For my surprise, this statement on vegetarianism made me think. Yes, after all that articles and preaches and speeches which flew right over my head like paper planes (which I make during boring college lectures), a random internet article makes me reconsider my food habits!

The author, as I found soon, is one of those old Greek thinkers: Plutarch. Rather than me going all blah blah about the new found idea, I'll rather quote some pieces from the article which struck my interest.

And truly, as for those people who first ventured upon eating of flesh, it is very probable that the whole reason of their so doing was scarcity and want of other food
...had they at this instant but their sense and voice restored to them, I am persuaded they would express themselves to this purpose:
"...Into what an age of the world are you fallen, who share and enjoy among you a plentiful portion of good things! What abundance of things spring up for your use!
...As for us, we fell upon the most dismal and affrighting part of time
...There was then no production of tame fruits, nor any instruments of art or invention of wit. And hunger gave no time, nor did seed-time then stay for the yearly season. What wonder is it if we made use of the flesh of beasts contrary to Nature, when mud was eaten and the bark of wood
...But whence is it that a certain ravenousness and frenzy drives you in these happy days to pollute yourselves with blood, since you have such an abundance of things necessary for your subsistence?"

But if you will contend that yourself was born to an inclination to such food as you have now a mind to eat, do you then yourself kill what you would eat. But do it yourself, without the help of a chopping-knife, mallet, or axe, --as wolves, bears, and lions do, who kill and eat at once. Rend an ox with thy teeth, worry a hog with thy mouth, tear a lamb or a hare in pieces, and fall on and eat it alive as they do.

Nay, there is nobody that is willing to eat even a lifeless and a dead thing as it is; but they boil it, and roast it, and alter it by fire and medicines, as it were, changing and quenching the slaughtered gore with thousands of sweet sauces, that the palate being thereby deceived may admit of such uncouth fare.

And then one argument that I couldn't take my mind off

Earthen jars, if you strike them, will sound; but if they be full, they perceive not the strokes that are given them. Copper vessels also that are thin communicate the sound round about them, unless some one stop and dull the ambient stroke with his fingers.
Moreover, the eye, when seized with an over-great plenitude of humors, grows dim and feeble for its ordinary work. When we behold the sun through a humid air and a great quantity of gross and indigested vapors, we see it not clear and bright, but obscure and cloudy, and with glimmering beams.
Just so in a muddy and clogged body, that is swagged down with heavy and unnatural nourishments; it must needs happen that the gayety and splendor of the mind be confused and dulled, and that it ramble and roll after little and scarce discernible objects, since it wants clearness and vigor for higher things.

Thoughts

I'm pretty moved by all the above words, no doubt. And I've cut down my insanely meaty lunch to pure veggie food. I'm also going towards more of green in the diet, which I feel like the 'neater' food.

Concerns

Discussions with friends raised some interesting points. Ancient Indians followed a vivid vegetarian diet, complete with all nutrients. But this variety is not available to us in the present day; We're stuck with a limited set of green food in any area, and thus we essentially need some non vegetarian products to keep us equipped with all kind of nutrition. All the balanced-diet-for-the-week charts include meat and fish.
I'm trying to gather more accurate information on the same :)

Awesomeness

We all know Hitler was a vegetarian. Well, if you're too concerned about Auschwitz and the sorts (they're making an entire movie about it now, after Schindler's List), we can always move onto more favorable figures.
Starting with familiar faces like Gandhi and our favorite ex-president Sir APJ, we can see that cool people like Einstein too were supporters of the pure food (although Einstein had to eat meat for the majority of his life, due to circumstances, as he says).
And the real awesomeness comes in when we hear that Leonardo Da Vinci was a vegetarian. So was Nikola Tesla. Oh my, Nikola Tesla! I do not need a better reason :)

So are you in? Take your time!

PS:

It's very probable that you do not fully recognize the awesomeness of Nikola Tesla. For a sample, I may quote this about Mr.Tesla:

He successfully pulled off scientific experiments that modern-day technology STILL can't replicate. For instance, in 2007 a group of lesser geniuses at MIT got all pumped up out of their minds because they wirelessly transmitted energy a distance seven feet through the air. Nikola Tesla once lit 200 lightbulbs from a power source 26 miles away, and he did it in 1899 with a machine he built from spare parts in the middle of the god-forsaken desert. To this day, nobody can really figure out how the hell he pulled that shit off, because two-thirds of the schematics only existed in the darkest recesses of Tesla's all-powerful brain.

You can read the full article here

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