Strength of an Elephant
Is the elephant deficient in strength? The longevity that is of the elephant, which animal or man can boast to have? The carnivora does not certainly claim to have this longevity. The food of the former is only leaves, plants, creepers and grains! The lion may have sporadic ferocity. It can win the fight only when it jumps on the elephant from behind on its back. It can never face the elephant and fight. It will be crushed to pulp. Consider whether the carnivora apart from its outbursts of short ferocity and violence, have the endurance for sustained labour or utility to the human race!
No one can adequately measure the benefits to the human family, of the deer, the elephant, the bull, the horse, the camel and the cow. Will the lion feed us milk? Will the tiger plough the field? Will the hyena drag the fuel cart? Will the wolf and the jackal be fit to adorn ‘My Lady’s’ parlour and become cooing pets? All these have short spurts of brute force and violence. But they cannot boast of any sustained long drawn our energy or great qualities of heart and intelligence.
No prolonged endurance
Man should learn his lesson by observations from Nature. It is not true that the flesh eaters are more healthy and long-lived than the vegetarians. In ancient times our villages and small towns had streets called Agraharams peopled by the clean living Brahmins and Vegetarians.
The epidemics like the cholera or the small-pox never commenced in these localities nor did they take root or spread rapidly there. Where flesh of every type is the common food, these epidemics will dance their dreadful tunes. Deaths will be more there and sometimes the vegetarian localities are not even touched. One cannot escape the conclusion that those who daily depend mainly on animal food do not have the immunity, the longevity or the endurance of the properly fed vegetarian. The flesh eater has very little disase resistance. May be the non-vegetarian can down the leaf eating man at one stroke; but never can the other, evincing spasmodic brute force, equal the energy, endurance of the vegetarian. The brute strength cannot avail against bacteria.
Fear of Arctic regions
In the Arctic regions, grains and vegetables do not grow. The same is the case with some other regions on the Earth, one may put forward the compulsion of the non-vegetarian food. But fortunately for us we are not nor are the majority of the living beings living in such places empty of useful vegetation. There is plenty of different varieties of vegetables, roots and grains. In India we need not entertain such Arctic thoughts and freeze vegetable menus.
The Indians especially of some classes drawn from the South are very active. Granted water and sunshine they would convert even the desert into fertile gardens. Take for instance the Tamilian and the Malayalee. Wherever they go, their activity and industry earn unstinted praise. The non-vegetarian diet need not be thought of so long as enough is grown out of the beneficent mother Earth in India. All the essential ingredients to make up a balanced diet can be had from a pure vegetarian diet.
To acquire animal protein
In the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, a research scholar has discovered that animal protein that is protein rich in amino acid contents is available in hand pounded unpolished Rice in great quantities superior even to wheat. Milk contains animal protein only and much easier to digest than meat. When mixed in balanced and needful proportion, Milk, hand-pounded Rice, wheat, curds, dhalls, soyabeans, etc., will give enough quantities of protein in a much more acceptable and natural form than the non-vegetarian foods like meat.
The fat contents found in the non-vegetarian food are much smaller in proportion than that found in other foodstuffs like the almond 58.92%, coconut 41.60%, groundnuts 41.60%. Calcium, phosphorous, minerals and iron that can be had in greens, vegetables, fruits, grains and millets. If tobacco is eschewed from betel leaves and chewed with chunam, calcium intake increases. The A and B Vitamin contents of Wheat and handpounded unpolished Rice are not to be found in meat and other non-vegetarian diets.