Veganism, as Wikipedia says, is a philosophy and lifestyle that seeks to exclude the use of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose. Vegans diet is a subset of vegetarian diet. In fact, vegan and vegetarian are *NOT* synonymous.
In this blog post, I intend to post my views on what is good and what is bad about different aspect of veganism.
Basically, veganism can be defined as abstaining from
using leather based products
eating animal flesh
eating animal eggs
drinking animal milk
From my point of view, I would say that, killing animal for its skin is CRUEL and GRUESOME. I always prefer rexin based belts, seats and other upholsteries made of cloth over leather belts or plush leather upholstery. I have always used a similar equivalent product that could easily replace leather for my needs.
But does that always hold? Can this practice be extended for our eating habits?
I did a lot of analysis and found some interesting stuff.
Firstly, eating a pure vegan diet does not give us enough calcium, iodine, and vitamins like B12 and D. Practising vegan means, to fulfill these dietary needs, one should take pills that supplement these deficiencies. How many vegans do this? Literally very few. there are cases where people, specially babies, have died because of vegan practices like http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/21/opinion/21planck.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Secondly, evolution says that humans should eat meat.
Monkeys lived on plant foods. Chimpanzees, which are slightly close to humans in evolution started eating meat (http://science.jrank.org/pages/1418/Chimpanzees-Eating-habits.html) based food. They have canine teeth and can tear flesh. So are humans. And yes, we are not pure carnivorous like tiger as our anatomy says that. By eating vegetarian food, are we trying to fool nature and go back in evolution? Similarly, to digest chlorophyll based green leaves, cows and other herbivourous animals have something called an appendix. The appendix which is a vestigal organ in humans, is used to digest plant based food in herbivorous animals (http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/bio99/bio99430.htm). In humans, appendix serve to store good bacteria that aid in digestion and that’s it.(http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/the-appendix-does-have-a-use–rebooting-the-gut-396277.html)
Do we really get energy by eating spinach or green vegetables? No… We are only able to assimilate the minerals and vitamins contained in those leaves.
The ecological pyramid states that humans are not primary consumers of plant based food. Are we trying to change nature and its laws by becoming vegans?
But, yes, I’m against using animal products for anything else apart from eating. For example cosmetic usage of animal products and so on. I’m also against using animals for pulling logs of wood from forests (especially elephants), making money by training animals in circus, animal testing, which includes killing animals for experimentation which itself is estimated to be around 50 to 100 million vertebrates per year. I’m also against domesticating animals. A gold fish, which is very common in a majority of houses (specially in cities), is usually found in deep dark waters. The gold fish is an animal that hates light. In the name of domestication, we catch it, feed it with some “junk food”, and grow it in brightly lit fish tanks or aquariums. This could be crudely equivalent to shutting a human in a dungeon without any source of light and asking him to eat to his heartful. Same applies to caging birds. If you really care for animal rights and animal welfare, please do not domesticate them. please do not cage them. You don’t lose anything by doing this. Instead arguing that following vegan diet because you care for animal rights and welfare will only make you weaker and unhealthy. Moreover, you will be going against nature by abstaining from eating meat.
So from now on, avoid using leather based or ivory based or any animal based products. Avoid domesticating pet animals. But do not avoid eating unless it’s religiously banned. People who speak about animal rights and animal welfare, should think twice.
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Mugunth
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