New age: Details about 'Vegetarianism'
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Vegetarianism is the practice of not eating meat, including beef, poultry, fish, or their by-products, with or without the use of dairy products or eggs. The exclusion may also extend to products derived from animal carcasses, such as lard, tallow, gelatin, rennet and cochineal. Some who follow the diet also choose to refrain from wearing products that involve the death of animals, such as leather, silk, fur and many or all down feathers. It should be noted that although many vegetarians abstain from all animal by-products, others make exceptions in their diet and attire. Vegetarians may consume dairy and egg products; a stricter form is veganism, which excludes dairy, eggs, and any foods that contain these or other animal products; still stricter is fruitarianism, which excludes all food but the botanic fruits of plants.
HistoryVegetarianism has been common in the Indian subcontinent, since possibly the 2nd millennium BC for spiritual reasons, such as ahimsa (nonviolence), to avoid indulgences (as meat was considered an indulgence), and to reduce bad karmic influences. Hinduism preaches that it is the ideal diet for spiritual progress and Jainism, which claims between eight to ten million adherents, enjoins all its followers to be vegetarian. Buddhist monks of Mahayana school have also historically practiced vegetarianism. In looking for parallels in Jewish and Christian antiquity for these practices, some Christian vegetarians feel a kinship with Nazirite, Essene and Ebionite practices. Many Hindu scriptures advocate vegetarian diet. The secular literature of Tirukural in Tamil Nadu, India, proclaimed over 2000 years ago: "Perceptive souls who have abandoned passion will not feed on flesh abandoned by life. How can he practice true compassion, he who eats the flesh of an animal to fatten his own flesh?" Vegetarians in Europe used to be called "Pythagoreans" , after the philosopher Pythagoras and his followers, who abstained from meat in the 6th century BC. These people followed a vegetarian diet for nutritional and ethical reasons. According to the Roman poet Ovid, Pythagoras said: "As long as Man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings he will never know health or peace. 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." In 1847, the first Vegetarian Society in Ramsgate, England, agreed that a "vegetarian" — from the Latin uegetus "lively", and suggestive of the English word "vegetable" — was a person who refuses to consume flesh of any kind. Seventh-day Adventists and Rastafarians, denominations founded in the 19th and 20th centuries, are also frequently vegetarian. African Hebrew Israelites only eat an organic vegetarian diet that also excludes dairy products such as milk. Followers of the Sikh religion are divided in their opinion on whether their religion opposes meat consumption. Recent trendsIndian vegetarians, primarily lacto-vegetarians, are estimated to make up more than 70% of the world's vegetarians. They make up 20 to 30% of the population in India, while occasional meat-eaters make up another 30%. Most Asian countries had a predominantly vegetarian diet until the past few decades, when increasing industrialization and westernization changed that. However, Cornell scientists have advised that the U.S. could feed 800 million people with grain that livestock eat . Also, there exist some types of terrain (such as mountains, desert fringes, and regions with very poor soil) that are suitable for grazing animals, but not suitable as farmland. Environmentalists counter that these "marginal lands" should not be used at all, and that grazing livestock on these lands exerts more pressure than they can carry and/or directly competes with native wild animal species which would graze the same land. References(2002). Mosby's Medical, Nursing, & Allied Health Dictionary. Sixth Edition. p. 1798. ISBN 0323014305.
Spencer, Colin. (2002). Vegetarianism: A History. Four Walls Eight Windows; 2nd edition. p. 38. ISBN 1568582382 L. Beckett & J. W. Oltjen. (1993). Estimation of the water requirement for beef production in the United States. Journal of Animal Science, 71, 818-8268. FAO., United Nations. (1996). Livestock & the Environment. Shierry Weber Nicholsen, The Love of Nature and the End of the World : The Unspoken Dimensions of Environmental Concern (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003). ISBN 0262640511. Techno Economics of Paddy cultivation, State Bank of India Publications. Excerpt from the book The extended circle, by Jon Wynne-Tyson, ISBN 0747406332. - US dept of agriculture report, - USDA , See also
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