Where did Vegetarianism come from?
When did it start?
Why are so many Indians vegetarians?
Why is beef prohibited for Hindus?
Isn't eating meat immoral?
Why do we need to eat meat at all?
Are vegetarians better people?
Are we all going to become vegetarians one day?
There seems to be a kaleidoscope of questions, myths and and controversies surrounding vegetarianism. I'm going to bust the myths, answer the questions and settle the controversies.
I will try to present the different ways of looking at vegetarianism.
Pre-Historical View:
Pre-historic man was hunter/gatherer. He ate huge quantities of fruits and vegetables. He also consumed a wide variety of plant food than we do today. The meat was mostly from small animals. 'Hunter' is really a glamorization, since it was mostly scavenged meat (prehistoric road-kill). He lacked sophisticated weapons to hunt big game. He was similar to chimpanzees, who have a mostly vegetarian diet, with occasional meat.
However, at some point human carnivorism increased exponentially. It is at this time that early forms of human speech evolved. Humans learned to think and communicate with each other, and planned strategies for hunting in groups. They invented advanced weapons. Suddenly humans were well equipped to hunt big protein rich animals. This exploded human mobility as it followed migratory herd in search for meat. This transformation to a meat eating group is considered an evolutionary catalyst for humans. It gave rise to division of labor among adults, nuclear families. Human society really got a massive jumpstart due to this switch to carnivorism. It was not until the invention of beer that plants would again rival meat as a food source (I'll come to that later).
The abundance of meat supply was multiplied by development of food preservation. That led to more free time on our hands. This in turn led to all sorts of new things. We invented pottery, art, textiles, and metals. We developed complex societies with hierarchy, kings, priests, doctors, and what not.
So yes, this switch to meat, triggered a growth spiral that took us right to the dawn of the human civilization.
Historical View:
Abundant food gave us free time - time to sit and watch trees grow. Pretty soon we realized that we could plan and grow our own trees and plants. We didn't have to get the fruits right away, we had all the time in the world. That's when humans discovered cultivation. However, we didn't know how to preserve plant food, so it was still not a major source. Then one fine day, a genius, or a fool, in Babylon discovered that food grain could be preserved by fermenting it to a liquid form. Today we call be beer! It could be stored in jars and could be drank when we felt like. Soon people were craving this stuff. More and more land was brought under cultivation of not fruits, but grains like barley and wheat. The demand for ancient beer was so much, that finally after all those years of macho hunting, humans finally settled down and became the first modern farmers. Settlements grew up around fertile lands near rivers. Settlements expanded to villages, villages started trading in surplus food, resulting in trade centers. Trade centers developed in to towns and cities. Soon the towns, cities and villages joined hand to become nations. That's how the first human civilization developed; driven by the desire for beer! Animals were now domesticated, to till the farms.
Now that plant food was back in fashion, hunting was passé. Meat was still a good source of protein, and with domesticated animals we didn't really have to even hunt. Food was finally easy to get, whether it was meat, or plant. And we ate them both, and we still do.
This diet of meat and plant hand in hand, continued for thousands of years. Humans developed philosophies and religions and morals, and these things started having an impact on our diet. Ever since, there has been a constant pressure from every possible directions against eating meat.
Religious/Moral View:
The first religious and moral stand on eating meat was taken by Buddha in India, around 2500 years ago. His stance was interesting. He allowed consuming meat, by only if the animal was not killed by you or someone else for you. So eating meat was okay, but not killing it. Later towards of end of Budhha's life, his brother wanted to take control. He tried to establish his claim by imposing a more strict code for the monks to be vegetarians altogether. Buddha resisted fiercely and technically Buddhists are still allowed to eat meat. But the aversion to killing took fancy of the people, and Buddhism became the first spark of vegetarianism. It was followed by another new religion Jainism, which was strictly against eating meat.
Islam takes a moral view on violence to animals but does not prohibit the actual killing. It says that an animal must not be caused undue pain while slaughtering (prohibits, beating with blunt objects, smashing the animal on the ground, strangling it, goring it alive etc.). I'm not very well conversant with Christianity or Judaism, but it doesn't look like it prohibits eating meat or killing animals either.
Modern Secular View:
Today we have secular groups taking a moral and ethical stand on eating meat. The origin of secular vegetarianism starts with Greek mathematician Pythagoras. In fact early vegetarians were known as Pythagoreans. The modern term "vegetarian" was coined around 150 years ago in Britain.
Killing animals causes pain to animals, and is hence "not cool". Plants are assumed to be immune to pain, hence chopping down a potato plant is "cool". Many people say lobsters and other lower forms of animals do not have the brain centers to sense pain, hence its "cool" to boil them alive.
Both the religions and secular proponents of vegetarianism hope for better sense to transcend human nature.
I disagree to parts of both the arguments. Pain is a sensory response to stimuli, and response to stimuli is one of the signs of life. When you boil a lobster, it thrashes trying to avoid the heat. It is clearly responding to the heat, hence must be sensing it. When you cut in to wood with an axe, scar tissue forms. The tree clearly senses the injury and is trying to respond by healing itself. Whether we call it "pain" or not, both plants and animals respond to stimulus. Just because we are more sensitive to the "pain" of a chicken, doesn't mean it is morally any different that a "pain" of the tree. Just like we are more likely to think that a puppy is more "cute" than a leech, a pigs "pain" affects us more than a fish's or a potatoes.
Nutritional View:Frankly speaking, there is no clear view on the "wheat or meat?" debate. I have seen pure vegetarians live healthy lives. I rarely eat vegetables, and don't remember when was the last time I fell ill. I believe we can do without meat. The scientific verdict is still out there, and I don't want to go in to detailed a debate here. My personal advice, based on all that I have read is - "eat little, eat often and eat mostly plants".
Economic View:
I admit, I have no clue about this :)
A peek in to the future:
Food Security:
Morals and fashion aside, the future of food will be driven by concerns of food security. World population is growing by leaps and bounds, but food production is barely keeping up. Less and and less land is available for food production. Fertile land is being lost to human settlement.
The argument against eating meat is pretty clear. Consider the following:
Livestock production is responsible for more climate change gasses than all the motor vehicles in the world.
It is responsible for 18 percent of human induced greenhouse gas emissions.
It is also a major source of land and water degradation.
Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth's entire land surface.
Livestock is a very inefficient way to convert energy to food. For every 1 Kg of pork, 60 Kg of feed is required. Most of the energy is wasted in moving around.
A meat-based diet requires 7 times as much land as a plant based diet.
Meat production requires 15-25 times more energy by weight than agricultural food production.
Food borne diseases originate mostly from meat products.
The list goes on and on, and piles up a damning case against a large-scale meat based diet. The only thing for meat, is that livestock can be sustained on land that is unfit for cultivation.
Other interesting things in the future
Synthetic meat - Research is already underway to create meat synthetically. Scientists can already produce these in small quantities in labs. While it will not match a chunk of real meat, a synthetic burger patty would come pretty close to a real one. Synthetic meat cause some moral confusion requiring differentiation between eating meat and source of meat. That is exactly the kind of confusion that arose when vegetarianism first started under Buddhism. Buddhists are allowed to eat meat but not kill animals, or make others kill on their behalf. Anyway, currently it costs over a $1 million to produce half a pound of artificial meat! So a commercial use is far in the future.
New food sources - Insects could turn out to be a valid food source. They are packed with protein, and there are found by the billions. They could be the secret weapon against global food shortage.
We will probably never have those sci-fi one-pill-a-day food pill. GE crops will probably play the biggest part in the future of food production.