To eat or not to eat

I used to think a person describing and overtly showing her love for animals (like dogs and cats) but then enjoying a nice steak or chicken or sausage, was a hypocrite.

But then I met people lovingly tending to their gardens, talking and taking care of their plants and flowers and being anguished if something happened to them, and then going to the kitchen and chopping and boiling leafy greens and vegetables.

Whether plants feel pain, are conscious, sentient beings is an old query.

Sir Jagdish Chandra Bose tried to find out  the answer and instead raised the possibility that not just plants and animals but all material in this universe has a common law. He showed that like animals, plants and even minerals /metals show similar responses to toxins, stimulants and poisons. In his words,

'Amongst such phenomena, how can we draw a line of demarcation and say, here the physical ends and there the physiological begins? Such absolute barriers do not exist. Do they [his results] not show us that the responsive processes seen in life, are fore-shadowed in the non-life? - that the physiological is related to the physico-chemical? That there is no abrupt break but a uniform and continuous march of law?"

(The Life and Work of Sir Jadis C Bose - Sir Patrick Geddes.)

(Aside: The Vedic concept of Brahman sounds familiar here but I'm not sure if that includes inorganic matter.)

The book and documentary 'The Secret Life of Plants' also showed some interesting experiments but apparently the results were not reproduce-able and hence were discredited.

On vegan forums, one frequently hears an appeal to common sense in response to the above question - how can you not differentiate between the crying and thrashing of an animal about to be slaughtered and the silent, event-less cutting of a vegetable.

But what then of creatures like molluscs, clams, oysters. Where do we draw the line for sensitivity? Who made pain and suffering as the criteria for humans to decide whether it was okay to kill a living being? What if plants and invertebrate animals do feel pain but we just don't have sufficiently advanced tools to detect that yet?

There is a lot of literature out there about these ethical issues.

But because these issues are debatable or perhaps due to a compassion deficiency, the guilt trip approach to veganism does not appeal to me.

For one, I suspect that excess guilt about what one eats could lead to stuff like this.

Also, in many cases I see a selective and convenient application of guilt. To put it crudely, the logic seems to be 'at least we (vegans) kill less than you (meat eaters) do'. Which for some reason doesn't sound very convincing.

For me, the most compelling reasons to adopt a largely plant based diet or to become vegetarian/vegan would be the impact of large scale factory farming methods on earth and the long-term adverse health effects of having meat and animal products as significant parts of one's diet.

Not that being a vegetarian insures against such diseases. It would be interesting to compare the rates of obesity and related complications in vegans vs. vegetarians.

Bringing about behavior change among people to lead them to vegetarianism or veganism might be important. But I wonder if the guilt approach fails to work for others as it does for me.

Being vegeterian and some rules of thumb

I agree with Michael Pollan. Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

The palate demands variety. More so, a palate used to eating some non-vegeterian food and a lot of processed food. After the first few days of enthusiasm, it's hard to continue with the somewhat restrictive diet. The mind and body want convenience. It becomes a bit difficult to stick to a mostly-plants diet in a country where animal foods are considered essential.

A simple example - ordering a sandwich at Subway.

Here's a list of the sandwiches from their website. Availability varies by location:
B.L.T, Black Forest Ham, Chicken & Bacon Ranch Melt, Cold Cut Combo, Buffalo Chicken, Italian B.M.T, Meatball marinara, Oven Roasted Chicken, Pizza sub, Roast beef, Steak and cheese, Subway club, Smokehouse BBQ chicken, Spicy Italian, Tuna, The Big Philly Cheesesteak, Subway Melt, Sweet onion chicken teriyaki, Turkey Breat, Turkey breast & Black forest Ham, Veggie Delite, Egg and cheese omelette sandwich. Some locations have Veggie Patty too.

Only two of those twenty one sandwiches are plant based. And one of those two (patty) is highly processed. And this is supposedly THE healthiest low-cost fast food chain in the country.

So the inevitable option is to cook one's daily meals and carry them around. Not too tough, needs some planning and preparation. The health benefits are worth it.

There are so many diets and rules going around that it gets discouraging for someone trying to get it 'right'. Vegan lifestyle, primal 'grok' diet, mostly vegeterian, eggeterian, the government-FDA recommendations, banana diet, Ornish, Atkins, low carb, low fat. And these are only the popular ones. Many nutritionists have come up with books about how to eat. All of them claim some virtue.

For this reason, I like Pollan's simple rule which doesn't try to kill me with guilt before reviving me with some diet panacea.

Processed food is fun to eat. It is designed that way - to make you feel good. So I have no intention of giving it up completely. The same goes for non-vegeterian food like chicken and sea food. Luckily, I've never been a meat eater. Till the time when I gain greater zen-like self-control for these kinds of food, a rule I can implement is to eat that kind of food but only from the best sources, expensive as they may be.

So chocolate, ice cream, pizza, white sourdough bread, chicken, seafood, even coffee - can all be had as long as I have them only from quality outlets. So a cup of Pitango gelato is to be preferred over a tub of Eddy's ice cream, although both may cost the same. A small cup of macchiato from the local rebel coffee shop is better than the huge 'regular' cup of Einstein Bros coffee.  This will automatically cut down on the frequency and the expense associated with eating this kind of food.

If you are what you eat it's better to go for quality over convenience, even if it pinches the pocket.