The Real Reason Why People in India Don't Eat Meat: Healthy Lifestyle Adherents Will Be Disappointed (4 photos)

People give up eating meat for various reasons. Some for ethical reasons, others for health reasons, and still others because their religion prohibits it. However, few people know why people in India, the country where this diet is considered the most widespread, actually become vegetarians.

A user named ZuravLina1 spoke candidly about this. You can read her words below.





I lived in India, not as a tourist, but as a local. I studied at university with Tibetans. In my observations, Westerners who come to this culture from outside idealize it too much. They don't see the true reasons for Indian vegetarianism.



Wealthy Indians, modern, educated—those I spoke with—are not vegans. Not all, not always. They don't eat meat in hot weather because their bodies don't crave it. They crave food appropriate to the climate—fruits, greens, vegetables, grass. But when they go to England, the USA, or somewhere cold, they eat meat. At least, those I spoke with—students, the educated classes of Indian society—are far removed from esotericism.

They could laugh at Europeans for their narrow-mindedness about "Eastern spirituality." I once spoke with a friend who drives a rickshaw and works hard all day long. He's skinny, with thin arms. I treated him to a meat samsa, and he was grateful, saying that meat is the best food for hard physical work. He looked exhausted; I'd known him for a long time, having driven with him constantly through the streets of our suburb. He laughed at the Westerners, saying something like:

I guide tourists, and when I see they've come to visit shrines and such, to experience "high spirituality," I play along. To them, I'm a vegan, and my grandfather was a holy hermit. But we don't eat meat not so much out of necessity as because it's expensive, unavailable, and contagious.





In India, the vast majority of the population doesn't have refrigerators, only the wealthy in the cities. To buy chicken for dinner there (a quest I witnessed a Buryat woman, a research scientist, attempt), you buy a live chicken in a cage at the store, where they kill it and gut it in front of you. Naturally, no one wants to see or do that. And fresh meat is dangerous there, as there are a huge number of infected, diseased animals. I witnessed a man contract amebiasis after eating meat at a good restaurant. Veterinary services there are not organized at the state level, and no one monitors the epidemiological situation in the villages.

It happened once, and the woman didn't want to repeat it. She ate stewed meat or bought Deli meat in specialty stores.



Hindu veganism, which Westerners associate more with spirituality, is nothing more than an adaptation factor to climate and socio-economic conditions. In the heat, the body doesn't crave meat; it's a heavy food in such a climate. And it was so strange to me to see emaciated vegan men in Novosibirsk, at -20-30°C, when animal fat is the main warming factor in the diet of the endemic population.

Moreover, the most fanatical vegans are often those who have never even been to India. Those who haven't been there as tourists, but have lived there, are generally loyal and reasonable in their assessments of the conditions, "when I'll eat meat and when I won't."

The most modern and, in my opinion, the best approach to nutrition right now is intuitive eating. Listen to your body, what it wants and what it doesn't. What it's ready to eat now and in what quantities. Listen to yourself.

What do you think about this?