VEGETARIANISM |
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Personal Vegetarianism Computer Science Amateur Radio Restricted Areas |
There are hundreds of reasons why people decide to ban meat from their diet. For a lot of vegetarians I personally know improvement of physical health is the major point. Others don't want to cause pain and death to the cute animals that can be seen on the meadows peacefully chewing some grass. On the other hand it isn't easy to get rid of the ravenous appetite for meat that will haunt your body from time to time when it is used to meat consumption. In fact, becoming a vegetarian is not a single step that could be done in one day, but rather a process which gradually ramps up and never ends. It doesn't really matter what your initial motivation was. Once you candidly engage with questions about the origin and nutritional value of your daily food compared to the actual need of a human's body you will kick off this process. You will run across people whose process may be in a more advanced state (also known as the jute dressed customers in health food store ;-). Talking to them may show you new aspects of vegetarianism. So even if your only intention was to loose some weight or to reduce your risk of a heart attack, you will eventually find yourself thinking about the ethic aspect of what you eat. There is a quotation from Albert Schweitzer about his ethic of "reverence for life":
"There slowly grew up in me an unshakable conviction that we have no right to
inflict suffering and death on another living creature unless there is some
unavoidable necessity for it, and that we ought to feel what a horrible thing
it is to cause suffering and death out of mere thoughtlessness."
I like this quotation very much because it is a good description of the process, and at the same time it points out the importance of leading a life for the benefit of other beings. Think about what you eat! (Poem, German) Give it a try and you will feel both your physical and your mental health improving! Some of the questions I hear most often are "If you don't eat meat, what do you eat then?" and "Isn't it boring to chew only carrots all day long?" The answer is that there is a great variety of vegetarian food and dishes. As a meat eater you just don't be aware of this fact. In the same way, someone who has been a vegetarian for years might no longer be able to tell you how many different types of sausages there are and to describe you their taste. If you live in a country where regional dishes are pretty much meat-oriented, just go International. Check out the cuisine of countries with a huge vegetarian population like India, Tibet, and China. The Mediterranean cuisine is also a tasty resource for vegetarian dishes. You may also try to "invent" your own recipes, which (in case you don't kill your family this way) even adds some more fun. Here are some of my own receipts: |