A Case for Being A Herbivore

The first 20 years of my life, I was a hardcore vegeterian. Except for that one little incident in school when I decided to taste some boiled egg from Shailesh W's "dabba" (lunch box) - and, yes, where I come from, eggs are considered non-vegeterian. I incurred the envy of my sister and the wrath of my mum - two tight ones across the cheeks (after the first, I did not even need to offer the other cheek, as Gandhi proposed) and a house arrest later, I was wiser. Eggs, chicken, mutton ... all of it was off-limits.

At college, I rebelled (or experimented, depending on how you look at it). And it continues till this day. I am not a vegetarian anymore. But lately, I have been thinking about the arguments about how being vegeterian or vegan is environment-friendlier, and, possibly, healthier. You probably must have read about this somewhere...or heard about it from friends...or simply knew it intuitively (I don't think my mum or sister knew it that time either... but that's another story all together!)

Yesterday, I saw this graph on a blog post from Sustainable Dave. Originally based on an article from Scientific American, I think its probably one of the first pieces I have seen that actually quantifies the environmental price we pay for some our our diet choices... I thought this was quite creative.

Courtesy: Scientific American

Jokes apart, this does appeal to me to reduce my meat intake ... or rather, I think, it makes a good case for adopting a balanced diet. And isn't that what doctors have been telling us since like ... forever?

Your thoughts?