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Recently I have heard on radio and read in the media that people in America are discovering the benefits of vegetarianism. I first thought that perhaps it was a fad that would soon pass. Or perhaps the trend in diet was like the trend in fashion. What is craze today will become stale a few years from now.
However recently at a dinner party, I had the fortune of meeting one man in his fifties and hearing his life experience in regard to food and disease. I would like to share with you what I learnt from this man of experience.
This man was born in West Bengal in a Hindu Brahmin family. He says that his family was non-vegetarian. However when he was in India he did not eat much meat because meat and fish were so expensive and he could hardly afford to eat them except perhaps once in two or three months.
Then when he came to America, in a few years he found that he was enjoying chicken almost on a daily basis. He made friends with some Muslims from Hyderabad, and while he took delight in serving them dinner with chicken curry, when he visited their home, they took delight in offering him dinner of rice and Keema (i.e. ground beef.) So he developed the taste for beef.
A few years down the road, he made friends with some Sikhs and with them he ate pork chops with sliced bread on some nights and rice with curried pork on others.
Then a few years later he developed the disease of piles or hemorrhoids. He continued to take medication but did not change his food habits. The disease progressively got worse and finally he had to undergo operation. The doctor assured him that after the operation his disease would be cured.
After the operation he went through one more minor operation after which he was told that he was suffering from mild form of colitis. The various doctors he consulted over the years prescribed medication but not one of them told him to change his diet.
Then his condition got worse and he underwent colonoscopy after which his doctor said that he suffered from colitis. Still the doctor told him to "take regular diets." He told the doctor that he had read on web sites that some doctors recommended taking diets that are rich in fiber so as to avoid constipation.
"Do not believe in everything you read! " was what this specialist in digestive diseases remarked.
So, upon the advice of his doctor, he continued to take fish and chicken and occasionally goat meat.
But his condition remained bad. Seeing blood in his stool daily made him psychologically weak. He did not know what to do! He seemed to have little faith that the doctors could help him.
Then he remembered how one Ayurvedic doctor from India who was visiting America recently had told him to avoid meat and fish altogether and also to embrace spirituality.
(He also remembered some comments about Western medicine from this Ayurvedic doctor which were simply not true.)
In the meantime his cholesterol had gone up and so was his blood pressure.
He decided to reduce his intake of beer, shun dessert altogether and go on a strict vegetarian diet. After doing all these things for three weeks, he found that his colitis was very much under control. He continued to take medication but while earlier these medicines had little effect, now they seemed to have tremendous effect.
He came to the conclusion that it was due to vegetarian diet that his colitis was under control and he thought that with some more effort he may be able to get off the daily dose of medicines too.
However despite taking vegetarian diet, his condition did not improve on a permanent basis. It would improve for a while and then again deteriorate suddenly for a few days for no reason whatsoever.
Then he tried another experiment. He started taking non-vegetarian diet for a while and found that this did not cause any deterioration in his medical condition.
He concluded that he needed to take medication so as to correct his medical condition when it deteriorated. He also concluded that vegetarian diet did not have great merit except that it causes less constipation which helped his condition in a slight way.
So, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that vegetarian diet has merit in that it is easy on your system and it also causes less consipation. It may also be good for your soul in that you do not have to feel guilty about animal cruelty thinking that you are eating flesh of an animal.
However, non-vegetarian diet too has great merit. Growing children need some intake of fish and meat in order to develop strong bones and muscles. As a man grows older, he should reduce his intake of meat and fish and after fifty, he should try to go on a vegetarian diet completely. This will help avoid problems of high blood pressure and cholesterol.
A good rule of thumb is 80-20, i.e. eighty percent vegetables and grains and twenty percent meat, fish and eggs.
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