My hypothesis on why vegetarian food is preferred over non-vegetarian food.

Since my parents are vegetarian, I am also vegetarian. Though it was not by choice that I adopted, but it is a conscious decision to continue it. Initially my decision was aligning with the opinion that many people have: that is not to induce any pain for any living beings.  Over a time, my rationale to the decision changed but the decision still holds good.

Long ago, I saw a movie Alive it is based on a real story about people who survive a plane crash.  They eventually resort to eat remains of dead people as that's the only thing left. This made me to interrogate my belief and was thinking would I resort to eating dead people if I were in their position. I can’t really say unless I would be in that position but logically yes, after all one has to live. I don’t know how would a herbivorous animal would do in that situation. 

So the question now is what makes one to choose Vegetarian over Non-Vegetarian? While thinking deeply on this and I did some research, I had formed my OWN hypothesis why one should resort to Vegetarianism instead of Non-Vegetarian.  

Couple of weeks back I happen to bump into Madhav's posting in his blog-site and interestingly he also had the same question (sure many have) and discusses on why he supported being vegetarian  over being non-vegetarian. In his childhood his reason was on the grounds of  morality towards other living beings and he explains further how his opinion changed over period of time.  He finally concludes that “ no living organism capable of feeling suffering, should be hurt for our own pleasure or for our nutrition”. 

Though his arguments are interesting his conclusion did not convince me. I responded to his post with my comment which I summarize below:  

The following are my understanding on why Vegetarian foods is preferred over Non-vegetarian. I would be happy if someone would either prove or disprove my hypothesis.

DISCLAIMER : I cannot quote anything/ anyone and I re-iterate this is my OWN hypothesis for having preferences on Vegetarian foods over Non-vegetarian foods

The whole thing about the pain / morality is absurd. Whether you eat plants or other animals its a life that is killed. If one cannot kill an animal so is a plant. My argument of preference to Vegetarian over non-vegetarian is based on the source of energy and its storage.

Vegetarian:

The definition is simple: Vegetarian is anything that originates from plants. Following are some of the characteristics of plant (please recollect what you learnt in Biology in school) 

• Plants receives and stores energy directly from five primary sources of energy viz., light, heat, air, water and soil. Plant does; neither animals nor eggs nor fish.
• It has a peculiar quality to keep life in muted mode  for example a seed has life in it even though they are not active i.e. it’s not dead yet. Plants, vegetables and leaves have live cells.
• The chloroplast cells in plant continuously get energy from light and oxygen and stores it even though they are uprooted and generally don’t die for sometime.

Non-Vegetarian:

Once again the definition is simple: anything that does not qualify as Vegetarian is Non-Vegetarian. Following are some of the characteristics of Non-Vegetarian.

• They acquire energy from secondary source or third source i.e. plants (secondary source) / animals (third source)
• The Animal is killed before it is cooked/ except egg where it has life until it is cooked. The cells die because there is no chloroplast in animal cell.

Note before: Plant Cell is different from animal cell

Vegetarian is  preferred because:

• The energy is sourced from from primary source
• And the plant cells have traces of active or muted life until cooked

The whole thing about pain does not fit into the logic as the plants can feel pain in spite of not having a nervous system. (For those who don’t recollect, search for works of Sir J C Bose and Sir C V Raman)

Therefore in my own way, the order of preference should be:

• Plants- Fruits, Veg, Greens leaves (less than a day old), other plant parts, Flowers, Honey, Dairy products
• Cereals, Seeds, Pulses, nuts
• Dried plant origin foods
• Treated plant origin foods
• Egg
• Products of Herbivores 
• Products of Omnivores 
• Products of Carnivores

Comments are most welcome :)