FYI... The flesh-eaters of India

[Guest guest]

in case any of you are curious, as I have been, as to the percentage of

vegetarians in India, the article below states that it is only 20% and

declining.

 

 

---------- Forwarded Message ----------

 

Text PAMHO:10611629 (83 lines) [W1]

Varsana (dd) SRS (UK National Office)

31-Oct-05 08:16 -0500

ICE (ISKCON Communications Europe) [3472]

(ISKCON) UK Communications [1994]

Lal Krishna (Dasa) SDG (IC Resource Centre - UK) [62477]

(received: 31-Oct-05 08:47 -0500)

FYI... The flesh-eaters of India

---------------------------

 

The flesh-eaters of India

 

Arvind Kala

 

EDITORIAL

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1273309,curpg-1.cms

25/10/05

 

Though largely unnoticed, a historic dietary shift is taking hold in India.

Non-vegetarian Indians are eating eggs, chicken, and meat more often and in

greater amounts. And a vast number of vegetarians — 20% of India's

population, according to the authoritative Peoples of India — have begun to

try out flesh foods outside home.

 

Hard data and anecdotal evidence bear out this dietary shift. India's per

capita consumption of poultry meat has doubled in the last five years.

Though urban areas eat three-quarters of India's poultry meat, the

consumption of egg, fish, and meat has also gone up in rural homes, reports

the National Sample Survey.

 

This dietary change isn't surprising because global trends show that

increa-sed meat-eating accompanies rising incomes. For India, however, it's

an irreversible moment in its history. Home to over 90% of the world's

Hindus, Hinduism is the world's only major religion with a streak of

vegetarianism. But globalisation is changing that, as Indian food habits

move in tune with a meat-eating world.

 

India's per capita consumption of meat is still tiny at 5.2 kg per annum.

The average Pakistani, Chinese and American eats two times, 10 times and 23

times more meat, respectively, than an Indian. The Hindu unease over flesh

food has fallen for three reasons.

 

First, the falling price of eggs and poultry meat thanks to spiralling

production; second, the seductiveness of inexpensive tandoori chicken

available at every street corner; and third, the overseas travel of some

four million Indians every year. When they go abroad and find everybody

eating meat and vegetarian food hard to find, they can't help but be

influenced.

 

The cheapest meats will sell the most in a poor country. This is entirely

true of India. Despite BJP propaganda, hard data suggests that Indians have

little aversion to eating beef (available only in West Bengal and Kerala)

and buffalo meat. These two meats sell nearly twice as much as chicken

because their cost is half.

 

And chicken sells four times as much as goat meat because it's much cheaper

by Rs 40 a kg in Delhi. It's all a question of money. Pig meat, for

instance, is widely regarded by traditional Hindus as unclean. But it sells

much more than goat meat, thanks to its lower cost. A person's wallet

decides his meat preferences.

 

A non-vegetarian Muslim Bangladeshi eats less meat per capita than a partly

vegetarian Indian because Bangladeshis are poorer. Despite a trend towards

increased meat-eating, India has more vegetarians than the whole world put

together. A few decades can't wipe out centuries of tradition. Meat-eating

(and even egg-eating) in India is full of idiosyncrasies.

 

Strict vegetarians will eat a cake with egg in it but will recoil from a

fried egg. Experimenting vegetarians will eat a meat kebab or mutton curry

but not a meat piece. Lakhs of north Indians will eat mutton but not fish or

buffalo meat. More men than women eat meat. People don't eat meat on

religious days and when they grow old.

 

Meat sales fall on Tuesdays, a Hindu holy day. Many Hindu pilgrim towns

don't permit the sale of meat and even eggs. Widespread vegetarian

eccentricities make it impossible to estimate the number of vegetarian

households in India. The National Sample Survey puts the percentage at a

questionable 42. But it's the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation

which best describes India's dietary shift to meat.

 

"Strict vegetarians are becoming less strict", it says. Globalisation,

however, irons out crinkles in human behaviour. Globalisation plus the need

of the stomach has even eroded India's taboo against eating beef and buffalo

meat. Twenty years ago, beef and buffalo meat accounted for 3% of India's

meat production. Today, they account for 50%.

 

Anecdotal evidence suggests that it's only the upper castes esti-mated at

16% of India's population in the 1931 census which avoid buffalo meat. Other

castes have no such reservations. They have the numbers.

 

The writer is a journalist

(Text PAMHO:10611629) -----

 

------- End of Forwarded Message ------