PROUT
the Progressive Utilisation Theory
Human beings are the highest evolved beings. We feel happiness and pain to an extent that no other creature can. We experience physical pain when we burn ourselves, break our bones, have an illness or disease. We also experience mental pain when our beloved ones pass away.
We know that killing other people is a crime. We have even learned that killing animals pets is inhuman.
And yet, the majority of the worlds populations fills its stomach with meat from slaughtered animals.
Human beings have to learn that animals, just as human beings do, feel pain whenever they are hurt physically. And if you have ever seen a mother cow, standing beside her baby calf, witnessing how it is being slaughtered, you will quickly realise that animals, too, feel a great amount of mental agony.
Having a body with nerves and a developped glandular system, they do so much more than plants ever could.
Why not, then, stop eating meat and lead a vegetarian lifestyle?
Ratinality may tell us to do so. In fact, there are a number of further reasons to do so, as is shown on the list below.
But habits are not easily given up. And the body of a person who has eaten meat during all of his or her life will certainly feel uneasy and demand meat. The period of transition may be short or may be long, but a progressive-minded person ought to encourage others to become a vegetarian and to help end the suffering caused to our neighbour animals.
Undergoing a temporary fast may help our body and mind to forsake eating meat. And having the regular company of other vegetarians certainly helps too.
Here is a list of 10 reasons to be a vegetarian, taken from the sites:
http://www.ecomall.com/greenshopping/pveg1.htm
and
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vines/4482/reasveg.html
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TEN GOOD REASONS TO CHOOSE VEGETARIAN
1) Your health: prevent disease. Meat-eating has been linked with cancer, heart disease, strokes, diabetes, hypertension, osteoporosis, kidney stones, and many other devastating diseases. By eliminating meat from your diet you can take a crucial step towards a long life of health and happiness.
2) Increased energy and endurance: A vegetarian diet improves your stamina, concentration, and sense of well-being. In one study, athletes who switched to a vegetarian diet improved their endurance to almost 3 times as much as those who remained carnivorous.
3) Avoid toxic food contaminants: Flesh foods are loaded with dangerous poisons and contaminants such as hormones, herbicides and pesticides, and antibiotics. As these toxins are all fat-soluble, they concentrate in the fatty flesh of the animals. Not to mention the viruses, bacteria and parasites such as salmonella, trichinella and other worms, and toxoplasmosis parasites. As a result, 15 million pounds of antibiotics are used in animal production every year- These drugs end up in your milk and meat.
4) Humans are by design vegetarian: our flat teeth are perfect for grinding grains and vegetables, not for tearing apart animal flesh. Similarly, our hands are designed for gathering, not for flesh-ripping. Our saliva contains the enzyme alpha-amylase, the sole purpose of which is to digest the complex carbohydrates in plant foods. (This enzyme is not found in the saliva of carnivores.) Basically we have all the right apparatus to consume vegetarian products, and none of the right apparatus for flesh foods.
5) Care for the environment: by improperly using animals for food, we are eating ourselves off the planet. The raising of animals specifically to kill them and eat them has resulted in incredible waste and devastation of our precious resources. Just one example of the consequences is the fact that due to plundering our farmlands to fatten animals for slaughter, over 4 million acres of cropland are being lost to erosion in this country every year.
A lot more water is required in animal agriculture than in plant agriculture. It takes only about 25 gallons of water to produce a pound of wheat and around 390 gallons to produce just one pound of beef. In fact, It takes less water to produce the food that a pure vegetarian needs for one year than to produce the food that a meat eater needs for a month.
6) Help end world hunger: every day forty thousand children on this planet needlessly starve to death. According to the Department of Agriculture statistics, one acre of land can grow 20,000 pounds of potatoes. That same acre of land, when used to grow cattlefeed, can produce less than 165 pounds of edible cow flesh. 60 million people will starve to death this year - 60 million people could be adequately fed by the grain saved if Americans reduced their intake of meat by 10 percent.
7) Become a more peaceful person: when we consume animal flesh products we are necessarily at odds with nature and our fellow living beings. Consumption of flesh foods has been scientifically linked with violent and aggressive behavior.
8) Have compassion for animals: animals who are raised for slaughter needlessly experience incredible suffering throughout their life and death. Many people try not to think of the torturous experiences of the animal whose flesh ended up in their hamburger or on their dinner table. But if it is distasteful to think about, consider what it is like to experience it.
Many factory-farmed animals never see a blade of grass in their lifetime.
Animals raised for food production are nearly always deprived of natural sexual, social, hygienic, and parental behaviors.
Many animals are transported to slaughter without food and water for a long time! Millions die on the way to slaughter.
9) Vegetarianism is moral and ethical: give the devastating consequences of meat eating on an individual, social and ecological level, as thinking, caring beings we should choose vegetarianism. Many great philosophers and scientists such as Rabindranath Tagore, Plato, Socrates, Leo Tolstoy, George Bernard Shaw and Albert Einstein have taught the morality of vegetarianism.
10) Animals are God's property and have a right to life: the living beings temporarily encaged in animal bodies are not here for us to harm and exploit. We are meant to act as caretakers and protectors of animals and the planet, not exploiters and killers. Many world religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Seventh Day Adventists, Mormons, and Jainists all teach that eating animal flesh is wrong.