Day 18: Ahimsa and Vegetarianism

I thought today I’d take a break from complaining about my life and complain about something else: the fact that, as a Hindu this month, I can’t eat meat.

Most people know that devout Hindus are generally vegetarians. The choice not to eat animals stems from the Hindu respect for life—all forms of life. This reverence for living things is called ahimsa. According to the research I’ve done, the idea of ahimsa first developed in Hinduism around 600 b.c.e., and with it, the notion that Hindus should not eat meat.

Hinduism is actually unusual among world religions because it promotes the worship of animals. Lots of Hindu deities are depicted riding on different animals. Ganesha, for example, my favorite elephant-headed god, rides around on a mouse. You gotta love that image!

Cows are considered particularly sacred, and so are peacocks. Hindus won’t slaughter these animals under any circumstances.

I’m not a big peacock eater myself, so I’m okay with that part. Cows, on the other hand, have long been a staple in my diet. So, I knew going into this project that, food-wise, this was going to be a tough month.

To try to spare myself unnecessary agony (and risk abandoning the project altogether), I decided to ease into the vegetarian thing. For the first two weeks of the month, I let myself continue to eat chicken, operating on the idea that I should be allowed to eat anything that they serve at my local Indian restaurant. Of course, that means I could also eat goat, but for some reason, they didn’t have any goat meat for sale at my grocery store. Strange.

For the second half of the month, however, I knew I would have to go completely vegetarian. It’s been four days now and I’m already going crazy. It seems like the only food choices I have left are salad, pasta, and various bread products. I can only eat so many vegetables. Plus, I never feel full when I eat them. I think I could eat a wheelbarrow full of broccoli and cucumbers and still be ravenous. And don’t tell me to eat tofu. I’d rather starve to death.

I’m a big fan of Indian food, but when you eliminate those delicious chicken dishes with spicy sauces, the meal just seems incomplete. And I have a question. Why does so much Indian food appear to be nothing more than a sauce? I know most Hindus don’t meat, but is there also some rule I don’t know about that says they can’t eat whole vegetables? I’m all for dipping a piece of naan in some tangy sauce, but my body is starting to crave things that need to be chewed.

I know I can make it until the end of the month without eating meat. I’ll be more irritable than usual (look out, world!), and I suspect I’ll be getting some quizzical looks if I skip the turkey at Thanksgiving dinner. I’ll probably also gain 15 pounds eating all these carbohydrates.

So if I start to sound even less coherent than usual, blame it on the lack of meat. Man, even peacocks are starting to look pretty tasty right about now.