On April 3rd to be precise, me and my friend were discussing in general about each others lives, when my friend let out an interesting thing about non-vegetarians. Well both of us do know quite a few people in our inner circle who are non-vegetarians, but the discussion was about the impact of the same on one's mental condition. We both conformed on one line of thought which was that people who eat non-veg too much (say once a day or more than that) are likely to be more arrogant, short-tempered and violent in nature. And we do have our experiences to vouch for that.
Then I thought may be we are prejudiced. It might be just that we know these people do eat non-veg atleast once per day and just linking their character to their eating habit. So I just googled a little to see if there is any other story or details that would support our theory. Well, guess what, we were right :)
I, for one, knew a person who could eat non-veg even twice a day, given a chance. In Tamil we say, parakarthula aeroplaneaiyum midhakaradhula kappalaiyum thavara ellathaiyum saapiduvaanga :D. This person was a perfect example for negative energy. Not to mention about being egoistic, stubborn, short-tempered, violent (could get into a fight even before you could know that there could be a fight in that situation) and always thought that nothing was beyond this person and whatever this person thought was always so right. Well it doesnt mean that this person is a total failure. Every coin has two sides. This person had other positive characteristics like being an intellectual and persistent. But here the discussion is mostly on the traits of a person having non-veg very frequently and very much.
I think not all the non-veg eating people have these traits. I know quite a lot of people who eat non-veg once a week or whenever they want a change of taste. That doesnt hurt at all. But eating daily or making it part of your daily food habit does have its own impact. It increases the animal instincts in a person and hence the violent traits.
How do I validate this. Well, the person I mentioned about, tried quitting non-veg for a month and tried to live on pure veg diet, but guess what, this person became sober, tired, weak and barely had enough stamina to keep going and so this person resumed eating non-veg. The interesting part here is that this person had not touched non-veg during the teen years. But once placed in a job, non-veg came back to this persons life and refused to go.
The attitude and behaviour of this person continued to change over the years as and when the intake of non-veg increased.
Well, I am not a person who would say dont eat this or eat that. Well if eating non-veg regularly is going to impact ones mental health condition, then I guess one should think before eating it.
There was a nice article about something of this sort here and here too.
I guess if we keep looking we will get more. Basically, our food intake should help in the nurturing of our mind and not destory it.
To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.
- Buddha
