________________
.
Once man had an assured source of food supply and was no longer forced to live a nomadic existence moving from one territory to another in search of food, and often fighting for it with the other tribes, he had time to sit back and think of more creative things. It is during this period following the birth of agriculture that some of the greatest men in the entire human history came out with ideas, which have had such a revolutionary impact on our behaviour and way of life and whose validity has not diminished with time. The Jain philosophers laid special stress on non-violence and renunciation of desire. Both these concepts are of the greatest significance to the human species as it prepares itself to enter the new century, following some of the most remarkable developments in science and technology. Population and Human Nutrition
Paradoxically the very discovery of agriculture is now creating a serious problem in meeting the food needs of mankind. The problem basically arises from man's cultural and social evolution in the last hundred years. Our present day food need which have placed such a great strain on agricultural production are a function of two major factors First, the developing countries continue to maintain a very high birth rate even though this is no longer relevant to our species in the context of development of the last 50 years in the field of medicine and public health. Evolution favoured a high birth rate at a time when the young offspring of most animals including man were vulnerable to death from disease epidemics. The discovery of life saving drugs in recent years bas drastically cut down the death rate and it is clear that man is no longer required to maintain a high birth rate for the survival of his species. While the western countries have accepted this message, the eastern societies by and large have ignored it with the result that human populations in their countries have expanded greatly in the last 30 years and will reach explosive proportions towards the end of the century. As if this was not enough to create a serious food problem, the western countries have increasingly adopted during the last 50 years the plant-animal-human food chain. There is little evidence to show that this is the best way to meet our dietary protein needs. There has been a great deal of discussion on the biological value of proteins from animal and plant sources. It is true that experiments have shown that proteins from plant sources are often effcient in one or more essential amino acids and, therefore, their contribution to body growth tends to be limited. However, when proteins from several different plant sources are combined, the deficiency of one is made up by the presence of some of the essential amino acids in another. The earlier view that some quantity of animal protein is necessary in the human diet is no longer considered scientifically valid. It has been fully established that mixed proteins of vegetable origin such as those from cereals and pulses are of high biological value and do not have to be supplemented with proteins of animal origin. Thus, the pulses are sich in lysine, while the cereal grains contain adequate amounts of methionine. Significance of Vegetarian Diet
It is here that we find the Jain message of non-violence and vegetarian diet of very great practical value for a world which faces serious problems of food shortages for an expected population of 6 billion people by the end of the century. It has been estimated that India alone will require an additional quantity of nearly 100 million tonnes of foodgrains in the year 2000 A.D. The requirement of cereals for the world as a whole by this period, according to an estimate made by the OECD, would be 2307 million metric tonnes. While agricultural scientists are responding to this challenge by increasing crop yields, it is clear that a shift from the non-vegetarian diet can go a long way in meeting the future food need of man. This follows from the fact that while the consumption of food grains in most developing countries is less than 200 kg. per person in a year, the corresponding quantity in many of the western countries is nearly one tonne. A large part of this quantity is fed to animals for the production of meat and since animals are not good converters of food grains the efficiency of the non-vegetarian food chain is low. It has been suggested by many western scientists that the world food supplies in the years to come could be greatly increased by eliminating the consumption
जैन तत्व चिन्तन : प्राधुनिक सन्दर्भ
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
