Book Title: Jainism The Cosmic Vision
Author(s): Kumarpal Desai
Publisher: UK Mahavir Foundation London

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Page 88
________________ Vegetarianism humans and sustain the animals. Our country Belgium is totally non-vegetarian and two of our food dishes viz. carbonades and waterzooi are popular all over the world and these dishes, a craving for the foreigners, are made of beef and fish. Here the people are fond of relishing different species of fish. Vegetarians, like you, won't get suitable food anywhere. Poor vegetarian ! Some of them have to eat potato-chips on the roadside, but the tomato sauce on the chips is a non-vegetarian item. I think, you don't intend to starve this country by your sophisticated arguments favouring vegetarianism." Paul's argument was very aggressive. Stella's displeasure against Paul's offensive method and angry mood was evident on her face. It seemed that she did not like the disrespect that was shown to one whom they had invited as a guest. However Paul was right in saying that 'the whole of Belgium was full of non-vegetarians'. But I was very quite and polite. I said, "Mr. Paul ! When you eat meat of any animal, I think, you don't believe that you eat it's meat alone, you are also gulping down all the vegetables that the animal has so far eaten. One interesting and specific calculation has revealed that when you enjoy a dish of a 1 kg. of meat, you gulp down 10 kg of vegetables simultaneously, but unwittingly. This would mean that a single non-vegetarian eats away the meal of ten vegetarians. In terms of an entire life's food-stuff of an individual, a single non-vegetarian eats away food-stuff fifty times more than that of a vegetarian." Stella added, “It would mean that non-vegetarians are the root cause of starvation on this earth." Rene had also something to say. He said, “You talked about the starvation resulting from food being eaten away by 71 Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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