RIFLE RANGE BOY: diet

“For a vegetarian, you seem to have a lot of demands,” I told myself.

I am obviously out of sync with what being vegetarian means these days. At an age when everyone demands rights, I guess it is the same for vegetarians (and vegans, too). Rightly so too. Everyone deserves their place in the sun or rather on Earth, the rich, the economically challenged, the disabled bodies and pretty much everyone else.

From the things that I understood in my impressionable age, by sticking around erudite adults, I assumed that one needs to control his primal desires to be a better soul. By suppressing innate desires to attack, devour and consume fellow members of the animal kingdom, it is believed people would pick up more brownie karmic points in the repeating cycles of rebirth. Hurting the sentiments of their own kind with their uppity attitude does not count.

Of course, some have turned green for health reasons. Perhaps they had a pressing need to care for the environment or just ethical judgment of killing a fellow being with no religious undertones.

My impression of how a vegetarian conducts himself is perhaps moulded by looking at a vegetarian friend, GR, a Brahmin and a vegetarian from birth. Whilst caught in the annual floods in Kelantan on our tour duty, we were left with just rice to eat. There were no vegetables to harvest, no dry land for hens to lay eggs and, of course, no fishing due to the monsoon. Chickens were off the menu. They had probably drowned or could not be transported from the barns.

So my Brahmin friend ended up sustaining life with just rice and soya sauce. It went on for one week till normalcy prevailed. The rest of us had sardines, anchovies or fermented shrimp paste (belacan).

After laying down the ground rules of who can consume what and the differentiation between vegans, ovo-vegans and lacto-vegetarians, the fight is not quite over. You forgot Jains, who avoid tubers and roots. Then you have the nuevo-riche with gluten-free, lactose-free, sugar-free necessity. Eggs of free-ranging chicken are a no-no for some ovo-vegetarians, as their eggs could have been fertilized; hence, they are technically live animals.

Vegans have claimed that a plant-only diet offers a multitude of health benefits, is better for the environment, and is the only ethical choice. While some of them respect the dietary choices of others, some of them proselytize with religious-like fervor and are working to get their diet adopted by all of humanity.

What started as a personal wish to control animalistic behaviours in us as we are what we eat and a wish to protect the environment has morphed into something laughable sometimes. It has become a fashion statement, an elitist snobbish gesture. Bending backwards to be nice to animals, they have no qualms about abusing fellow human to meet their dietary need. They also selectively choose to close an eye upon the cruelty done to dairy cows and the indiscriminate culling of male calves.

At the end of the day, it is economics, stupid!

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The Game Changers (Documentary, 2019)

I grew up trying to ward off suggestions from animal-loving vegans who tried their level best to convince me that structurally humans are supposed to be herbivores. They justified their assertions, with seemingly scientific support about our dentition. I would tell them that if we were born to eat just plants, our facial structures would look a goat's. And that I loved my animals too much that I eat them every day.

In the late 19th century British India, Sikh and Muslim soldiers were favoured over the Hindus to serve the Crown. Apparently, the Hindu soldiers, being mostly vegetarians, lack the prowess that made a bloody thirsty sepoy. Meat consumption had always been linked to muscle power, athletism and aggression. Now what this documentary is saying is that we have got it all wrong. All the things that we thought about being vegan are actually just the opposite. Consuming plant-based products and avoiding meat, fish and eggs are the sure way of health, endurance, recovery and even building muscle bulk in athletes of all categories including wrestlers, footballers and weight lifters. When compared to meat-eaters, plant-eaters are claimed to be more virile.

In the documentary, the gladiators are hailed as the ultimate warriors, respected for their dedication to the blood sports. Archaeological discoveries found their bones to have high strontium levels indicative of them living on nuts and cereals. And they had solid bones. Of course, they had strong bones because their lifespan was extremely short. They were not fearless warriors bur rather fearful captives fighting for their dear lives. These slaves were not fed on a special diet but were hurled skimpy discards before being thrown into the arena to defend against fearsome soldiers or jungle beasts. Their life expectancy was less than 30, hardly any time for osteoporosis to set in.

This is the first sign that something is not right in the delivery of the facts. The rest of it had to be taken with a pinch of salt. There are plenty of cherrypicking in highlighting the agenda that they are putting forward.

The film goes on arguing the merits of staying vegan, i.e. avoiding animal products altogether - no meat, fish, poultry or eggs. The plant kingdom has it all, nutrients, vitamins, proteins and all. There is no need at all for animals in our food. Towards the end, the film refers to many highly controversial studies. To put the seal of approval to these, they resort to name dropping. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a bodybuilder who won all his medal as a meat-gobbling athlete, now calls to go vegan. Jackie Chan and James Cameron appear in the credit roll. To support their hypothesis, they showcase the performers of many renowned international record-breaking athletes, ultramarathoners, Grand Prix racers, weight lifters, cyclists and more.

For every point that they put forward, there are as many counter-arguments against it online.

The documentary seems to postulate that glucose is the only form of energy consumed by the brain and muscles. Basic sciences tell us that we can use energy from carbohydrates, fats and finally protein in extreme conditions. Glucose (stored as glycogen) is the primary source of energy while fat is an efficient second line of defence. It is agreed in the scientific community that with the widespread of simple carbohydrates and sugars in the modern diet, our body's ability to burn ketones as fuel is dwindling. We are addicted to sugars for the instant rush. Hence extreme sportsmen like triathletes have to train their bodies via intermittent fasting to prepare the body to burn fat and not to depend too much on glucose. The brain also uses ketones.

The excessive carbohydrate intake regime, as advised by the film, will only build up visceral fat. That is a marker of morbidity which may predispose individuals to coronary artery diseases, stroke and metabolic diseases. Never in the film is fat discussed as a form of energy.

Endothelial damage is assumed after observing a cloudy blood sample. It is a too simplistic an indicator of ill health. Conclusions cannot be made after short intervals of change of meals.

It is suggested that our digestive tract is too long for us to be carnivores. Carnivores typically have shorter tracts (as compared to the body height) and herbivores longers ones. But the acidity of our gastric juices is high, just like carnivores. In my mind, it explains perfectly why we should stay omnivorous.

Anti-oxidants are high in plants. Some researchers posit that the anti-oxidants are to protect plants, not us. Regarding the controversy about plants being able to provide all forms of proteins that we need, the meat camp disagrees.

Heme iron (of animal origin) is portrayed as the bad guy responsible for a myriad of ailments including coronary diseases, stroke and cancer. The counter-argument to this point is that anaemia, caused by iron deficiency is a bigger problem affecting the functionality of millions.

With the labelling of Alzheimer's disease as Diabetes Mellitus Type 3 as a result of insulin resistance, perhaps we should relook at their suggestion to increase carbohydrate consumption.

Finally, environmental degradation perpetrated by cattle farming is proposed as a good enough reason to be vegan. Meat eaters, on the other hand, blame big companies for the blatant use of synthetic hormones and mismanagement of wastes for the pollution. They quote instances of smallholder rearers who have zero carbon emission in husbandry and cattle industries. Even in the cultivation of crops, mega conglomerates are guilty of indiscriminate use of fertilisers and failure to rotate crops for soil health.

We must be very wary when celebrities with little scientific knowledge recommend certain products. They probably have more to hide than their botox-treated crow lines. When they rekindle the story of a 'long lost treasure cove' as the panacea of our woes, I would be worried. I smell a business pitch here.

I wonder if all the virtue of being vegan has anything to do with the laboratory-grown cultured meat that was seen in the media recently.

Rather than concentrating on the type of food that we consume, we should instead try to curb overconsumption. Just about 50 years ago, during our schooling days, we noticed that there used to be one oversized student in the whole form. Now, it is almost impossible to find a normal-sized child in any class. Overeating is the problem.

It is the converse of the Malthusian theory. Malthus, the English scholar, had predicted, in the late 18th century of a world of famine as a result over exponential growth of population overgrowing its arithmetic increase in food production. Time has proven him wrong, but now, we are stuck with a different set of problems.