By killing an animal, not only do we extinguish a life, we cause unnecessary violence. Certainly it can be argued that in being vegetarian, we kill plants (which too are living forms). But pledging to stop killing plants would be impractical. We kill millions of minute but living organisms as we walk, sit and even breathe. And so, I suggest any position of ‘absolute’ nonviolence is a fictitious concept. Nonviolence can only be assessed relatively. Rather, our goal as responsible humans should be to practice nonviolence to the largest possible extent. If we can avoid unnecessary violence in a particular situation, why choose otherwise? A common-sense approach to nonviolence would lead us to conclude that chopping a tomato is diametrically different from slitting the throat of an animal.

One concern non-vegetarians often raise is the lack of proteins in a vegetarian diet. This is largely based on misconceptions. All plant-based products have some amount of protein. In fact, by combining proteins from various sources we can make a ‘complete protein’ diet, and that’s true for vegetarians as well as non-vegetarians. Plant-based foods such as green leafy vegetables, barley, quinoa, soy, lentils, tofu, beans (and many others) are all fantastic sources of proteins and other essential nutrients.

Let’s also look at meat-consumption’s effects on the environment. We understand that a variety of greenhouse gases like CO2 are at the heart of the global climate change issue. But methane, another key greenhouse gas, is responsible for nearly as much global warming as all other non-CO2 greenhouse gases put together. Because methane has a much shorter atmospheric cycle than CO2, reducing methane emissions would be a very effective means of quelling global warming on a relatively short time scale. Methane is produced by a number of sources, such as coal mining and landfills, but the number one source of methane is animal agriculture, which produces about 100 million tons of methane per year. Arguably the best way to reduce global warming in our lifetimes is to reduce our consumption of meat.