FOOD AND RELIGION

Is food habits related to religion? It is an accepted fact that majority of Hindus are vegetarians. Most of us see this in religious and emotional perspective. But it will be interesting to probe into the scientific aspects behind it.

Some historians think Indians do not eat beef because we were mainly an agrarian country with cattle being our major workforce, be it be ploughing, extracting oil from oil seed including coconut, and also means of transportation. The plains of India being very flat (Indo-Gangetic plain and Deccan Plateau) cattle was widely used to transport even long distances which is not possible in hilly terrains. In ancient and middle-ages barring Kings and nobles, most people chose to travel on bullock carts. This also paved for our inefficiency of breeding good horses which caused us dearly in battles with Mongols and Mugals which re-wrote the history of India.

If Indians were to eat beef it would have been suicidal for our economy. As meat is always tempting for the palate, the scholars of the ancient time, gave it a religious hue by calling cow holy. Best way to frighten people is to attribute divinity to cow. So the concept of 'GO maatha' came.

But other livestock like sheep and goat Indians eat, may be they are less bulky animals and it is easy to devour (after cooking). Slaughtering a cow sometimes many not be practical for a family as there were no methods of preservation or refrigeration. In higher latitude, especially in winter (even now in rural Russia) they have open area areas for preserving beef and pork as temperature from November to March drop below zero. India being a tropical country with high humidity there is always chance of meat getting spoiled.

More than religion and sentiments it is availability of food that matter. As testimoned by Bengalis (Including Brahmins) eating fish. Kerala because of its geographical situation and alliances with Middd-East and western world it is not a surprise that 90% of the population is non-vegetarian. With such abundance of lakes and rivers, it is logical to expect majority to be fish mongers as well. There was a time when fish used to be cheaper than vegetables in Kerala. When you have such easily available source of protein and fat why to stick to a vegetarian diet.

For a religious Muslim, it is 'haram' to take anything porcine. There are some scientific explanation for this. First of all pork is a major carrier of several helminths like roundworm, pinwom, hookworm and most dangerous all, Taenia solium or tapeworm. It is a common knowledge that one needs to boil pork for significant amount of time to kill the larvae of any helminth within pork. When considering the arid condition of Arabian Peninsula and the scanty supply of firewood to cook; makes it an item to reject. Nor they had pressure cookers then. Moreover because of high amounts of fat in pork there is a fair chance of cholesterol being deposited in our arteries and ending up in a myocardial infarction or stroke. In cooler places fat will be digested easily without getting deposited in the body.

Ecologically speaking there are some points to be noted with feeding habit of pigs. A continuously growing tusks (the canine teeth) serve as weapons and tools their feeding. This tusks helps them to churns up the ground and feed even the roots of all plants / trees. And this is especially important to the flora of desert as many trees / plants survive harsh tropical climate of desert by storing food in root and also as a mode of reproduction. And if pigs / boars were given a free run in Arabia it would have hastened the desertification process and could have caused doom to whole Arabian peninsula.

Tailpiece: Medically People with insulin-dependent diabetes usually inject with pig insulin.

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