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What exactly is 'non-veg'?

A few days back, I was talking to my room mate in US.
He asked me, "You dont eat chicken?"
I said "No".
"How are you surviving in this country, man?", he was surprised.
He felt pity for me, an almost extinct species relying on vegetables, and he was proud of his 'chicken-eating' abilities.
I asked him, "Do you eat beef and pork?"
"No way", was his strong reply. I could clearly see his respect for the sacred cow and the aversion towards the ugly pig. I could not help but smile, as I remembered the comments of one of my colleagues, "Its very difficult to survive in this country without eating beef and pork".

I dont say that vegetarianism is great, just because I dont eat meat. But, all I wish is that people should respect others' preferences, even when others are different from them.

Just got a funny thought on this. The word "non-veg" does not give the proper picture of what people eat. So, how about having different words like - chickenetarian, meatetarian, beefetarian, porketarian etc. Well, should cannibals be called humanitarians? ;)
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Comments

Vijay said…
You could call them humanitarians, but then they would not expect them to show humanitarian values as they fleece you ;-)

Vijay

My Blog : http://India-IT-Pulse.blogspot.com
March 03, 2006 1:16 PM
Viji said…
Well, adding a bit of poignancy to the discussion, I think the idea of vegetarianism is about causing of 'pain' as 'visible' to us and we understand it.we dont want to make our stomachs the smashaanas for co-beings slaughering them in cold blood, do we?
March 06, 2006 2:20 PM
krupa said…
Hmmm..I was reading this book..wherein the writer says that ..one is a veggie becoz you do not relish the thought of biting your teeth into a corpse...
but i think the whole things is a matter of preference.
Plants are also living beings ...and atleast animals can run away...plants cant even do that:)
But I really do wish that people stop forcing me to try/explore/be adventurous by eating chicken!!!
March 20, 2006 2:23 PM
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