Diet and Diet Reform: My Faith in Vegetarianism

By Mahatma Gandhi

"Man is more than meat. It is the spirit in man for which we are concerned. Therefore vegetarians should have that moral basis - that a man was not born a carnivorous animal, but born to live on the fruits and herbs that the earth grows." _Gandhi

Defining vegetarism as Moral Choice, the book incline us to think upon the reforms in diet. It tells us that what vegetarians should do is not to emphasize the physical consequences of vegetarianism, but to explore the moral consequences.
He was way ahead of his time in his approach to dietetics. Thus, he suggests that an ounce or two of raw salad vegetables is worth eight ounces of cooked vegetables. This applies particularly to their vitamin and mineral values.
He also warns the danger of palm oil, a high saturated fat content.
A Plea for Vegetarianism !

Excerpt: «I blessed the day on which I had taken the vow before my mother. I had all along abstained from meat in the interests of truth and of the vow I had taken, but had wished at the same time that every Indian should be a meat-eater, and had looked forward to being one myself freely and openly some day, and to enlisting others in the cause. The choice was now made in favour of vegetarianism, the spread of which henceforward became my mission.»

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alicia Editions
• Release date: Oct 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9782357283411

Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) was an Indian lawyer, nationalist, and civil rights activist. Born Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, he was first given the honorary title of Mahatma—Sanskrit for “great-souled”—in 1914 while living in South Africa. Raised in Gujarat in a prominent Hindu family, he travelled to London and studied law at the Inner Temple. Called to the Bar in 1891, Gandhi returned to India for a brief time before settling in South Africa. There, he started a family while perfecting his style of nonviolent resistance grounded in civil disobedience. In 1915, he returned to his native country to join the fight against British rule, organizing peasants across India to take a stand against taxation, racism, and other forms of colonial oppression. He became the leader of the Indian National Congress in 1921 and increased his involvement with the movements for women’s rights, religious and ethnic equality, and the elimination of India’s caste system, which unjustly effected Dalits deemed untouchable from birth. His central cause, however, was Swaraj, which can be translated as self-governance or democracy. As his popularity increased, he simplified his lifestyle in solidarity with the Indian poor, wearing traditional clothing, eating vegetarian food, and fasting as a matter of personal hygiene and protest. In 1930, he led the twenty-five day Dandi Salt March or Salt Satyagraha, in response to a British salt tax, inspiring millions of Indians to take direct action against British rule. A proponent of religious pluralism, he lamented the interfaith violence between Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims that broke out following independence and the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. At 78 years old, he was assassinated by a Hindu nationalist for his outreach to the Muslim community.