World Famous Vegetarians

14 Feb 2010

A vegetarian is someone who does not eat any meat, poultry, game, fish, shellfish, crustacea, or slaughter house by-products (such as gelatine or rennet).  Just under one-quarter of the world’s population has a predominantly vegetarian diet.

It takes four times the amount of land to feed a meat-eater as it does to feed a vegetarian!  Intensive animal farming contributes to pollution and global warming as well.

In the UK alone, 800 million animals are slaughtered for food each year. It is estimated that a life-long veggie in UK saves around 760 chickens, 5 cows, 20 pigs, 29 sheep, 46 turkeys, 15 ducks, 7 rabbits and over half a tonne of fish. Protein can be found in all foods, except for refined sugar and some oils.

The top reasons people give for going veggie are ethical, religious, environmental, and health. Many scientists, poets, artists, religious and political leaders throughout history were vegetarians. Following are some of the most famous characters.
 

Philosophers/Mathematicians

Pythagoras (569-475 BC) - Greek mathematician and philosopher. He greatly influenced the development of mathematics and its application to music and astronomy.
Quote: “As long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap the joy of love.”

Socrates (469-399 BC) - Classical Greek philosopher, best known for his motto, Know thyself to be true, or be true to yourself. He was an active seeker of truth. Socrates teachings had major influence on western philosophy. Both Plato and Aristotle were his disciples.

Plato (427-347 BC) - One of the most important Greek philosophers. He founded the Academy in Athens, an institution devoted to research and instruction in philosophy and the sciences. His works on philosophy, politics and mathematics were very influential and laid the foundations for Euclid's systematic approach to mathematics.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) - The great Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. His Last Supper (1495-97) and Mona Lisa (1503-06) are among the most widely popular and influential paintings of the Renaissance. He was such a fervent vegetarian that he would buy caged birds from poultry vendors and set them free.
  
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) – The greatest scientist/mathematician of contemporary history; author of the theories of relativity.
Quote: "Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."
"So I am living without fats, without meat, without fish, but am feeling quite well this way. It always seems to me that man was not born to be a carnivore."

Scientists
Sir Isaac Newton  (1642-1727) He is known as the father of Physics. Newton was a brilliant scientist and an independent thinker who was convinced the vegetation diet was best for him. Newton was also highly religious, though an unorthodox Christian, writing more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than the natural science for which he is remembered today.

Dr. Abdul Kalam -  The 11th President of India , serving from 2002 to 2007 and a scientist. A vegetarian and a teetotaler, Abdul Kalam recites the Quran and the Bhagvad Gita with equal ease.

Artists/Novelists

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) - The man who gave the world War and Peace and Anna Karina, was a strict vegetarian. For an aristocrat in Czarist Russia to renounce meat was unheard of, but then Tolstoy was a man with a social conscience.
Quote: "A human can be healthy without killing animals for food. Therefore if he eats meat he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite."

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) - Irish dramatist, novelist and socialist. In 1925 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Shaw accepted the honor but refused the money.

Quote: “"It is nearly fifty years since I was assured by a conclave of doctors that if I did not eat meat I should die of starvation." (He lived a healthy life and died aged 94.)

Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) - Danish writer of fairy tales. During his lifetime he was acclaimed for having delighted children worldwide, and was feted by royalty.

Humanitarians

Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1945) - Indian nationalist leader and advocate of non-violence
Quote: “It ill becomes us to invoke in our daily prayers the blessings of God, the Compassionate, if we in turn will not practice elementary compassion towards our fellow creatures.”
 
Dr E W Adikaram (1905 - 1985) - A radical Buddhist educationist, he established the vegetarian habit in several schools with which he was connected. In the early seventies he started an organised campaign against meat-eating, tobacco and alcohol.

References:
- Vegetarians in History
- Famous Vegetarians
- List of vegetarians (Wiki)

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- Finger licking Murali
- Veddha of modern era
- Great sayings by Alber Einstein