Meat-eating dilemmas and the one-pot approach

Last month in Mumbai, I met a Brahmin taxi driver from Uttar Pradesh. Within five minutes of getting into his car, he asked where I was from. When I said Goa, he peered in the rear-view mirror. "Christian?"

- SAMAR HALARNKAR

No, Hindu, I said.

He beamed, "Jai Shree Ram."

Soon, he proceeded to excoriate Muslims, Christians and other Hindus who ate meat. When I pointed out that meat-eating Brahmins were not uncommon, he was dismissive of their faith. "Eating meat is not in our religion, not in the natural course of things," he said. "The Vedas tell you that."

His religious and culinary prejudices aligned with his political worldview: Muslims were invaders who did not deserve respect; he respected Dalits but could not share a meal with them since, after all, he was a Brahmin; and India only began to progress after 2014. A long debate, sometimes heated, ensued. I agreed with almost nothing of what he said, but his rant about food reinvigorated a debate in my head about what I eat.

Like many meat-eaters, I have told myself that this is what nature intended; it is certainly true that we evolved into a meat-eating species about 2 million years ago. Humans are omnivores, and since we grew into the planet's dominant species, using our big brains to make choices, we have exercised that dominance to eat what we choose. Some chose to be vegetarians; others chose to remain meat-eaters.