Vegetarian Diet and Health

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THE ROLE OF VEGETARIAN DIETIN HEALTH AND DISEASE

By Dr. O. P. Kapoor

Foreword

Dr. M.P.Birla

It is a great honour and privilege to contribute a foreword to thisexcellent monography on "The Role of Vegetarian Diet in Healthand disease", a publication of the Bombay Hospital Institute of Medical Sciences. It is one of the first such books written byMedical Professionals of great repute. The book is remarkablycomplete as it deals with the role of a vegetarian Diet in Healthas well as in a very large number of disease conditions, witheach chapter contributed by the medical experts in their fields.Further it is heartening to learn that the vegetarian diet by itself can be balanced and complete if scientifically observed. This facthas a great bearing in our country where the poor masses cannotafford expensive non-vegetarian food. The preface should be read with care as it emphasises theevolution of the vegetarian diet in our hospitals. It furtherstresses the fact that vegetarianism is gaining great popularity inthe western countries where such trends are adopted afterprolonged observation supported by extensive research.It is also gratifying to note that contributions are made by themembers of the medical faculty of the Bombay Hospital andMedical Research Centre as well as outstanding scholars fromother hospitals and abroad. I have no doubt that this volume willnot only be beneficial to the public but would also be appreciatedby the members of the medical profession. Since primarily thebook is published for the general public, the simple language inwhich most of the chapters are written makes the contents easilyassimilable and the book easy to read To my knowledge, this book is the first of its kind to be compiledby medical experts and I have no doubt that it will serve topromote the cause of vegetarianism in our country and abroad.

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Preface

O.P. Kapoor

."You are what you eat" is an age old adage—and it is a fact thatit is food that maketh a man. The food we eat, its quality,quantity, its timing and combinations is proven time and again tobe of utmost importance in Health as well as in Disease.At the Bombay Hospital we have been serving vegetarian foodfrom the inception of this institution and now we feel that thetime has come to offer scientific justification for this. Not only onreligious or moral grounds is this justifiable, but also on scientificgrounds vegetarian food seems the more suitable diet for humanbeings. More scientific work has been done on vegetarianism inthe last two decades than in the entire previous history of theworld. Therefore, we felt that we should take the lead and bringto the fore all that there is to know on vegetarianism from thescientific angle and thereby justity the use of vegetarianism inhealth and in disease. There is a myth amongst people that consumption of meat wouldmake them strong. It is also commonly believed thatnonvegetarian food has more nutritive value. It is significant andembarrassing to note, that while in U.S.A. nearly 10 millionpeople have adopted vegetarianism and more and more peoplein U.K., U.S.S.R., West Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Israel andMexico are gradually turning to vegetarian diet not only onhumanitarian grounds but more so on medical grounds, in Indiamany vegetarians have started eating meat and eggs only on"wrong" beliefs of the supposedly good qualities of nonvegetarian diet. There are many books written for lay public on vegetarianismbased on cruelty to animals, spirituality, cultural andphilosophical values, economic, ecological, anthropological andhumanitarian grounds. This book is being written by a team of specialists from various faculties of our institute and from otherinstitutes in Bombay and abroad. Here they discuss and showthat from the medical point of view the vegetarian diet is as goodor is more suited to the human system than a nonvegetariandiet. Unlike other books written on vegetarianism which showthat non-vegetarian food is bad for health, we have tried toprove, with medical evidence that vegetarian food is as nutritiousor superior in some cases, to non-vegetarian food.If only this publication can remove the bias from the minds of thepublic; if only they could be convinced that they could not onlylive longer with vegetarian diet, but also not suffer from manycrippling diseases, we would feel that we have been amply

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rewarded.Since this book is a joint effort of many scientists it has beendifficult to prevent the overlap of views. In fact, at times,repetitions have intentionally been retained to maintain theindividual readability of the chapter. To give this scientificpublication a well rounded look, chapters on growth, immunityand microbiology have been included. Immunology for thegeneral physician is, at best, complicated and so it is for the layperson. Hence the chapter on Immunity and Vegetarian Diet maymake heavy reading. Similarly the chapter on microbiology hasbeen written only to emphasize the fact that the kind of food weeat decides the kind of bacteria that are present within us. Factsof their functions are pouring in every day and their realimportance will be evident to us very soon.Religion or spiritualism are not the field of doctors. But the Indianpublic should be enlightened about the good qualities of Vegetarian diet which are the high fibre content, low cholesterolcontent and low incidence of zoonotic disorders. Also, there isstrong evidence that vegetarians are at a lesser risk foralcoholism.In this monograph we have reproduced a few articles from 'TheBombay Hospital Journal' which is the regular scientificpublication of Bombay Hospital Institute of Medical Sciences.Vegetarianism can be divided into vegetarian, lacto-vegetarianand lacto-ovo-vegetarian diets. In this book lacto-vegetarian diethas been accepted as the Indian vegetarian diet. Similarly, manypeople, who eat fish, chicken and meat also eat vegetabies,fruits and cereals. Thus, really speaking scientifically they shouldbe labelled as 'Omnivorous'. Instead for them, we have in thisbook used the colloquial term 'non-vegetarian'. The debate iswide open but it seems from the facts presented herein that thescales are tipped heavily in favour of vegetarianism.

We Acknowledge With Pleasure

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•

Dr. B.K. Goyal

, Dean of the Bombay Hospital Institute of Medical Sciences for being a constant source of inspiration to us.

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Surg. Rear Admiral

J.K. Suchdeva, Medical Director of the Bombay Hospital and Medical Research Centre for hisinvaluable guidance.

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Dr. D.C. Jain

, Neurologist, New Delhi for initiating theidea of this monograph.

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Shri C.G. Joshi

, Executive Director of the BombayHospital for all the co-operation extended during theaccumulation and compilation of the data.

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Dr. P.M. Udani

, Senior Paediatrician of the Bombay

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