Common Questions about Vegetarianism

Are plant-based diets equivalent to a vegetarian diet? Is raw food related to vegetarianism?
What is plant-based meat and cultivated meat?
What will the world's diet be like in the future?
Let's clarify the ideas of various vegetarian diets through the following commonly asked questions and answers.


Original Chinese text by editorial team of Humanity Magazine


Q1: Contemporary vegetarianism is quite diverse. What are the ideas behind each vegetarian diet?

Vegetarianism is defined as a "meatless diet" in a broad sense. Vegetarians usually avoid eating any meat, poultry, and seafood, yet still consume certain animal products or by-products such as milk, cheese, eggs, and honey. They often adopt such eating patterns for environmental or health reasons.

Veganism is vegetarian diet in a narrow sense, first coined in 1944 by Donald Watson, the founder of the Vegan Society in the U.K. Veganism is more of a lifestyle than just an eating pattern. In addition to not eating any animal products and by-products, vegans also avoid the use of animal products such as leather, wool, and silk. Moreover, veganism can be further associated with peace-loving and environment-friendly concepts. Veganism was once considered too extreme. However, as environmental awareness rises, more and more young people are opting for this way of eating and living.

Raw foodism, also known as living foodism, has become popular in recent years. Raw foodism advocates the consumption of natural ingredients involving little human interference, so raw food diets are mostly composed of organic and plant-based ingredients. They feature uncooked or simply processed food, as well as food cooked at a temperature of no more than 45℃, to avoid compromising the nutrients in the ingredients. Most of the raw foodists do not consume animal products such as meat, milk, and cheese. This usually has little to do with religion or environmental protection since health is the main concern for raw foodists, who opt for whole foods or minimally processed foods.

The term plant-based diets originated from a medical study conducted by Dr. T.C. Campbell of the US National Institutes of Health in the 1980s. His research explored how plant-based diets could potentially benefit cancer patients. Mainly composed of whole grains, vegetables, fruits, beans, and nuts, this dietary form reduces meat consumption, and normally does not involve environmental or religious beliefs.

Under the influence of raw foodism and plant-based diets, whole food diets also came into being. It advocates unrefined or minimally processed plants and foods, and avoids highly processed meat, dairy, and food products such as white sugar and shelled grains.

Regardless of why people adopt vegetarian diets, these eating patterns get people to realize that our food choices can indeed have an impact on ourselves and the environment as a whole, and thus should not be underestimated.


Q2: What ingredients are prohibited in Buddhists vegetarianism?

Buddhists abstain from killing lives, and so are encouraged to adopt meatless diet. Buddhist monastics also avoid eating the five pungent spices—garlic, scallions, chives, leeks, and asafoetida (or onions)—because they can be conducive to emotional surges and excitement, thereby hindering the purity of body and mind and thus compromising one's spiritual cultivation.

In addition, most vegetarians accept the use of alcohol in the preparation of food, considering alcohol as a fermentation product from plants. However, for Buddhist vegetarians, alcohol ingestion may not pose direct harm, but it will certainly cloud the clarity of mind. Therefore, abstention from alcohol is one of the Buddhist precepts. Moreover, for the sake of maintaining physical and mental health, for a simple living, Buddhists also abstain from other intoxicants such as tobacco products and narcotics.


Q3: Can the rise of plant-based meat, or the "meat of the future," effectively reduce human impact on the environment?

According to the research conducted by Climate Nexus, animal agriculture has placed a heavy burden on the Earth's finite water, land, and energy resources, including about 30% of the world's land and 16% of global freshwater to raise 70 billion animals for human consumption. Moreover, nearly one-third of worldwide grain production is used to feed livestock. Meanwhile, clearing of trees keeps occurring in many regions for ranching purposes. All this is detrimental to both environmental sustainability and the prevention of global warming. 

The coining of the term "beyond meat" was attributed to Ethan Brown, who founded Beyond Meat, a plant-based meat company, in 2009. The invention of such products was aimed at addressing various diseases and issues associated with meat consumption, ranging from heart disease to global warming. Made from plant-based ingredients, these "meatless" products bear a close resemblance to real meat in terms of texture, appearance, and nutrition.

According to CNBC, compared to burgers made with American beef, burgers of the same weight made with plant-based meat produced by Beyond Meat and Impossible Meat can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, and land use by almost 90% from production to sale. Thus, the invention of plant based meat offers a viable solution to mitigating the negative environmental impacts of the livestock industry.


Q4: Is plant-based meat really better for our health?

There is no conclusive answer yet.

In Taiwan, thanks to its religious culture, vegetarian meat, vegetarian chicken, vegetarian fish, and other plant-based meat have existed for a long time. Their main ingredient is "soybean protein isolate" extracted from soybean meal, which is then seasoned and processed into vegetarian meat. Since many Westerners dislike the "beany flavor" of soybeans, there are also vegetarian meat products made from plant protein extracted from peas, wheat, and other plants, which is then processed along with coconut oil and potatoes. Despite being low in fat and calories and high in plant-based protein, meat alternatives often contain more additives and high sodium content in order to mimic the texture and taste of animal meat.


Q5: How to avoid falling into the myth that "eating plant-based meat equals environmental protection and animal protection"?

Most people go for plant-based meat being conscious about environment or animal protection. However, they might sometimes accidentally fall into profit-driven traps in the name of sustainability.

Ven. Chang Ji (常濟法師), who has been participating in climate change conferences and leading environmental sustainability workshops around the world for many years, reminds us that some food companies exploit environmental and animal protection issues to ethically kidnap people into thinking that eating plant-based meat is a righteous choice. After all, the cost of researching and developing meat alternatives is expensive, which in turn pushes up the cost of producing a single vegetarian patty, making a single vegan burger many times more expensive than its counterpart made with animal meat.

In addition, some food companies add beetroot juice or pomegranate juice to their mock meat products to make them appear bloody. Some meat substitutes may contain leghemoglobin to mimic the color and texture of animal meat. From the commercial perspective, there may be nothing wrong with it, but originally it is by choosing not to consume meat that flexitarians or vegetarians are seeking to realize their ideals about environment or animal protection. Therefore, when purchasing ingredients, it is crucial to raise our awareness and reflect back on our initial intention regarding switching to a vegetarian diet.

Another issue worthy of attention is the emergence of cultivated meat (aka. cultured meat) in recent years.

As the name suggests, cultivated meat is a product made by extracting stem cells from an animal's body and culturing them in a laboratory to produce animal muscle tissue. It is not vegetarian, because it contains "real meat" ingredients. This type of meat might gradually change the history of human diets, since it not only eliminates the process of slaughtering animals, but also alleviates the problems of carbon emissions and environmental pollution caused by animal agriculture. Cultivated meat may be a solution to future food crises, but when the meat of animals such as lions, tigers, zebras can be brought to our dining table, we must re-examine the ethical issues regarding the greed of mankind and its impacts to the overall ecology.



Related articles:

Growth of Vegetarianism among the Young

Common Questions about Vegetarianism

Interview with Huang Yan-mei, the Volunteer Chef of DDM Yunlai Monastery

Interview with Veggie Deer, Taiwanese YouTuber: Changing Diets, Transforming the World

Interview with Ven. Yan Duan: Plant-based Diet as an Experiment for the Body & Mind



Resource: Issue 478 of Humanity Magazine (June 2023), Dharma Drum Publishing Corporation
Translation: Li Siang-ling
Editing: Keith Brown, Chang Chia-cheng (張家誠)