REENA SINGH reminds us that today, November 1, is World Vegan Day

Veganism is now much more than a health fad. It is a worldwide movement and ties up with the mission to save the world. Vegans claim that the resources that are used up for growing grains to feed and fatten livestock is what is destroying the world. 

India has some staunch vegan supporters, including some spiritual gurus. They were already vegetarians and they have now gone one step further and turned vegan too. Last year, veganism got a big boost when footballer Sunil Chhetri and cricketer Virat Kohli turned vegan. Spiritual Leaders Mohanji and Nithya Shanti advocate veganism in a big way.   


The late spiritual karmic energy healer and alternative medicine practitioner Nalin Nirula, and homeopathy practitioner Nandita Shah in Auroville who holds several workshops have also done a lot to popularise veganism in India. 

Reena Singh

Vegan cookbook writers like Nandini Gulati and Mala Barua also do their bit in the capital. The mantra is simple: turn vegan, give up harmful dairy that is full of hormones and lactose and of course, stay off all kinds of non-vegetarian food.


There is also a simple, medical reason for turning vegetarian. The one important thing is that consumption of meat products leads to acidity or metabolic acidosis which causes disease. Vegetable protein, on the other hand, does not bring about any complications.  

“One of the side-effects of metabolic acidosis is that you get osteoporosis,” Nalin Nirula had once explained to me, adding that it was a medically recognised fact that countries that have high consumption of dairy products, also see the maximum number of hip and femur fractures. ”One can’t ignore this direct statistical correlation,” he had pointed out. 

The China Study by T Colin Campbell also explains how dairy-free societies in the past were traditionally free from lifestyle diseases, a fact endorsed by Dr John Mcdougall who also endorses veganism. 


According to vegans, powerful food and pharmaceutical lobbies are responsible for advertising misleading data. This is also something that Dr John McDougall highlights in his famous video on veganism, The Starch Solution that is available on YouTube.  

And it is not true that only dairy products are rich in calcium and protein. The truth of the matter is that equal amounts of calcium and protein are also found in certain vegetarian food, too. For instance, vegans can also turn to spinach, makhana and beans for their intake of proteins. 

If you opt for soya, have it in its most natural form, as close to the bean itself. Processed soya products are never recommended by health practitioners. 

Making almond milk is an easy process

Giving up milk is a problem for most people. But it only takes a bit of planning to switch to healthier nut milks such as almond and cashew milk. Making them at home is simple too. For a glass of almond milk, soak just five to six almonds overnight and wash them thoroughly with fresh water the next morning to get rid of the phytic acid that forms when you soak the nuts. Then add water, add natural vanilla and some dates and you have a regular, healthy glass of nut milk ready. Of course the taste is different, but you will get used to it. Smoothies come out well, if that is your preference. 

Another reason to have nut milk is that most commercial diaries today, inject cows with bovine growth hormone, rBGH, to increase milk production. With rBGH, cows are prone to udder disease. To counter this, they are given antibiotics. All this passes into the milk – so you are having hormones and antibiotics with your daily glass of commercial milk. It makes better sense to avoid it.  

This is corroborated by Ayurvedacharya V Vasudevan, of the Arsha Yoga Vidya Peetam in Coimbatore. Ayurveda values pure organic cow milk. But that is not something that we get readily today. Milk is pasteurised and made available to consumers after many processes. Buffalo and goat milk are also useful but only in certain conditions. Buffalo milk is given if you suffer from insomnia and have low appetite.

People may argue that Krishna loved milk and dairy products, but that was at a time when adulteration and pollution, additives and boosters were nonexistent and therefore the cows’ milk available was organic and pure.

So, perhaps it is time for all the vegetarians to take the next step – Pledge to go vegan on World Vegan Day. 

Reena Singh has more than 37 years’ experience in senior editorial positions in The Times of India (TOI) and Genpact. She was Deputy Editor with TOI’s spiritual newspaper, The Speaking Tree, where she spent nine years.

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