India: Food for Thought

Americans are definitely a meat loving people - can't have a single meal without some form of meat. Since India is mostly vegetarian (but some eat chicken and mutton), I have learned that human bodies are actually designed as herbivores. Carnivores have canine teeth to tear meat apart and their intestines are relatively short so meat can be digested and pass through their systems quickly. Herbivores, on the other hand, lack such canine teeth but their teeth can cut and grind and their saliva contains digestive enzymes lacked by carnivores. Herbivores' intestines are also six times as long as their bodies. The following indicates the approximate time it takes for each type of food to pass through your system from that first bite in your mouth to the last morsel of shit out of your ass:

• Raw meat: 72 hours
• Cooked meat: 48 hours
• Cooked vegetables: 24 hours
• Raw vegetables: 12 hours
• Fruits: 3 hours

Think about it this way. Since it takes 48 hours for cooked meat (and 72 hours for raw meat) to pass through your system, guess what is happening to the undigested meat stuck along your intestines? The same thing that would happen if you leave meat sitting outside where it is hot and humid. It's putrefying as we speak! Haven't you noticed after that heavy Thanksgiving turkey dinner or a 10-lb steak at Morton's you feel comatose and lethargic? That's because your body is working overtime to digest all that meat, leaving little energy for the rest of your body. Since our arrival, we have not taken a single bite of meat for almost two months. As a result, we feel lighter and more energetic and don't really miss it all that much. We will try our best to continue with our newfound vegetarianism, but cutting out meat completely from our diet will be a challenging task ahead as we travel through the rest of Asia where dogs and snakes are considered gourmet dishes.