Maneka Sanjay Gandhi

To understand how plant-based diets can affect your health, you have to understand how the bacteria in your intestine or gut works. The gut “microbiome” is the totality of microorganisms, bacteria, viruses, protozoa, and fungi  present in the gastrointestinal tract.

The gut harbours the greatest density of microorganisms in the body (up to 1.5 kg of bacteria), with Firmicutes, Bacteriodetes and Actinobacteria constituting the dominant category of bacteria.

Maneka Sanjay Gandhi

I am hopeful that in my lifetime I am going to see a disruptive change in the eating and wearing of animal flesh. It is coming fast : the largest slaughter companies, and  the largest investors in the world, have invested in laboratory created real meat (called clean meat) and  milk. These meats are already in the market in countries like Singapore. Perfect Day, which makes milk cells, is on the market with yoghurt (under the label Smitten) that is made of animal free dairy. The Netherlands and  Israel are far ahead in  meat grown from in-vitro animals’ cell culture, instead of from slaughtered animals. Indeed, if clean meat would replace intensive farming as an industry standard, the benefits for the environment would be immense. As consumers, we would also have “cleaner” meat, meaning a product that doesn’t have the antibiotic residues and bacterial contamination that come with slaughtered meat. We would also save the lives of over 56 billion animals yearly. Yes, that’s the number of animals that are eaten every year by humans.

Maneka Sanjay Gandhi

This is a controversial subject and I know it will attract allegations of communal bias. What puzzles me is: a Muslim urging his community members to stop killing and eating cows is lauded everywhere. If a non Muslim writes, they are immediately accused of inciting hatred.

But it is not meant in that spirit. Last month my team has raided markets all over Assam and found hundreds of cows and calves being killed in the open and sold by shops, like chickens in wayside shops. The police used the excuse of communal law and order to do almost nothing. Cow killing is banned in Assam and it is a BJP state, but no one takes action because of a fear of riots, and Assam kills as many cows as Kerala.