When A Vegetarian Diet

A vegetarian diet includes grains, pulses, roots and tubers, fresh and dry fruits, and abundant supply of fresh, green, leafy and non-leafy vegetables that God has blessed the earth with!
There are some people who claim that milk is an animal product and therefore, should not be included in a strictly vegetarian diet. But the fact remains, that we do not kill a cow to obtain its milk.
Mahatma Gandhi, an ardent advocate of vegan diet- one which did not include milk- excluded milk totally from his diet for about six years or so. Then in 1917, he fell ill, and in his own words, “was reduced to a skeleton”. The doctors warned him that he would not be able to build up enough strength to leave his bed, if milk and milk products were not included in his diet. However, Gandhiji had made a vow that he would not take milk.
A doctor then suggested to him that when he had made the vow, he could only have had in mind the milk of cow and the buffalo- so the vow should not prevent him from taking goat’s milk! That was how Gandhiji began to take goat’s milk.
At that time, he himself admitted, it seemed to bring him new life! He picked up rapidly and was soon able to leave his sickbed. On account of this and several similar experiences, he wrote, “I have been forced to admit the necessity of adding milk to the strict vegetarian diet.”
Gandhiji wrote prophetically: “I am convinced that in the vast vegetable kingdom there must be some kind, which, while supplying those necessary substances which we derive from milk, is free from its ethical drawbacks.” Nutrition experts now feel that soya milk and tofu can indeed provide such an alternative.