Letters to the Press

The Independent - 1st Sept. 2004 Sir: Your report “Experts call for mass medication to curb Britain’s silent killer” (23 August) seems to take us a step closer to putting the whole population on some kind of drug regime.
We are being turned into a society in which everyone is sick or potentially sick and therefore dependent on drugs. This will mean that people will further relinquish responsibility for looking after themselves, relying on a magic pill to protect them from any health problems. The pharmaceutical industry stands to make a colossal amount of money; however the long term damage to the nation could be phenomenal. Prevention is the best cure and a healthy vegetarian diet, yoga and plenty of exercise would go a long way towards solving the health crisis.

Nitin Mehta

The Independent - Sir: According to Hindu scriptures, during the time of Rama, over 100,000years ago there was a race of apes that walked on two legs. They interacted with humans and even spoke the same language, and they were vegetarians.

Nitin Mehta
(the letter was in response to an archaeological discovery that there were human like apes tens of thousands of years ago)

The Independent - April 22nd 2005 Sir “You are what you eat” takes a whole new meaning when a restaurant that serves snail porridge is declared the best in the world. My humble dhal and rice never tested better! I am so, so glad I am a vegetarian.
 

Nitin Mehta

The Guardian - June 15th 2005 Why is Julie Bindel - founder of Justice for Women - so violently opposed to the idea of justice for animals (Why I hate vegetarians, June 13)? Some 55bn animals are killed every year in appalling conditions; 80% of the world’s water resources are used up in raising and killing these animals, and the resulting environmental and ecological damage to the planet is catastrophic. Almost 60% of the world’s grains are fed to animals - grains that could feed the poor and hungry.

The health benefits of a vegetarian and vegan diet are undisputed. Meat, with its high-fat content, is a contributory factor in causing death by cancer and heart disease. An increasing number of people are finding that a vegetarian and vegan diet is the ideal planetfriendly diet suitable for the 21st century. There are almost a billion vegetarians in the world today - and in India people have been vegetarians for thousands of years. Bindel needs to be a bit more humble and respect her vegetarian friends whose numbers are bound to grow, as UK is setting the pace when it comes to moving away from a meat-based diet.
 

Nitin Mehta