About aggressive meat and cool cucumbers

During a conversation with friend about how difficult it is to get through to most of their students one of them was telling us about how – out of her long career as a teacher – she remembers this particular 11-year-old boy who was so different from the rest. In contrast with most of the class he was calm, non demanding, attentive and adaptive. It turns out he was a vegetarian since birth, his parents and grandparents also.One of my friends said that probably the difference was that animal protein gave you more or too much energy and therefore lead to more conflict. My other friend thought that ” it’s probably all the hormones and stuff they give the animals”, she answered ” It’s not only if we eat meat or not, a vegetarian will also probably be more careful with all the sugars, processed food and all the rest of stuff that we know is not good for us”, someone added “when we ill-treat animals as we do in farms and slaughterhouses, what energy is it you are eating after?”.

Just two days before an other friend of mine told me that today she hardly ever has arguments or gets angry with her boyfriend but that she used to be a lot more combative and feisty in life, and added half jokingly that ” this was back when I ate meat”.

So, really, is behavior and even character determined in any way by what we eat? This article argues that food can make you angry. And does food carry a character like value with it? Ayurveda, for instance, considers diet as an important aspect of life which is in its own right capable of promoting emotional change as exposed in this interesting text on ayurvedic position on eating meat from a modern pathophysiology point of view.

According to Ayurveda  there are three types of foods categorized by their primal essence or nature. In this context meat is classified as tamasic and ” Dark, and dull. A tamasic diet benefits neither the mind nor the body. Prana, or energy, is withdrawn, powers of reasoning become clouded and a sense of inertia sets in. The body’s resistance to disease is destroyed and the mind filled with dark emotions, such as anger, jealousy and greed.”

I also recommend – if you are interested in Yoga – this text I came across, about the consistency of this  ancient medicine already expressed in the Bhagavad Gita, and indeed most of the Yoga Shastras.

But is the food-mood link widely accepted?  Linking behavior-food-chemical reactions is still difficult as pointed out as an introduction in this paper on nutrition and violent behaviour, “The concept that nutrition can affect behavior is not new. For thousands of years, people have believed that the food they eat can have powerful effects on their behavior. Some foods have been blamed for physical and mental ills, whereas others have been valued for their curative or magic powers.Within this framework, a variety of ideas about the association between food and antisocial behavior have arisen.For example, many primitive societies believe that an individual takes on the characteristics of the food that he/she consumes. Thus, eating aggressive animals (e.g. lion) is associated with belligerent behavior, whereas eating timid creatures (e.g. rabbit) is identified with less hostile acts.”…The belief that certain foods can lead to antisocial or aggressive behavior is not limited to primitive societies. In this country, the idea that food affected behavior was an integral part of the nineteenth century health reform movement. The concept that ”you are what you eat” was fundamental to the movement. Diet was believed to determine not only health and disease, but also spirituality, mental health, intelligence, and temperament.”

There is a contradictory flow of nutritional research pointing to confusing directions and often leading us to misinterpretation or even misrepresentation of scientific data. “With the public spotlight focused so strongly on the area of nutrition and behavior, it is crucial that research in this area be based on proper methodology and careful interpretation of data. This is particularly true for studies examining the relationship between diet and antisocial behavior because policy decisions may be made on the basis of this research.”

“Nutrition and Violent Behavior.” National Research Council. 1994. Understanding and Preventing Violence, Volume 2: Biobehavioral Influences. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/4420.

Truthfully, yes, when researching one can find many positions on the subject. Some suggest  more calm people tend to become vegetarians and that correlation does not prove causation.See what Wikipedia says on Psychology of eating meat.

So, long before we have been able to reach conclusions based on psychology, medicine, anthropological or any other kind of research study about eating meat being one of the causes for kids to have a short attention spam and couples breaking up, we are left with a maze of arguments pulling in one and other direction. Maybe self experimentation and observing changes in ourselves is the safest option.

Header image: Illustration by Peony Yip – Other images: Author Unknown