Thank you for your comments on ‘What’s wrong with eating meat’ article and I am glad that you found it interesting. Regarding your question about the story on onions and garlic this is a true historic event and it did literally happened many thousands of years ago. American scientists have discovered in their laboratories that there are 21 different types of slow poisons in onions and garlic, so they are not innocent foods. In Satya-yuga, the rsis performed gomedha (cow) and asvamedha (horse) sacrifices for the welfare of the whole universe. [This proved the efficacy of the recitation of the Vedic mantras uttered by the qualified Brahmins during the sacrifice.] A very old cow or a horse would be sacrificed by being cut into pieces and placed in the fire. Afterwards, the rsis would utter mantras and the same animal would come alive in a beautiful young body. Also to note that the cows were not actually murdered but sacrificed to give them a new body form.

These stories are all in the Vedic scriptures and written by Srila Vyasadeva who is the author of Vedic scriptures. What Vyasdeva has written is very true, he was able to see what is favourable for devotion to God and what is unfavourable. He saw that the onion is tamasik (in the mode of ignorance). It has all the qualities present in the meat of cows, and the same result obtained from eating cow flesh which occurs from eating onions. One will become lusty and violent by eating it. Srila Vyasadeva has also seen in his meditation that garlic came from the bones of that cow. It is full with bad qualities and puts one in the mode of ignorance. We should avoid eating onions and garlic and try to follow Vyasadeva’s instructions. If you do not follow, the same bad qualities will come to the person who eats it and that comes by eating cows flesh, bones, and so on. This has been explained in the Sastra’s, and it is confirmed by scientific evidence. Whatever has been said in the Sastra’s or the Vedic scriptures it is all true, maybe due to our limited knowledge we may not be able to comprehend such things but the Vedic Scriptures are transcendental and spiritual so everything is correct and nothing has been made up. The modern science is finding out things which had already been mentioned long time ago in the Vedic Scriptures.

Hare Krishna,

ISKCON Birmingham

I thought the article about meat eating was quite interesting. One point that did jump out at me was the story of how onions and garlic come from a murdered cow. Can I ask if you take this story literally and think that this actually happened?