Health benefits of beef

Free thinker *

Beef curry in Bangladesh, served with roasted onion. :: Pix - Wikipedia / Mohammed Tawsif Salam

Health benefits of beef

Beef (cow/buffalo/bovine meat) is the cheapest meat available in the world. Even the poor and beggars can afford beef. What is more interesting is about the health benefits of beef. I am neither a health freak nor a healthy person but I relish all kinds of controversies pertaining to food habits.

Coming to the point, beef contains huge protein, full of vitamin B12, B6, B3, Zinc, Omega3, Selenium, Phosphorus, Beta-carotene, Choline etc. According to the latest findings, it is reported that grass-fed beef is the healthiest and they come from the cows/buffaloes/bovines which have been grazed in pasture round-the-year rather than being fed a processed diet. But they are slightly costlier.

Respecting religious sentiments

Of course you must not kill a cow in and around a Temple; you can't open a pork shop in front of a Mosque; it is safer not to organize a beef festival in a Hindu dominated area; it is again not advisable to organize pork mela in Muslim localities. But you can organize both in secular places.

If someone says cow is his mother, you ought to respect his sentiment. If somebody says pig is unholy, we need to respect that sentiment too. Why pork is unholy and cow is gaumata? Even satirists will keep mum.

Fish mela & why not pork or beef festivals

We are in a pluralistic society, some of us are beef eaters, some take pork, others eat fish, and many of us take almost all including cats and dogs. There is hardly any problem. The present generation is very liberal and accepts one another as far as eating habits are concerned. In the last 50 years or so I have not heard of any riots or killings in our State triggered by cows or pigs or dogs.

On the eve of Ningol- Chak- kouba we organize fish melas, like wise we may have pork festivals in and around Christmas or Gangngai or Kut and of course Beef-mutton festivals for Eids. Our anti-cow slaughter law (1939) may be there, but you see buffaloes are exempted and you know it is difficult to distinguish between cow meat and buffalo meat and while eating also taste is synonymous.

We heard of Beef festivals or Pork festivals organized by students of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. I don't know whether they are still organizing such festivals or not. In the last few years we haven't heard of such festivals.

Beef- one of the delicacies of the world

Dog meat is a delicacy in Vietnam and it is also widely consumed in China, Korea etc. Frog legs are better known delicacies of Spanish and French cuisine and also of South America. In Myanmar and Thailand rat-meat is sought after. People of Somalia and Uganda are fond of camel meat. Pork is again a very popular item in China and Far East.

Of course beef is extremely popular in the Islamic world. But for consuming these animals we need to kill them first. If killing is not allowed the price of this meat will go up like anything as it is to be imported from the places where slaughter of such animals is legal. Or there will be a flourishing gray market for real beef.

Admiring bear grylls

Bear Grylls is an adventurer of the Discovery Channel's very popular program "Man vs Wild". He eats everything which is moving; he eats snakes, insects, scorpions and what not. I don't know he belongs to which religion. Inspired by him, when I was asked inside an international flight by an air-hostess what I would like to eat, my reply was 'anything eatable'; then she gave me a non-veg-meal, later on I came to know, that was bovine meat.

Powerful beef eaters of the world

During the Cold-War era world-war-mongers used to tell us that the next world war will be fought for water, reminding Einstein. But, now keeping in view the changing world scenario next world war may be fought on beef. I mean a global war between the beef-supporters and beef-opposers, which side will win?

"Beef eaters of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your cattle". World's most powerful people like Putin sab, Barak sab, David sab, Xi sab, Hollande sab , they all eat beef. If I am wrong I may be corrected not hanged.