One of the PETA ad campaigns featuring Aditi Govitrikar

The cabbage is no longer a symbol of blockheadedness. Despite visually representing imbecility at its best, the cabbage has redeemed itself. In an era when green is fast supplanting red on dining tables, vegetarianism is in.

Ho hum, you’d say. Just this ? vegetarianism is no longer a mere fad, having journeyed from those days when it was infradig to be a vegetarian to an age where it is de rigueur to be one. People in the past turned away from ruddy steaks to focus on bland, leafy concoctions in the hope that stuffing foliage down their throat would keep them in ship-shape condition. Some let star appeal take over ? ‘Richard Gere is vegetarian, didn’t you know?’ ? while others gave into compassion, living and letting live. But never, not until recent times that is, did it occur to people that turning green could actually help them live.

You didn’t hear that one earlier. But then, you didn’t hear about cows going mad or chicken nursing running noses either. And now, since you know that H5N1 is death abbreviated, would you think it was abnormal for Kentucky Fried Chicken to record a 20 per cent drop in sales across India, since bird flu broke out in poultry farms in Maharashtra last week? “Our chicken is absolutely safe, and is cooked well above 70?,” holds Sandeep Kohli, managing director, Yum! Restaurants International, holders of the KFC brand in India. But few, at the moment, seem to be listening.

Suddenly, the die-hard non-vegetarian ? the kind that started the morning with a fried egg and bacon and wound up the day with the korma and chicken biryani ? is looking at the harmful effects of fish and fowl. Pork transfers its worms to you, red meat bestows you with cholesterol, eggs give you salmonella, beef introduces you to the mad cow disease and chicken, the deadly flu. But you think fish ? an established source of protein ? is always there, right?

Listen to what spoilsport Maneka Gandhi has to say about fish. “Most of the 44 lakh tons of fresh water fish annually consumed in India are reared on a diet of human faeces,” she says blithely. “It’s not that feeding on human faeces helps them grow at a faster rate. But it does infect them with germs. So those who have switched to fish, thinking it to be a better option, aren’t doing themselves much good either,” says the founder of a Delhi-based non-governmental organisation, People for Animals.

Clearly, it’s man himself who is at the root of all problems. An unnatural rearing of livestock, critics say, is the main reason for the outbreak of these deadly afflictions. The mad cow disease broke out in the United Kingdom after cattle were fed commercial fodder mixed with sheep blood. Salmonellosis has claimed thousands of lives in the past ? it wouldn’t have if poultry birds were treated to healthier food, minus the fungus. The avian flu virus was in the air for many years “but it spread among birds because they were kept in extremely unhygienic conditions in the farms”, says Laxmi Narain Modi, secretary-general of the Vegetarian Society of Delhi.

So going vegetarian is probably the only option man is now left with. The West has already opted for it ? a recent survey indicated that the whole population of Britain would turn foliage-munchers by 2047, if the current trend to go veg in the country continued.

The East, expectedly, has followed suit. “Each time we have done a vegetarian awareness campaign with a celebrity, we have received a lot of emails, letters and phone calls from people asking for information on how to turn vegetarian, along with leaflets and posters to give out to friends and family,” says Anuradha Sawhney, chief of People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), India. “Until now, vegetarianism had been a growing trend everywhere except in India. But more people are showing interest these days.”

Modi argues that the human body is not built to digest non-vegetarian food. “Meat decomposes quickly and can affect the physiology if contained within the system for a long time,” he claims.

He sounds convincing, but most flesh-lovers would still want to tread a middle path, choosing for themselves which meat to eat and what to avoid, especially in times of crises. But, the vegetarian lobby says rather gleefully, there is not much left for the non-vegetarian to choose from.

Even pigs ? which Maneka Gandhi endorses as otherwise clean vegetarian animals ? are fed offal from slaugter houses, thus turning them into vectors of a thousand diseases.

That leaves enough room in your refrigerator for the cabbage to roll around. But remember to cook it thoroughly before you relish its subtle (for want of a better word ) flavour. Cabbages are known to house worms which can travel all the way to the brain and rollick in grey matter.

At the end of the day, it’s you who decides what’s best. Just make sure you do that while you still can.