An Indian doctor, Dr. Sylvia Karpagam, has recently hogged the headlines for stating that milk and paneer are not vegetarian items. She argued that these products being taken from animals should be so classified as meat like chicken, fish, and beef.
This was when Dr. Karpagam commented on a post with a photo of a vegetarian thali consisting of paneer, moong dal, salad, raw coconut, walnuts, and kheer. It was a post by another doctor, Sunita Sayammagaru, who called it a “thali loaded with protein, good fats and fibre”.Now, Dr. Karpagam’s direct reply to this post was, “Also paneer and milk are not ‘veg’. They are animal source foods. same like chicken, fish, beef and all”.
Her comment has sparked a huge debate on social media, where most of the people were defending milk and paneer as vegetarian foods because they do not kill animals for their production.One user argued, “No one is killed … to eat paneer or milk,” while another added, “Milk products are the animal products that no animal has to be killed and hence it is indeed vegetarian & not vegan, any killing or harm of animal is on the milking setup, veg means vegetarian.”
The question she posed was further controversial: she asked why eggs are considered “non-vegetarian” if no hens are killed in their production. She provoked reactions with her remarks, and some people accused her of spreading misinformation while others speculated that the entire post was nothing but a gulf for more online engagement.
Vegetarianism in India generally means lacto-vegetarianism: that is, a diet excluding eggs but not dairy products. This definition is different from what is found in the West, where ovo-lacto vegetarians consume both dairy and eggs, and some even term pescatarians, those who eat fish but not other meats, vegetarian.
