Vegetarians are no longer in the majority in India.

In a country whose religions and economy encouraged a vegetarian lifestyle there has been a huge change.

Economic growth can be attributed with raising the living standards of Indians as well as their expectations to indulge in more Western habits.

Food in India was once a symbol of tradition. Now food is a symbol of status.

Yes, even though there are some 300 million vegetarians here, in the new affluent urban India, meat has become a status symbol. In the U.S. vegetarianism is a lifestyle choice. In India, once, it wasn’t even an “ism” — it was just the way some of us were brought up for generations, a part of our cultural DNA.

The impact of all this meat eating on the environment is posing a whole new set of problems.

Rising incidents of heart disease aside, pollution and pharmaceutical toxicity need to be addressed to keep us all safe.

Stem cells used to grow hamburger in a laboratory may be served at a restaurant near you.

With a current price tag of $330,000 it will about 20 years before meat grown from stem cells will be available to meet the protein needs of the world.

The growing taste for meat in the developing world, especially in China and the limited arable land and water resources, have led scientists on a search for alternative ways of producing meat.

But there are concerns:

Many of the medical crises we’re seeing in the world today are partly due to some of the unnatural ways we’re manufacturing food – from the chemicals to preserve the taste, to the hormones to increase the size of produce, to the pesticides to control production. At the end of the day, all of these factors are taking a toll on our society.