The Indian food in Australia is so commercial and nothing like what we've experienced here. There's quite a difference between our experience of Indian food at home and Indian food from its home country.

Meat is great difference. Vegetarian restaurants and meals are greatly more popular in India than Australia. They have purely vegetarian restaurants every two hundred meters it seems.

It's so interesting how the food can have a connection to their religions as well. They don't eat beef in India, and when you go into a restaurant and they have 'Beef' on the menu it's Buffalo, not cow. The Assitant Program Manager, Mukesh Vana told us that there was a bill passed in March 2015 that banned the slaughter of cows and bulls in the state of Maharashtra. Considering 80% of India is Hindi, they do not wish to harm these scared animals. The Buffalo used in restaurants and delis is considered non-sacred.

Beef is considered cheaper for the poor to eat however, instead of mutton or chicken, and most of India's beef is exported. Exported so much that it's market share beats that of the exportation of basmati rice, (BBC News, 2015).

We all know that cows are sacred to Indians. Because cows provide milk, like human mothers provide their babies, they associate cows to the mother of the world. They are allowed to roam unharmed anywhere in India - and are pretty use to the hustle and bustle of the cities, (hinduism.about.com, 2015).

Even without the option of beef, the meals we were provided with from ISAC were vegetarian.

Part of this reason is because the markets sell their meat on the sides of the streets. Fish sit out on wooden tables for hours at a time with flies festering on their eyeballs and sticking to the smell. And the smell is so intense, you wouldn't want to stand around long enough to buy the meat in the first place. It's risky business buying meat, because unless you can cook it to well past well done, there's a chance of getting sick.

Then there's sacredcy of other animals in India, with the top five being Cow, Monkey, Snake, Elephant and Tiger, (walkthroughindia.com, 2012). Not that these animals are generally delicacies in Australia, except for maybe Snake, but there are special considerations that need to be taken when it comes to meat in India. Considerations that would not necessarily arise in Australia.