Lord Rama ate non-veg as per Valmiki Ramayana. Then why do Hindus avoid Non-Veg in the name of Lord Rama?
In Sanathan dharma foods can cause 3 types of effects/gunamulu
1. Rajo gunam i.e Aggressiveness;
2. Thamo gunam i.e Lazyness;
3. Satva gunam i.e Being Virtuous.
My English translation of gunas may not be perfect but I think u got the essence.
Nonveg food typically leads one to have aggressive nature. When we want to pray to God, we usually need to have saatvik guna to better concentrate on God. So we try to avoid nonveg food, at least on the day we want to do puja.
Since most ppl don’t have the strong will to abstain from non-veg by themselves, we try to tag it to a God and say I don’t eat on Mon because I pray to Shiva or on Sat because I pray to Venkateswara Swamy🙏🏻.
But Rajo gunam and Thamo gunam foods are also needed. Like Kshatriyas need to eat nonveg food. As a warrior he needs to have Rajo gunam foods too. That’s why Lord Rama too ate nonveg. But at the same time Lord Rama used to fast on Ekadashi day too. He used to take saatvik food during puja ceremonies.
Basically Lord Rama is not God. He may be a avatar but he is just a human being like all of us.
We worship Lord Rama as God because he followed Satyamu and Dharmamu 100% of the time.
And Sudra varna people in those days used to have thamo gunam foods after a hard day of physical work, for them to relax.
Brahmins used to take saatvik food and used to give gyanam/knowledge to society.
Long story short - Hindus avoid nonveg food on certain days so that they can have saatvik food n meditate on God. Of course not every Hindu may know it, that’s why the tradition of tagging it to a particular God came in, like I mentioned above for Mon Shiva and Sat Venkateswara swamy example.
That’s the reason too why pulihora is served as prasaadam and not biryani in Hindu Temples. Pulihora is Saatvik food. Biryani is Rajo Gunam food.
Sri Rama Jayam 🙏🏻
