Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages / Including a System of Vegetable Cookery

by William A. Alcott

DR. CONDIE, OF PHILADELPHIA.

The Journal of Health, edited by some of the ablest physicians of Philadelphia, has the following remarkable language on the subject of vegetable food. See vol. 1, page 277.

"It is well known that vegetable substances, particularly the farinaceous, are fully sufficient, of themselves, for maintaining a healthy existence. We have every reason for believing that the fruits of the earth constituted, originally, the only food of man. Animal food is digested in a much shorter period than vegetables; from which circumstance, as well as its approaching much nearer in its composition to the substance of the body into which it is to be converted, it might at first be supposed the most appropriate article of nourishment. It has, however, been found that vegetable matter can be as readily and perfectly assimilated by the stomach into appropriate nutriment as the most tender animal substances; and confessedly with a less heating effect upon the system generally.

"As a general rule, it will be found that those who make use of a diet consisting chiefly of vegetable matter have a vast advantage in looks, in strength, and spirits, over those who partake largely of animal food. They are remarkable for the firm, healthy plumpness of their muscles, and the transparency of their skins. This assertion, though at variance with popular opinion, is amply supported by experience."

At page 7 of the same volume of the Journal of Health we find the following remarks. The editors were alluding to those persons who think they cannot preserve their health and strength without flesh or fish, and who believe their children would also suffer without it:

"For the information of all such misguided persons, we beg leave to state, that the large majority of mankind do not eat any animal food; or, if any, they use it so sparingly, and at such long intervals, that it cannot be said to form their nourishment. Millions in Asia are sustained by rice alone, with perhaps a little vegetable oil for seasoning.

"In Italy and southern Europe, generally, bread, made of the flour of wheat or Indian corn, with lettuce and the like mixed with oil, constitutes the food of the most robust part of its population.

"The Lazzaroni of Naples, with forms so actively and finely proportioned, cannot even calculate on this much. Coarse bread and potatoes is their chief reliance. Their drink of luxury is a glass of iced water, slightly acidulated.

"Hundreds of thousands—we might say millions—of Irish do not see flesh-meat or fish from one week's end to another. Potatoes and oatmeal are their articles of food: if milk can be added it is thought a luxury. Yet where shall we find a more healthy and robust population, or one more enduring of bodily fatigue, and exhibiting more mental vivacity? What a contrast between these people and the inhabitants of the extreme north—the timid Laplanders, Esquimaux, and Samoideans, whose food is almost entirely animal?"

Again, at page 187 we are told that "the more simple the aliment, and the less altered by culinary processes, the slower is the change in digestion; but, at the same time, the less is the stimulation and wear of the powers of life. The Bramins of Hindostan, who live on exceedingly simple food, are long livers, even in a hot and exhausting climate. The peasants of Switzerland and of Scotland, nourished on bread, milk, and cheese, attain a very old age, and enjoy great bodily strength.

"Where there is too much excitement of the body, generally, from fullness of the blood-vessels, or of any one of the organs, owing to a wrong direction of the blood to it (and in one or the other of these conditions we find almost every body now-a-days), animal food, by being long retained in the stomach, and calling into greater action other parts during digestion, as well as furnishing them with more blood afterward, must be obviously improper. The more of this kind of food is taken under such circumstances, the greater will be the oppression; and the weakness, different from that of a healthy person long hungered, will only be increased by the increased amount of blood carried to the diseased part."

It is true that the editors of the Journal of Health connect with the foregoing paragraphs the statement that, "if it be desirable to give nutriment in a small bulk, to obtund completely the sensation of hunger and restore strength to the body, a small quantity of animal will be preferable to much vegetable food." But then it is only in a few diseased cases that any such thing is desirable. And even then, if we look carefully at the language used, the comparison is not made between animal and vegetable food in moderate or reasonable quantities, but between a small quantity of the former and much of the latter.