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

by William A. Alcott

"But, that man is not, by nature, destined to devour animal food, is evident from the construction of the human frame, which bears no resemblance to wild beasts or birds of prey. Man is not provided with claws or talons, with sharpness of fang or tusk, so well adapted to tear and lacerate; nor is his stomach so well braced and muscular, nor his animal spirits so warm, as to enable him to digest this solid mass of animal flesh. On the contrary, nature has made his teeth smooth, his mouth narrow, and his tongue soft; and has contrived, by the slowness of his digestion, to divert him from devouring a species of food so ill adapted to his frame and constitution. But, if you still maintain that such is your natural mode of subsistence, then follow nature in your mode of killing your prey, and employ neither knife, hammer, nor hatchet—but, like wolves, bears, and lions, seize an ox with your teeth, grasp a boar round the body, or tear asunder a lamb or a hare, and, like the savage tribe, devour them still panting in the agonies of death.

"We carry our luxury still farther, by the variety of sauces and seasonings which we add to our beastly banquets—mixing together oil, wine, honey, pickles, vinegar, and Syrian and Arabian ointments and perfumes, as if we intended to bury and embalm the carcasses on which we feed. The difficulty of digesting such a mass of matter, reduced in our stomachs to a state of liquefaction and putrefaction, is the source of endless disorders in the human frame.

"First of all, the wild, mischievous animals were selected for food; and then the birds and fishes were dragged to slaughter; next, the human appetite directed itself against the laborious ox, the useful and fleece-bearing sheep, and the cock, the guardian of the house. At last, by this preparatory discipline, man became matured for human massacres, slaughters, and wars."

PLUTARCH.

"It is best to accustom ourselves to eat no flesh at all, for the earth affords plenty enough of things not only fit for nourishment, but for enjoyment and delight; some of which may be eaten without much preparation, and others may be made pleasant by adding divers other things to them.

"You ask me," continues Plutarch, "'for what reason Pythagoras abstained from eating the flesh of brutes?' For my part, I am astonished to think, on the contrary, what appetite first induced man to taste of a dead carcass; or what motive could suggest the notion of nourishing himself with the flesh of animals which he saw, the moment before, bleating, bellowing, walking, and looking around them. How could he bear to see an impotent and defenceless creature slaughtered, skinned, and cut up for food? How could he endure the sight of the convulsed limbs and muscles? How bear the smell arising from the dissection? Whence happened it that he was not disgusted and struck with horror when he came to handle the bleeding flesh, and clear away the clotted blood and humors from the wounds?

"We should therefore rather wonder at the conduct of those who first indulged themselves in this horrible repast, than at such as have humanely abstained from it."

PORPHYRY, OF TYRE.

Porphyry, of Tyre, lived about the middle of the third century, and wrote a book on abstinence from animal food. This book was addressed to an individual who had once followed the vegetable system, but had afterward relinquished it. The following is an extract from it:

"You owned, when you lived among us, that a vegetable diet was preferable to animal food, both for preserving the health and for facilitating the study of philosophy; and now, since you have eat flesh, your own experience must convince you that what you then confessed was true. It was not from those who lived on vegetables that robbers or murderers, sycophants or tyrants, have proceeded; but from flesh-eaters. The necessaries of life are few and easily acquired, without violating justice, liberty, health, or peace of mind; whereas luxury obliges those vulgar souls who take delight in it to covet riches, to give up their liberty, to sell justice, to misspend their time, to ruin their health and to renounce the joy of an upright conscience."