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WHAT IS VEGETARIANISM?
and Farinacea," commented[1] on an article in the British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, July, 1850, pp. 76-98:—
The reviewer had first pointed out the difference between the principles and practice of Vegetarians, alleging that while they professed to derive their food exclusively from the vegetable kingdom, they consumed, in their various culinary preparations, very large quantities of cream, milk, butter, eggs, &c. He had also remarked on the great amount of nutriment contained in the preparations which they consumed at a meal, and the immense amount of trouble and expense required to prepare them, and then said: "We should like to know who may most consistently place omelets and egg fritters upon his table—the man who believes that the Creator intended him to eat the products of animal as well as of vegetable life, or he who maintains that the welfare of the human race, both physically, morally, and intellectually, is best consulted by a diet of fruit and farinacea? Answer us that, Mr. Smith." He felt bound to admit the general correctness of those observations, and to express his conviction that much mischief resulted to health by indulgence in rich compounds of food of any kind, and that in a physiological point of view, and probably on one or two other accounts, large quantities of these highly-seasoned and rich dishes were almost as objectionable as the flesh of animals. He would, therefore, caution all Vegetarians against too free a use of them. They might be advisable at their banquets and soirées, to demonstrate to strangers and inquirers what an immense variety of rich and nutritious dishes could be produced without animal slaughter; they might also be used as a transition diet of which flesh formed no part, but when circumstances would permit, an entire rejection of whatever was not simple in composition would be undoubtedly an advantage with regard to health and economy, as some Vegetarians had already found. The limits within which the dietary of the Vegetarian Society was restricted excluded nothing but the flesh and blood of animals. To have made the conditions of membership more exclusive would have greatly impaired the usefulness of the Society. Judging of the Vegetarians as a body, therefore, their principles and practice were not inconsistent with each other, their rules expressing their principles, and the consistency of individuals should be judged of by the opinions they privately entertained. (Hear, hear.) Some had become Vegetarians because they believed that God had forbidden man to kill animals and to feed upon their flesh and blood; others because they considered it inconsistent with the character of a moral, benevolent, and rational being, and contrary to the instinctive feeling of man, to kill and eat animals. If their inquiries proceeded no further than that, they might possibly consider milk, eggs, &c., as a necessary part of human diet; consequently their opinions and practice would be in harmony, though they made a free use of those articles, and the charge of inconsistency could not be maintained against them. (Applause.) Others, again, rejected animal food from their diet because, from a careful study of the organisation of man and from an unprejudiced investigation of anatomy and physiology, they saw plain indications that man had been specially adapted to a fruit and farinaceous diet, and inferred that, when climate and other circumstances permitted, an exclusive adoption of that diet would be most conducive to health, and, as far as food was concerned, to the highest development of which man was susceptible. Yet, though they held those views, they might not deem themselves called upon at once to dispense with milk,
- ↑ Vegetarian Messenger, vol. 1 p. 136.
