Vegetable Diet (1838)

AUTHOR: Alcott, William Andrus

In this foundational text, William Alcott explicitly advocates for intersectional veg*nism, making the argument that veg*nism (or “the vegetable diet” or “the vegetable system”) is the cure for all social evils, from class inequality to war. He makes the class-based argument that the vegetable diet associated with laboring men should be adopted by men of learning in place of an animal diet. Broadening his engagement to the level of the nation, Alcott argues that the vegetable diet would increase national pride and decrease acrimonious relationships between nations by reducing competition over trade because the globe is “rifled” for luxury goods like wine and spices (206).

KEYWORDS: food, land usage, environmentalism, labor rights, nationalism, citizenship, race, health and disease, religion

SUMMARY (Bryn Skibo, edited Deborah Madsen):

Alcott argues throughout that the vegetable diet promotes a sound and clear mind (237). “The destruction of animals for food, … involves so much of cruelty as to cause every reflecting individual – destitute of the ordinary sensibilities of our nature – to shudder” (267). Speaking of the gradual acceptance of killing animals, Alcott makes the comparison with killing humans: “How long is it after we begin to look with indifference on pain and suffering in brutes, before we begin to be less affected than before by human suffering?” (268-69). He does not agree that butchers are necessarily hard-hearted people (269); rather, he argues against making children comfortable with killing. Alcott notes that a true Christian could not make light of the scenes which take place in a slaughterhouse (271).

“Preface”
The text includes testimony from “ONE HUNDRED individuals, – besides that of societies and communities – on the subject of vegetable diet” (v). Unlike other texts by William Alcott that discuss vegetarianism, here he sets out to prove that the vegetable diet is superior to others (vii).

Chapter I: “Origin of this Work”
In 1826, suffering from tuberculosis, Alcott stopped eating “most kinds of stimulating foods,” exchanged his feather bed for straw, and stopped drinking spirits (1). In 1830, Alcott “abandoned all drinks but water, and all flesh, fish, and other highly stimulating and concentrated aliments, and confined [himself] to a diet of milk and vegetables” (2).

Chapter II: “Letters to Dr. North”
Letters to various doctors; anecdotal evidence of the benefits and effects of the vegetable diet.

Chapter III: “Remarks on the Foregoing Letters”
Most of the chapter consists of Alcott's response to various statements or concerns that were mentioned in the letters of the previous chapter, arguing that for those for whom the vegetable diet didn’t work, there may be extenuating circumstances or it was not implemented correctly. Nevertheless, as the diet relates to students and laborers, the doctors speak with “but one voice,” and that is in favor of excluding all animal food from their diets (58). “And there is quite as much reason to believe that animal food will be discarded from our tables in the progress of a century to come, as there was, in 1800, to believe that all drinks but water would be laid aside in the progress of the century which is now passing” (59).

Chapter IV: “Additional Intelligence”
Letters from various doctors are presented; speaking of his own diet and dietetic history, Alcott states that he is nearly vegan – he eats no meat or flesh of any kind, no butter, only minimal cheese, and a little milk every day – and he does not consume hot food or drink (82). He does not eat condiments or sauces/preserves, and usually only eats one kind of food at a time (82). The chapter concludes with a report on Alcott’s current state of health.

Chapter  V: “Testimony of Other Medical Men, Both of Ancient and Modern Times"
Dr. George Cheyne: Alcott contends that he “may justly be esteemed the father of what is now called the ‘vegetable system’ of living…” (90). He notes that a common complaint made by those seeking to start the vegetable diet is the difficulty in digesting vegetables, which is why they, apparently, make good food for laborers:

Another weighty objection against a vegetable diet, I have heard, has been made by learned men; and is, that vegetables require great labor, strong exercise, and much action, to digest and turn them into proper nutriment; as (say they) is evident from their being the common diet of day-laborers, handicrafts-men, and farmers. This objection I should have been ashamed to mention, but that I have heard it come from men of learning; and they might have as justly said, that free-stone is harder than marble, and that the juice of vegetables make stronger glue than that of fish and beef!
     And, indeed, if day-laborers and handicrafts-men were allowed the high, strong food of men of condition, and the quiet and much-thinking persons were confined to the farmer and ploughman’s food, it would be much happier for both (101).

In this chapter Alcott presents various testimonies and the collected research of British, French, and American doctors that highlight the contemporary belief that children should not eat stimulating foods, that meat is over-stimulating (like tea, coffee, and spices), and that not all vegetables are good (potatoes and whole wheat breads are best).

Chapter VI: “Testimony of Philosophers and Other Eminent Men”
Alcott claims that William Penn was a vegetarian and that Thomas Jefferson only ate meat as “condiments for his vegetables” (173). Others discussed are Plautus, Plutarch, Porphyry, Cicero, Homer, Alexander Pope, Sir Isaac Newton who, Alcott claims, “abstained rigorously, at times, from all but purely vegetable food, and from all drinks but water...” (187), Benjamin Franklin, Linnaeus, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Alcott claims that murderers, madmen, and tyrants of the ages were likely meat-eaters and drinkers; their crimes and bloodshed could have been avoided had they followed a vegetable diet and been temperate (202-203): “There is no disease, bodily or mental, which adoption of vegetable diet and pure water has not infallibly mitigated, wherever the experiment has been fairly tried” (203).

Alcott addresses vegetarianism and wealth inequality, arguing that it is the “direct influence of excess of commerce to make the interval between the rich and the poor wider and more unconquerable” (206). “None must be entrusted with power (and money is the completest species of power,) who do not stand pledged to use it exclusively for the general benefit. But the use of animal flesh and fermented liquors, directly militates with this equality of the rights of man. The peasant cannot gratify these fashionable cravings without leaving his family to starve. … The peasantry work, not only for themselves, but for the aristocracy, the army, and the manufacturers” (207). “The advantage of a reform in diet is obviously greater than that of any other. It strikes at the root of the evil. To remedy the abuses of legislation, before we annihilate the propensities by which they are produced, is to suppose that by taking away the effect, the cause will cease to operate. ... But the efficacy of this system depends entirely on the proselytism of individuals, and grounds its merits, as a benefit of the community, upon the total change of the dietetic habits in its members” (207).

Chapter VII: “Societies and Communities on the Vegetable System”
These communities include: Pythagoreans, the Essenes, and the Brahmins. Alcott notes that the Society of Bible Christians argue that a vegetarian diet would reduce wars because people who do not kill animals probably will not kill humans either (214-225). The vegetarian diet would also “prevent much cruelty, luxury and disease, besides many other evils which cause misery in society” (215). He advocates drawing appropriate comparisons, not between vegetarians of one country and meat eaters of another (like Brahmins in India versus Americans), but between vegetarians and meat-eaters of one country, and he always finds that the vegetarians are fitter.

Chapter VIII: “Vegetable Diet Defended”
This chapter is divided into a number of arguments for the vegetable diet: “General remarks on the Nature of the Argument”; first, "The Anatomical Argument”; secondly, "The Physiological Argument”; thirdly, "The Medical Argument.” He continues,

4. "The Political Argument": based on land use for raising domestic animals versus vegetables, Alcott estimates that the US and UK populations could easily double in size and still feed everyone; thus, it is a crime that the US populace prevents tens of millions of people from coming into the world simply because it is believed there is not enough food to feed them (253-254).
5. "The Economical Argument": It is cheaper to feed a family on the vegetable diet than the meat diet.
6. "The Argument from Experience": “It is true, that in a vast majority of cases, as I have already intimated, laborers are vegetable-eaters from necessity; they cannot get flesh” (259). Speaking of Gutzlaff, “the Chinese traveller and missionary,” Alcott explains that when Chinese people of the interior were given meat and stimulating drinks, they quickly developed a taste for them, but soon became “lazy, self-indulgent, and effeminate” (261). Here, Alcott reintroduces the meat-as-race-deterioration argument.
7. "The Moral Argument”: “Animal food is a root of all evil, so far as temperance is concerned, in its most popular and constricted sense” (236).
 

Last updated on May 2nd, 2024

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