The Chemistry of Food (1899)

AUTHOR: Clubb, Henry Stephens

SUMMARY (Ridvan Askin, edited Deborah Madsen)

In this short article, Clubb advocates for veg*ism on the basis of his argument that the chemical composition of plant-based nutrition is healthier and therefore superior: “Chemistry in its analysis of foods,” Clubb begins, “furnishes very strong reasons for the disuse of flesh and the adoption of a fruit, nut and farineceous dietary” (105). The article provides a table listing various items of food and the proportions of their different components, ranging from rice to macaroni and from dried figs to bacon. While Clubb notes the “decided advantage” of a plant-based diet, “both as to quantity and quality of the nourishment supplied” compared to meat-based nutrition (106), his main focus in this short piece is on the quantity and quality of water in plant foods compared to meats. Thus, the water in fruit is “pure and uncontaminated” whereas that in any kind of meat, including that of healthy animals, tends to be “offensive and poisonous” due to being “contaminated with excrementious matter” (106). Meat eaters do not object to these “poisonous elements” in meat because, according to Clubb, they provide a certain “stimulus” and “pleasurable sensation” (106). For Clubb, however, it is clear that this kind of stimulus and pleasure is ultimately detrimental, and he blames the consumption of flesh-foods for decreased mental health (“we have only to visit any lunatic asylum to see its dreadful consequences”) as well as domestic violence (“the use of flesh […] is the chief cause of domestic infelicity”).