The Golden Rule Cook Book (1907)

AUTHOR: Freshel, Emarel

KEYWORDS: animals,education, food, labor rights

SUMMARY (Bryn Skibo, edited Deborah Madsen)

The epigraph from Genesis 1.29 reads: “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed … to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, ... I have given every green herb for meat, and it was so” (1.29-30). Freshel contrasts her vegetarianism (and any inconvenience it might create for her friends) with the suffering of children who must work in slaughterhouses (15). She describes meat-eaters as the “employers of every fainting child in the stock-yards, and every brutalised man in the shambles, whose wages they pay with every pound of meat they buy” (17). Indeed, she stresses that in children's education, “Kindness to animals is not mere sentiment but a requisite of even a very ordinary education; nothing in arithmetic or grammar is so important for a child to learn as humaneness” (Journal of Education, Boston, qtd. In Freshel 165). The introduction makes explicit that this cookbook advocates for vegetarianism not because it is a better option for health, but because it is a better option for one’s humanity and the good of others (both humans and nonhumans alike). The text was published before the creation of the Millennium Guild, but provides the Scripture (Isaiah xi, 6-9) from which the Guild took its name, which is cited at the back of the book before the Index.

In the “Introduction” Freshel explains who created the text (good-hearted vegetarians who “obey the call to a higher humanitarianism,” out of love for the “myriad … creatures, which an animality that defiles the use of the word has accustomed man to killing and eating” (11). She sets out the difference between vegetarian, meaning a “blood-less diet,” and Homo Vegitus, meaning “a strong, vigorous man” (11): “Vegitus” meaning “whole, sound, quick, fresh, lively, lusty, gallant, trim, and brave” (Holyoke’s Latin Dictionary, 11). The meaning of "vegetarian" in this text is defined in relation to ethical veg*nism: “the Vegetarian who is one because his conscience for one reason or another condemns the eating of flesh, occupies a very different place in the world of ethics from one who is simply refraining from meat eating in an effort to cure bodily ills” (12).

The "Introduction" continues to list and counter the dominant arguments in favor of carnism and against veg*nism. Freshel offers a critique of the "Dominion" argument, “We will some day be so civilised that we will recognise the great truth that dominion implies care, and guardianship, and protection rather than the right to destroy” (14), along with the "Inevitable Killing" argument (that veg*ans kill vegetables): Freshel explains that she would be willing to stop eating cabbage if she felt that it was an “innocent cabbage” that she killed; also, one cannot be asked to do the impossible, but must every day choose the lesser of evils in their habits (15-16). In relation to killing pests, Freshel asks her readers to (again) do their best: if pests (moths, rats, flies) must be killed, do it with mercy and do not use things like sticky paper which leads to a slow death (16). To the argument that animals do not suffer as humans do, she responds: “The fact is that no two live beings suffer the same in any event, physical or mental, but the lower animal or bird or fish suffers in its fear and death all it is capable of suffering, and we have no right to make any creature do this for our pleasure” (20). She opposes the argument that humans have canine teeth for meat by pointing out that Baron Cuvier (as well as Dr. Charles Darwin, among others) has ruled that human anatomy is clearly designed to eat roots and vegetables and fruit, that “canine” teeth in humans are smaller than similar teeth in apes, horses, and camels, and that our weak jaws and short canines would not permit eating roots and vegetables without cooking them (21). Regardless of our anatomy, Freshel argues, even if we were born to eat meat, we have the hearts and minds to stop. Regardless of the arguments in favor of animals, Freshel explains that she stopped eating meat when she realized she would not do the work required to produce it, so she could not demand that others (often including children) kill animals to produce her food (22). In this connection she mentions Henry Salt's claim that butchers are the pariah of society (22).

To the argument that vegetarians still wear products made from animals Freshel responds that yes, this is the case, though a vegetarian should not actively seek to wear anything made from animal products, but since few alternatives exist, it is hard to maintain this position (24). She makes passing reference to the invention of a leather substitute, but argues that a lack of market interest has prevented it from becoming more widely used (24).

If the world were vegetarian, Freshel concludes, men, women, and children wouldn’t need to work in the slaughterhouses, there would be no cruelty to animals, and there would be no need for vivisection (24-25).

She acknowledges the burden under which she has labored to write this book, stressing the necessity of writing the truth, even if it is hard to read: “Perhaps nothing more revolting than this same writer’s remarks about pig-killing has been written, but since the words are accurately true, they should be fit to read, for if the words which tell the truth about meat as food are unfit for our ears, the meat itself is not fit for our mouths” (18).