Imperial Diet

“ Under wheat that land will feed forty-two people; under oats, eighty-eight; under potatoes, maize, or rice, one hundred and seventy-six; under the banana, over six thousand. The crowded nations of the future must abandon flesh-eating for a diet that will feed more than tenfold people by the same soil, expense and labor. How rich men will be when they cease to toll for flesh-meat, alcohol, drugs, sickness, and war! ”

“ Many of the doctors who were with me thought that the heavy eating and large consumption of wine and beer had unfavourably affected the German national character, and had made the people more aggressive and irritable and consequently readier for war. The influence of diet on national character should not be under-estimated. Meat-eating nations have always ruled vegetarians. ”

“ But the most important influence of eating is exhibited in politics. Here we observe, in the first place, the fact that a substantial diet in a people is, with scarcely one exception inseparable from a certain degree of rational freedom. It is for this reason principally that the nations of the North are with great difficulty reduced to slavery; while the South, more abstemious in eating, has always been more easily conquered and subdued. ”

“ I do not recall the British ration now, but it includes, in addition to meat and vegetables, tea, cheese, jam and bacon—probably not all at once, but giving that variety of diet so lacking to the unfortunate Belgian Army. Food is one of the principal munitions of war. No man fights well with an empty stomach. Food sinks into the background only when it is assured and plentiful. ”

“ A small minority of the inhabitants, it is true, never adopted the revolting customs above referred to. This was the case with the Adept kings and emperors and the initiated priesthood throughout the whole empire. They were entirely vegetarian in their habits, but though many of the emperor's counsellors and the officials about the court affected to prefer the purer diet, they often indulged in secret their grosser tastes. ”

“ The diet was a great council of the German empire, consisting of the princes, provincial rulers and the chief dignitaries of the church. The diet from the 10th century had assumed the right of electing the emperor of Germany, subject to confirmation by the pope, by whom alone he could be crowned. The diet was also usually assembled for the consideration of very important matters pertaining to the empire. ”

“ In all countries of our Globe, with the exception of the most barbarous tribes, it is, in reality, only the ruling and rich classes who are kreophagist. The Poor have, almost everywhere, but the barest sufficiency even of vegetable foods:—
“The peasantry of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, France, Spain, England, Scotland, Ireland, a considerable portion of Prussia, and other parts of Europe subsist mainly on non-flesh foods. ”

“ Locke [7] , that some savage nations are totally devoid of the moral faculty, yet it will by no means follow, that this was the original constitution of their minds. The appetite for certain aliments is uniform among all mankind. Where is the nation and the individual, in their primitive state of health, to whom bread is not agreeable? But if we should find savages, or individuals, whose stomachs have been so disordered by intemperance, as to refuse this simple and wholesome article of diet, shall we assert that this was the original constitution of their appetites? ”

“ The peasant, here and all the world over, has been, and still is, in the main a vegetarian, and must for the most part continue so; and the fact that this diet has been the result, not of choice, but of necessity, does not lessen the significance of its perfect sufficiency to maintain those who do the hard work of the world. Side by side with the tendency of the wealthier classes to indulge more and more in flesh food has been the undisputed admission that for the workers such luxuries were unneeded. ”

“ Of excess in eating there are few examples; for their longest meals, even when a series of dishes is presented, as at the tables of a Pasha or a Bey, are terminated in a few minutes. The moderation and temperance of diet indeed throughout the East are matters of high praise; and, whether virtues of climate, habit, or reflection, merit imitation among ourselves. The reward is present, uninterrupted health and tranquillity of mind.
If the multitude of wants constitute human inquietude, it must be remembered how much of what to us is indispensable is, to them, as if it had never been. ”

“ Who that has ever had charge of animals, has produced their food and fed it to them etc., does not know what an incessant slavery it imposes? Who that has ever cooked on the usual plan, with flesh and its concomitants, has not inwardly sighed, yea, groaned in spirit, at the endless complications and never ending demands of the kitchen? At least nine-tenths of the labor of the kitchen, especially of the disagreeable portion thereof, would be dispensed with by a simple diet, consisting mainly of fruits and nuts. ”

“ THE commonest obstacle to Food Reform, as indeed to every other Reform, is prejudice. The popular belief that flesh-food is the best diet for mankind is so deeply rooted in the minds of every class of Englishmen, from highest to lowest, that we cannot reasonably hope to eradicate it all at once. ”

“ In the villages grouped round the kraals of the warriors, the women and slaves stored provisions for the army, which was fed exclusively on a meat diet, milk, the food of the peaceful, being interdicted. ”

“ Besides, the very manner of living in France gives a lively turn to the character of the people; for by the destruction of the animal juices, in dressing their food, they are subject to none of that dulness, the effect of more nutritive diet in other countries ”

“ Instead, he saw petty feudal tyrants, living in dark poorly lit, poorly heated, well defended castles: living on a limited diet, a diet of old food, stored away for long periods of time, salted or pickled or rotted or fermented. ”

“ The food of the people is as simple as their houses, and as inexpensive. A Japanese family it has been calculated can live on about £10 a year. A little fish, rice, and vegetables, with incessant tea, is the national dietary. The people living on this meagre fare are, on the whole, a strong and sturdy race, but it is questionable if the national physique would not be vastly improved were the national diet also. ”

“ Taking all flesh-eating nations together, though some, whose other habits are favourable, are, comparatively, well-formed, as a general average they are small, ill-formed races; and taking all vegetable-eating nations, though many, from excessive use of narcotics, and from other unfavourable circumstances, are comparatively small and ill-formed, as a general average they are much better formed races than the flesh-eaters. [269] It is only among those tribes whose habits are temperate, and who subsist on the non-flesh diet, that the more perfect specimens of symmetry are found. ”

“ Castle, who thought no man need desire more in the way of diet than to eat meat every day, looked with contempt on the grimaces of his companion over his ample supply of beef, wheaten bread, and cider. ”

“ It will be objected, perhaps, that when food reformers claim these fighting qualities for their diet they are proving just a little too much for their principles, as, for example, in the reference to the sanguinary Turk as a practical vegetarian. ”

“ This being so, let us recur to the point to which Sir Henry Thompson brought us. If flesh-food be, as he admits, entirely unnecessary, will not this additional consideration of economy turn the balance when we make our choice of diet? Will a nation whose food supply is becoming a matter of more and more anxiety persist in spending six times as much money as it is obliged to spend. ”

“ What is lacking in quality of the peasant’s food is made up in quantity or rather the frequency with which it is partaken of. There is early breakfast, lunch at nine A.M., called from its hour s’nüni, dinner at twelve, lunch again at four P.M., called s’vierli, and supper. It is astonishing to see how much solid flesh, good blood, and healthy color can be produced by such inferior and limited diet. ”

“ So fully were the Romans, at one time, persuaded of the superior goodness of vegetable diet, that, besides the private example of many of their great men, they established laws respecting food, among which were the lex fannia, and the lex licinia, which allowed but very little animal food; and, for a period of five hundred years, diseases were banished along with the physician from the Roman empire. Nor has our own age been destitute of examples of men, brave from the vigor both of their bodies and their minds, who at the same time have been drinkers of water and eaters of vegetables. ”

“ Though I am aware that in different countries men have different constitutions, I also remarked that the Turkish system of diet closely resembled the English, as they used a great deal of rice, flour—stewed, broiled, and boiled meats, &c. ”

“ I have not hesitated to say that Englishmen generally have adopted a diet adapted for a somewhat more northerly latitude than that which they occupy; that the cost of their food is therefore far greater than it need be, and that much of their peculiar forms of indigestion and resulting chronic disease is another necessary consequence of the same error. They consume too much animal food, particularly the flesh of cattle. ”

“ Let us, then, forget our civilization,—this portion of it,—and forego our physical ills and our patent nostrums, and go back to a simple, natural, restricted diet. In that one course of procedure will be found more restored health than all the physicians of the world can give otherwise in a score of years. Let us learn to eat few things to a meal, and those of such a nature that they will properly mix, and thus not overtax the stomach in its work of digestion. ”

“ Doubtless the Political Economy of our days will be shaken to its foundations by the step from the flesh to the non-flesh diet; but this was also the case when the nomads began to practise tillage, and the hunters found no more game. ”

“ As a member of a warlike race, he is without equal in Europe in health and hardiness. He can live and fight when soldiers of any other nationality would starve. His excellent physique, his simple habits, his abstinence from intoxicating liquors, and his normal vegetarian diet, enable him to support the greatest hardships, and to subsist on the scantiest and simplest food." Have I said enough to show you that vegetarianism may be a fighting force? ”

“ Mediaeval Europe was dependent for her luxuries on Asia Minor and Syria, Arabia and Persia, India and the Spice Islands, China and Japan. Precious stones and fabrics, dyes and perfumes, drugs and medicaments, woods, gums, and spices reached Europe by many devious and obscure routes, but all from the eastward. One of the chief luxuries of the Middle Ages was the edible spices. The monotonous diet, the coarse food, the unskilful cookery of mediaeval Europe had all their deficiencies covered by a charitable mantle of Oriental seasoning. ”

“ It is indisputable that there have been, and indeed are, savage tribes who deliberately prefer human flesh to other food ; and it should not escape our notice that these people, in defence of their dietetic peculiarities might use, and probably have used, arguments similar to those now-a-days brought forward by flesh-eaters in justification of their system of diet—“It has always been so;” “it is the regular rule of our society ;” “ our medical men approve of it ;” “we are strong and healthy on this diet ;” ”

“ We must not permit them to drink liquor or hot drinks, or hot soups or to use tobacco or other articles that are injurious. I do not believe that you could ever make as great and noble race of men, if you feed them on one article of food alone, as if you gave them a variety of diet. We have illustrations of this in India, where the chief diet is rice—of itself a very good article of food. We have other illustrations in the case of other races. A people who, for instance, are fed on potatoes alone do not have the stamina that they would have if they had a greater variety of food. ”

“ With such variety as this, with portable kitchens in the place of the cumbersome camp-kettle per man, with fresh bread, well-cooked meat and vegetables, and well-made coffee, the soldiers will have every chance of health that diet can afford. ”

“ Often their income is insufficient to buy their own foods, which they know they like. Can we wonder that they hesitate to invest in food about which they are uncertain? There are certain diseases prevalent among the foreign-born people which are due largely to their change of diet. ”

“ But, though this is not the common opinion of medical men, they all agree, that, in America, far too large a portion of the diet consists of animal food. As a nation, the Americans are proverbial for the gross and luxurious diet with which they load their tables ”

“ Our diet, in fact, is much too dry, and could be improved without resorting to lager-beer, which redeems its deleterious influence to some degree by helping the Germans to digest their pungent comestibles. ”

“ That a family coming to this country from a wholly different environment is under an enormous handicap in attaining a satisfactory diet, particularly when the income is small.
That doctors, nurses, social workers, and even dietitians generally lack knowledge of the native diets and usual food habits of the foreign-born.
That a large number of the foods of foreign-bom peoples are well adapted to their physical needs. That most of these foods can be obtained in this country. ”

“ Why, then, might not this country very well maintain the vast number of its inhabitants, being in every part so productive of either milk, corn, wine, oil, or honey, which are the principal food of these eastern nations, the constitution of their bodies, and the nature of their clime, inclining them to a more abstemious diet than we use in England and other colder regions? ”