Animal-based diet

“ The fact that the structure of the human body is wholly unlike that of the carnivora, and that the apes, who are nearest akin to us in the animal world, are frugivorous, is a somewhat strong indication that flesh is not the natural food of mankind. And if it be said that man, unlike other creatures, is omni-vorous, and has therefore to seek not what is "natural," but what is best, then I readily accept the challenge, and reply that there is a strong concurrence of proof, on economic, moral, and physical grounds, that a vegetarian diet is the most suitable and beneficial. ”

“ It will be perceived, by the tenor of the questions, that they are designed to embrace not only unfortunate results of a change of diet, but such as are favorable. There are, in our community, considerable numbers who have entirely excluded animal food from their diet. ”

“ I have not investigated the subject of dietetics very much, but I have no doubt that the inhabitants of our whole land make too much use of animal food. No doubt it obstructs the vital powers, and tends to unbalance the healthful play and harmony of the various organs and their functions. There is too much nutriment in a small space. An unexpected quantity is taken; for with most people a sense of fullness is the test of a sufficient quantity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Pigs, on the one hand, and bears, on the other, tend naturally to a mixed diet. Many birds, under conditions adverse to the finding of their usual food, will change from vegetable to animal diet, or vice-versâ. Sea-gulls normally are fish-eaters, but some will eat biscuit and grain when fish cannot be had. Pigeons have been fed successfully on a meat diet; so, too, some parrots, and also the familiar barn-door fowl. Many of our smaller birds eat both insects and grain, according to opportunity. ”

“ Moreover, from the point of view of digestibility and capability of assimilating, one may say that there is a quasi-absolute identity between animal and vegetable fats. The reason which would induce us to prefer either would not seem to be of a physiological nature. The economics, which we shall see further on, take this upon themselves, as the most serious reproach which can be made against the use of animal dishes is doubtless their dearness, and the reason which militates most in favour of the predominance of a vegetable diet is to a certainty its cheapness. ”

“ Animal food, in its best state, is a great deal more stimulating and heating to the system than vegetable food;—but how much more injurious is it made, in the circumstances in which most animals are placed? Do we believe that even a New Zealand cannibal would willingly eat flesh, if he knew it was from an animal that when killed was laboring under a load of liver complaint, gout, consumption, or fever? ”

“ If so, animal food is clearly an impediment to a healthy state of body, for health is restored by a simple and fleshless diet, and therefore may be preserved by the same regimen. That animal food is highly stimulant there can be no doubt ”

“ We have no reason to suppose that man ever made use of the raw flesh of higher animals as his habitual diet. His teeth are not, and never were, from his earliest ape-like days, adapted to true carnivorous diet. Cooked meat is not the food of a carnivor, but is an adaptation of the flesh of animals to the requirements of a frugivorous animal. Probably the use of grain and cultivated vegetable food is a later step in human progress than the roasting of meat. ”

“ We should endeavour to cultivate an appetite for these vegetables containing proteid, as it is a great mistake to rely entirely for this element on meat, as so many of our race do. The animal products—such as cheese, milk, and eggs—will also form an efficient substitute for much flesh-food. This simple diet suits both the brain-worker and the athlete, though each will have to make a selection of those foods most required by him. Certainly much animal food is liable to produce kidney disease, gout, and kindred troubles. ”

“ We see daily examples of young persons becoming consumptive who never went without animal food a single day of their lives. If the use of animal food were necessary to prevent consumption, we should expect, where people lived almost entirely upon such a diet, the disease would be unknown. ”

“ This is by no means an exceptional case, but we can cite many other examples of like results where the animal when restricted to a purely vegetable diet, such as bread, pea-soup, bean soup, etc., reinforced by an animal fat, quickly passed from a condition of health into a state of utter wretchedness, with serious gastro-intestinal disturbance. The results are not to be attributed to the lower utilization of the vegetable food, for the disastrous effect is too quickly manifest, and further, often shows itself when the animal plainly has a large store of available nutriment in its own tissues. ”

“ The concentrated state in which the ingredients of flesh exist, the intimate way in which they are intermixed, their agreeable flavor, and their (in general) ready and almost complete digestibility, appear to be the principal points in which a meat diet excels a vegetable regimen. There may be others, which, though less evident, are, perhaps, of equal importance. At all events, the general experience of mankind testifies to the superiority of a mixed animal and vegetable diet over a purely vegetable one. ”

“ Indeed, if we feed a carnivorous animal on a small quantity of meat, with a large amount of fat and meat-extract, he loses his natural liveliness. The same theory holds good for man, when fed on vegetable diet and the extract of meat. His vigor is far less than when meat forms the basis of his food. But on the other hand, if we give to an herbivorous animal food rich in albuminoid principles, if, for instance, we give to a horse an abundance of oats, the result will be the same as when a carnivorous animal is given animal food. ”

“ Briefly, the pleas usually advanced on behalf of the vegetable regimen are as follows: It is claimed to be healthier than the customary flesh diet; it is claimed for various reasons to be more pleasant; it is claimed to be more economical; it is claimed to be less trouble; it is claimed to [Pg 10] be more humane. Many hold the opinion that a frugivorous diet is more natural and better suited to the constitution of man, and that he was never intended to be carnivorous; that the slaughtering of animals for food, being entirely unnecessary is immoral ”

“ A diet exclusively of animal food is too highly stimulant for such a climate as ours; and an exclusively vegetable diet is far less injurious in its effects. No meat is so digestible as tender mutton. It has just that degree of consistency which the stomach requires. Beef is not less nutritious, but it is rather less easy of digestion, than mutton: much, however, depends upon the cooking, which process may, [Pg 158] really not inaptly, be called the first stage of digestion. The comparative indigestibility of lamb and veal arises from the meat being of a more stringy and indivisible nature. ”

“ To become a convert to this new order, adopting non-animal food and hygienic living, is not synonymous with monastical asceticism, as some imagine. Meat eaters when first confronted with vegetarianism often imagine their dietary is going to be restricted to a monotonous round of carrots, turnips, cabbages, and the like; and if their ignorance prevents them from arguing that it is impossible to maintain health and strength on such [Pg 105] foods, then it is very often objected that carrots and cabbages are not liked, or would not be cared for all the time. ”

“ Though there is a disagreement of opinion among practitioners and physiologists, as to the propriety of using any animal food, they are all agreed in regard to certain general principles that should regulate its use. They are as follows:—Less animal food should be used in warm climates than in cold, and less, also, in summer than in winter. The reason of this is, that heat is stimulating to the system, and as meat diet is also stimulating, when heat increases, meat, as a diet, should decrease, or fevers may ensue. ”

“ One of these is a feature in which very few animals rival him, a differentiation in his adaptations to nutriment, enabling him to masticate, digest, and assimilate both vegetable and animal food. This is a decided advantage. Man is at once herbivorous and carnivorous, his field of possible food thus being doubled, and his consequent variety of adaptation to nature being likewise doubled. There is no other animal adapted to this double diet to the same degree as man. ”

“ The taste of young children is often cited by vegetarians to demonstrate the liking of an unsophisticated palate, but the primitive instinct is not wholly atrophied in man. Before man became a tool-using animal, he must have depended for direction upon what is commonly termed instinct in the selection of a diet most suitable to his nature. No one can doubt, judging by the way undomesticated animals seek their food with unerring certainty as to its suitability, but that instinct is a trustworthy guide. ”

“ Insects and animal food forming a part of the natural diet of poultry, they are medicinal to them in a weakly state, and the want of such food may sometimes impede their thriving.
The least nutritious articles of food, so far as it can be done conveniently, should be fed out first; afterward, those that are more nutritive. Fattening fowls should be kept quiet, and suffered to take no more exercise than is necessary for their health; since more exercise than this calls for an expenditure of food which does not avail any thing in the process of fattening. ”

“ If the disease appears dependent upon plethora the result of confinement and gross living, the animal must be reduced by bleeding and purging, low diet, and exercise. If, however, the malady proceeds from weakness, as is sometimes the case in bitches while suckling a large litter, it will be necessary to relieve her of some of the pups, and supply her with the most nutritious diet, as also administer tonic balls ”

“ Still, there are some exceptions to the digestibility of young meats, veal, and with some persons lamb, are slower of digestion than beef or mutton.
The vegetable kingdom greatly exceeds the animal in the number and variety of the aliments which it furnishes to man. It is well known that the four essential elements, carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen, which form an important part of all animal compounds, are also to be found in great abundance in all vegetable compounds; it is owing to this fact that different animals are nourished equally well on an exclusive diet of either. ”

“ It is true that the reluctance to abstain from animal food, in those who have been long accustomed to its stimulus, is so great in some persons of weak minds, as to be scarcely overcome; but this is far from bringing any argument in its favour. A lamb which was fed for some time on flesh by a ship's crew, refused its natural diet at the end of the voyage. There are numerous instances of horses, sheep, oxen, and even wood-pigeons, having been taught to live upon flesh, until they have loathed their natural aliment. ”

“ One of the greatest objections to the use of animal food, as already explained, is the presence of the unexcreted waste-products of animal metabolism. The flesh of fowls, fed and fattened in coops, contains the smallest possible quantity of waste or decomposition products, because of the limited amount of motion or exercise they are permitted to undergo. For this reason, when poultry is to be eaten, the whiter the meat the less objectionable it is as an article of food. ”

“ For all sorts of muscular laborers a mixed diet is best in which animal food enters as a prominent ingredient. Thus, it has been found, according to the researches of Chambers, that in forced military marches meat extract has greater sustaining properties than any other kind of food. But with those who do not take much outdoor exercise the error is apt to be, as already pointed out, in the direction of over-feeding. ”

“ In conclusion, there is, as we have seen in our review of typical vegetarian peoples and classes throughout the world, the strongest evidence that those who adopt a sensible non-flesh dietary, suited to their own constitution and environment, are almost invariably healthier, stronger, and longer-lived than those who rely chiefly upon flesh-meat for nutriment. ”

“ It has been shown for instance by Dr Hopkins in Cambridge, and his results have been confirmed at the Carnegie Institute in America, that young rats fail to thrive on a diet composed of suitable amounts of purified protein, fat, starch, and ash, but that they 134 thrive and grow normally on such a diet if there is added a trace of milk or other fresh animal or vegetable substance far too small to influence either the protein content or the energy-value. ”

“ All of these facts bearing on the nutrition of animals quite remote from man have significance as showing how any wide departure from a physiological diet, for that particular species or type, may lead to very undesirable results, and they warn us not to be too hasty in drawing far-reaching conclusions and sweeping deductions from a few experiments with a given species of animal. ”