Plant-based diet

“ The greater part of the human food of plant origin represents in nature the nutrient material supplied by the parent plant for the early life of the seedling. All grains, nuts, fruits and roots, and tubers are merely modified forms of food material adapted to the rapid nourishment of the young plant.
The starch and the oil of seeds, the sugar of fruit, and the lesser quantities of nitrogen contained in all seeds, are in a more available form for cell-nourishment than would be the original mature portions of plant life. ”

“ Young beets, either in the form of a vegetable or a salad, are considered to be very wholesome.
CARROTS, TURNIPS, PARSNIPS, OYSTER PLANT.
Carrots, turnips, parsnips and oyster plant, although containing a large percentage of water, are considered valuable as nutrients, the turnip being the least nutritious.
GREEN VEGETABLES.
Green vegetables do not contain much nutriment, and are chiefly valuable as affording a pleasing variety in diet; also for supplying mineral matter and some acids. In this class we may include cabbage, cauliflower, spinach, lettuce and celery. ”

“ A healthful diet, however, must include vegetables, and therefore the housewife turns to canned goods as the only alternative. These are sometimes poor substitutes for the fresh article, especially the cheaper commercial grades, which necessarily lack the delicate flavor of the fresh vegetable. There is practically no danger, however, from contamination with tin or other metals providing the containers are made of proper materials and handled carefully. In some cases the proper care is not taken in packing vegetables for market. ”

“ No single natural order contains plants that supply all the elements essential to the nutrition of the body and the right composition of the blood. The graminaceous and leguminous articles of food, for instance, are numerous, but not various; they all afford the same or analogous albuminous elements, which have about the same nutrient value as the corresponding substances in animal food, and hence health and vigor cannot be sustained on a diet of flesh, combined with wheat, rice, and oatmeal or with beans and peas, or with all of them together. ”

“ Garden Fruits.—Green plants and especially vegetables have come to play an important part in the dietary of man. The diseases known as scurvy and beri-beri, the latter the curse of the far Eastern navies, have been largely prevented by adding vegetables and fruit juices to the dietary of the sailors. People in this country are beginning to find that more vegetables and less meat are better than the meat diet so often used. Market gardening forms the lucrative business of many thousands of people near our great cities. ”

“ If the exclusive use of vegetable food will prevent a multitude of the worst and most incurable diseases to which human nature, in other circumstances, seems liable; if it will modify the diseases which a mixed diet, or absolute intemperance, or gluttony had induced,—by what rule can we limit its influence? How know we that what is so efficacious in regard to the larger diseases, will not be equally so in the case of all smaller ones? And why, then, may not its universal adoption, after a few generations, banish disease entirely from the world? ”

“ At the same time, it is possible to obtain the same desirable nitrogenous elements in oatmeal, unbolted wheat flour, peas, beans, and other vegetable productions, which are wholly free from injurious properties. We are positive from numerous observations on this subject, that a cool, unstimulating, vegetable or farinaceous diet would deter the development of the sexual organism for several months, and perhaps for a year or two. ”

“ Experiments on a somewhat extended scale have shown within recent years that young and vigorous individuals at least may live and thrive on a diet composed largely of vegetables; [Pg 131] no one has yet shown that a strict vegetable diet is that best adapted to the average individual, and no competent authority on this subject at the present time advocates a diet purely of this kind. It is true that the vegetables ordinarily eaten contain all of the elements that are essential to the animal system, such as starch, sugar, fat and albumins. ”

“ Some have contended that man was designed to eat only of the fruits and vegetables of the earth; while others maintain, with equal confidence, that he should add to these the flesh of beasts. There are many individuals, both in this and other countries, who confine themselves to vegetable diet. They believe they enjoy better health, and maintain greater strength of body and mind, than those who live on a mixed diet. The experiment has not been tried on a sufficiently extensive range to determine its value. ”

“ Many vegetables have low nutritive value on account of their bulky nature and the large amount of water and cellulose which they contain, which tends to decrease digestibility and lower the amount of available nutrients. Because of their bulk and fermentable nature, resulting in the formation of gases, a diet of coarse vegetables has a tendency to cause distention and enlargement of the intestinal organs. ”

“ Any unfavorable effects vegetable food may have on the body, are almost wholly confined to the stomach and bowels, and rarely injure the system at large. This food has also a beneficial influence on the powers of the mind, and tends to preserve a delicacy of feeling, and liveliness of imagination, and acuteness of judgment, seldom enjoyed by those who live principally on meat. It should also be added, that a vegetable diet, when it consists of articles easily digested, as potatoes, turnips, bread, biscuit, oatmeal, etc., is certainly favorable to long life. ”

“ It is no mere reform of legislation, whilst the furious passions and evil propensities of the human heart, in which it had its origin, are still unassuaged. It strikes at the root of all evil, and is an experiment which may be tried with success, not alone by nations, but by small societies, families, and even individuals.
In no cases has a return to vegetable diet produced the slightest injury: in most it has been attended with changes undeniably beneficial. ”

“ Climate, custom, individual tastes are the determining factors.
In the measure that civilization advances, a vegetal diet progressively takes the place of the exclusive meat diet, such as is indulged in by hunting and pastoral peoples. A many-sided agriculture is a sign of higher culture. On a given field, vegetal nutritive matter can be raised in larger quantities than could meat be obtained through cattle raising. This development imparts to vegetal nutrition an ever greater preponderance. ”

“ Vegetable diet is as little connected with weakness and cowardice, as that of animal matter is with physical force and courage. That men can be perfectly nourished, and their bodily and mental capabilities fully developed in any climate, by a diet purely vegetable, admits of abundant proof from experience. ”

“ Vegetables are by no means the most nutritious diet, as water enters largely into their composition; but food to supply perfectly the needs of the vital economy, must contain water and indigestible as well as nutritive elements. Thus they are dietetically of great value, since they furnish a large quantity of organic fluids. Vegetables are rich in mineral elements, and are also of service in giving bulk to food. An exclusive diet of vegetables, however, would give too great bulk, and at the same time fail to supply the proper amount of food elements. ”

“ Hence it is wise to use them in combination with other articles of diet—grains, whole-wheat bread, etc.—that supplement the qualities lacking in the vegetables.
To Select Vegetables.—All roots and tubers should be plump, free from decay, bruises, and disease, and with fresh, unshriveled skins. They are good from the time of maturing until they begin to germinate. Sprouted vegetables are unfit for food. Potato sprouts contain a poison allied to belladonna. All vegetables beginning to decay are unfit for food. ”

“ One remarkable difference between the two sets of men was the comparative absence of soreness in the muscles of the meat-abstainers after the tests.'
The question as to climate is often raised; many people labour under the idea that a vegetable diet may be suitable in a hot climate, but not in a cold. That this idea is false is shown by facts, some of which the above quotations supply. That man can live healthily in arctic regions on a vegetable diet has been amply demonstrated. ”

“ On the other hand, the chief objections to a purely vegetable diet are that the undigested refuse is greater than with an equal31 quantity of animal food; that a longer time and more exertion than for animal foods are required in digesting the most nutritious vegetable foods, such as legumens, while other vegetable foods do not contain a sufficient proportion of nitrogenous material. Also, if one lived entirely on vegetable food, a greater bulk would be required, and owing to the fact that such food is less easily absorbed, satisfaction to the appetite would not so soon be produced. ”

“ If we called ourselves botanophagists, or phytophagists, or cerealians, that would not of necessity imply the exclusive, but only the customary use of vegetable diet or of grain. Two little words continually skulk into the definition of our name—only and all. "Do you take tea?" "No." "Why, tea's a vegetable." So with tobacco and countless other noxious herbs. As Vegetarians, we are supposed to eat all vegetable products—hemlock and the rest. You have seen that, as Vegetarians, we are commanded by Sir Henry Thompson and lexicons to eat only vegetable products. ”

“ Now, I am not advocating an exclusively fruit diet; but I think when people from the north go to the tropics for "climatic therapeutics" they should make it a point to eat very sparingly of meats and even farinaceous food, and endeavor to supply Nature's wants by using largely of the fruits of the country—especially those soft, sweet, and perishable fruits which do not last more than a day or two. Thus we have, besides the influences of steady warmth and moisture, the added advantage of a change of diet, which is no small factor in modifying the metabolism which we seek. ”

“ Furthermore, the products of their digestion and burning in the body help to neutralize, or render harmless, the waste products from meats, starches, and fats. Thirdly, they have a very beneficial effect upon the blood, the kidneys, and the skin. In fact, the reputation of fruits and fresh vegetables for "purifying the blood" and "clearing the complexion" is really well deserved. The keenness of our liking for fruit at all times, and our special longing for greens and sour things in the spring, after their scarcity in our diet all winter, is a true sign of their wholesomeness. ”

“ It is true, indeed, after all these foregoing statements and concessions in regard to man's native character and the wholesomeness of a diet exclusively vegetable—and after admitting that the human body and mind can be fully and perfectly nourished and developed on it, this distinguished writer goes on to say that it is still doubtful which diet—animal, vegetable, or mixed—is on the whole most conducive to health, and strength—which is best calculated to avert or remove disease—whether errors in quantity or quality are most pernicious, etc. ”

“ I am also aware that an exclusively vegetable alimentation might be substituted for our customary mixed diet, which is both animal and vegetable. But, though a vegetable alimentation is possible, our western civilisation is bound up with the principle of a mixed diet in the ordinary conditions of life. If, indeed, alimentation should be exclusively vegetable, it would be useless to hunt, to fish, to rear poultry, to breed cattle for the market ”

“ Quitting the subject of wheat and the leguminous seeds, it will be interesting to review briefly the combinations of rice, which furnishes so large a portion of the world with a vegetable staple of diet. Remembering that it contains chiefly starch, with nitrogen in small proportion, and almost no fat or mineral elements, and just sufficing perhaps to meet the wants of an inactive population in a tropical climate, the first addition necessary for people beyond this limit will be fat, and, after that, more nitrogen. ”

“ Naturally, the change from unbounded supplies of nutritious vegetable diet—bread-fruit, bananas, cocoa-nut, yams, sugar, and all the luxuries of the tropics—to isles where a coarse meal, prepared from the woody fruit of the pandanus, is the only edible form of vegetable, has in due time produced this result. ”

“ The argument then is, that, for healthy adults at least, a well-selected vegetable diet, other things being equal, is a preventive of disease, and a security against its violence, should it attack us, in a far greater degree than a diet which includes animal food in any of its numerous forms. ”

“ It is true that no one can nourish himself on an exclusively meat diet, but that he can on an exclusively vegetal diet, provided always he can select to suit; but neither would any one be satisfied with one vegetable, let it be the most nutritive. ”

“ It is found easier by the short-sighted victims of disease, to palliate their torments, by medicine, than to prevent them by regimen. The vulgar of all ranks are invariably sensual and indocile; yet I cannot but feel myself persuaded, that when the benefits of vegetable diet are mathematically proved—when it is as clear, that those who live naturally are exempt from premature death, as that nine is not one, the most sottish of mankind will feel a preference toward [Pg 217] a long and tranquil, contrasted with a short and painful life. ”