The first argument, as to the superior digestibility of flesh, is flatly denied by food-reformers on the plain grounds of experience, the notion that Vegetarians are in the habit of eating a greater bulk of food, in order to obtain an equal amount of nutriment, being one of those amazing superstitions which could not survive a day’s comparative study of the parties in question. My own conviction is that the average flesh-eater eats at least twice as much in bulk as the average Vegetarian; and I know that the experience of Vegetarians bears witness to a great reduction, instead of a great increase, in the amount of their diet. As for the second medical argument, the unwisdom of rejecting any of Nature’s bounties, it ignores the very existence of the ethical question, which is the Vegetarian’s chief contention; nor does this appeal to “Nature” strike one as being very “scientific,” inasmuch as (ethics apart) it might just as well justify cannibalism as flesh-eating. We can imagine how the medicine-men of some old anthropophagous tribe might deprecate the newfangled civilised notion of abstinence from human flesh, on the ground that it is foolish to refuse the benefits which “Nature” has abundantly provided.
Henry S. Salt (1851-1939) Excerpted from “The Humanities of Diet” (Manchester: The Vegetarian Society, 1914), serialised on The Grumpy Vegan and available in full at the Animal Rights Library. Learn more Henry Salt.
