Vegetarianism and Vigor
By Margaret Evans
FLESH food is not necessary to the maintenance of strength and vigor. Such foods as grains, peas, beans, lentils, and nuts are far more nutritious, and contain the nourishment necessary to meet all the requirements of the human system. Many of the grandest men of the past and present were, or are, vegetarians. The hardest work of the world is done by those who seldom taste meat. The prodigious feats of strength performed by vegetarians in all parts of the earth are splendid testimonies to the value of a non-flesh diet. The athletes of ancient Greece in her most glorious days, ate no meat, but lived on a diet of fruits and grains. While her gladiators were fed upon barley and other grains, together with fruit, they were capable of endurance which would stagger a flesh-eating athlete, but when, in later ages, they were given a flesh diet, they became dull and stupid, partaking of the characteristics of carnivorous animals to such an extent that Diogenes declared them to be wholly formed of “flesh of swine and oxen.” The abstemious Spartans, who lived on bread and fruit during the height of their prosperity, show plainly the advantages to be gained by a vegetarian diet. According to Herodotus “the men who performed the prodigious task of building the pyramids were fed upon onions, garlic, and lentils.” The Hindu runners, who live upon rice, think nothing of covering a hundred miles a day. The sturdy Turkish porters, who subsist principally upon black bread, watermelons, and figs, are splendid testimonies to the value of a vegetarian diet. The Mexican Indian will travel for many days on a small bag of parched wheat. De Lesseps, the constructor of the Suez Canal, many years before his death became an earnest advocate of vegetarianism, because, as he publicly stated, he never would have been able to construct the canal “without the aid of the date- and barley-eating Arabs.” The Roman soldier, while conquering the world, lived upon a coarse bread made from grains pounded in a mortar, to which was added honey, cheese, olive-oil, and fruit. Meat is so scarce in Bolivia that the Indians are practically vegetarians, yet their power of endurance is wonderful. Consumption is unknown, and the sturdiest women of the world are probably found in that country. The rubber-gum gatherers of South America never taste flesh. Bananas form their staple dietary, yet they carry loads of one hundred and fifty pounds or more over rough mountain trails and through deep, ragged ravines. The Rio de Janeiro porters, also vegetarians, often carry weights of from four hundred to six hundred pounds over great distances. The porters of Hongkong, the carriers of Athens, Constantinople, and Smyrna, show us convincingly that vegetarianism and vigor go hand in hand. About one fifth of the population of the globe are vegetarians from religious scruples, while three fourths of the remainder eat very little meat, except probably on feast days, because they are unable to procure it, yet they are vigorous, active, healthy, and do a vast amount of hard work. The listless club-lounger, the indolent healthy man, the people who board at American hotels, are the ones who imagine they can not keep up their vitality without an abundance of meat.