Some Objections to Vegetarianism Answered
By A. M. Winegar-Simpson
A. M. WINEGAR-SIMPSON, M. D. “Vegetarianism does not give strength to the body as does meat, and causes a sensation of weakness.” The use of flesh foods has become so common among civilized nations that the belief is quite current that meat eating is essential to life and health. Even people of intelligence are met who are surprised to learn that one may maintain superb health on a non-meat diet. It does not seem to be generally known in this country that whole nations exist with scarcely a taste of meat, and that the number of vegetarians in the world exceeds the number of meat eaters; that the peasant classes in many countries, who through choice or necessity subsist almost entirely on the products of the earth, are, as a rule, possessed of a better physique and greater endurance than their “more fortunate” neighbors, who can afford the products of the butcher shop and the cattle ship. Rye bread, olive-oil, and vegetable soups furnish to the people of Southern Russia what potatoes, buttermilk, and oatmeal furnish to the Irish peasantry, and what oatmeal furnishes to the Scotch highlander,—physical strength and the energy necessary to cope with nature in a more or less inhospitable clime. Lentils furnished the immense muscular energy (they had no steam in those days) which erected Egypt’s vast pyramids. It does not seem to be generally known that many of the athletic victories of the world, ancient and modern, have been won on a vegetarian diet. Mr. G. H. Corsan, the champion swimmer of Canada, says that fast swimming tries the extreme limit of man’s physical endurance. To the question, “Is meat a good food to train upon?” he answers, “I say, most decidedly, No.” His diet consists of the natural products of the earth, fruit and nuts, in their natural condition. Prof. Eustace Miles, of England, the tennis champion of the world, is an enthusiastic vegetarian. Miller, the champion six-day bicyclist, trained on a vegetarian diet. These facts alone should convince any one that meat is not necessary to a vigorous life. “Vegetarianism may furnish muscle, but it does not furnish brains.” Prominent among the adherents of vegetarianism is Daniel, whose loyalty to principle made him prime minister in two of the world-conquering monarchies. His wisdom, his executive ability, and his faithfulness were acknowledged, even by his enemies. Cyrus, who led the victorious armies of the conquering Persian monarchy, and afterward administered its affairs as king during the zenith of its glory, was a vegetarian. “Remenyi, the famous Hungarian violinist, at the advanced age of more than sixty-three years, still had a countenance as fresh as a man of thirty-five or forty, and free from wrinkles or other signs of old age, a fact which he attributed to his vegetarian habits and total abstinence from all liquors and tobacco. “Edison, the greatest of modern inventors, is practically a vegetarian. Wendell Phillips, the orator and reformer, stated to the writer a few years before his death that he had been a vegetarian for forty years. Emerson, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and Alcott were vegetarians, as were also Greeley and Dana in their early years.” “The greatest philosopher of ancient time, Pythagoras, was a most earnest apostle of vegetarian principles. “Isaac Newton adhered strictly to a vegetable regime while performing the prodigious intellectual work which made his name immortal.” Professor Newman, of the University of London, who was active, clear-headed, and vigorous at the age of eighty, was a lifelong vegetarian. Surely these examples are sufficient to refute the statement that “a vegetarian diet does not furnish brains.” “The world-conquering nations are meat eaters.” “Beef and pork, no less than shot and powder, conquer in the bloody field of battle.” The world-conquering nations of early time — Persia, Greece, and Rome — carried on their conquests on a simple vegetarian diet. Later on, the use of meat and the indulgence of luxurious habits brought on the degeneracy which resulted in the overthrow of these nations. “The men who bore the Roman eagle over all the known world were vegetarians. The men who made the name of Rome a synonym of tyranny and profligacy were flesh-eaters.” “The American soldier has never entered into battle without the conviction that he was fighting for liberty. This constitutes his resemblance to the greatest soldiers of whom history gives us knowledge. The three hundred of Leonidas, the heroes of Marathon, the Ironsides of Cromwell, the ragged Continentals of Washington, the men of Gettysburg and Appomattox, the heroes of San Juan, and the burghers of South Africa are military kinsmen, because of their love of liberty rather than because of the quality of the provender that filled their stomachs.” Prof. William Lawrence says, “Vegetable diet is as little connected with weakness and cowardice as animal diet is with physical force and courage.” Still we are willing to admit that, other things being equal, meat tends to make an animal or a man ferocious. We are not prepared to deny that in every mob, whether for the purpose of compelling non-union laborers to quit work, or for the purpose of lynching negroes, the vegetarian is conspicuous by his absence. We are not prepared to deny that vegetarians are not found among the cut-throats and other degenerates who live by crime. We are not prepared to deny that butchers are ruled out of juries as unfitted to try a murder case. We are not prepared to deny that anarchists whose religion consists in the subversion of government and the slaughter of rulers are invariably meat eaters. “Vegetarianism necessitates the use of an excess of carbonaceous food in order to get sufficient nitrogen.” This question may be briefly answered by asking one or two other questions. Where does the cow get sufficient nitrogen for her own body in addition to that which she stores up in milk for human consumption? Where does the hen get sufficient nitrogen for her tissues, besides storing up an immense quantity in eggs? The answer will probably be made that the hen and the cow have digestive apparatus especially adapted to extracting nitrogen from the vegetable kingdom.13 But this is to admit that these creatures are able to eat sufficient plant food to much more than supply the nitrogen needed for the building of tissue. So, if man can not get sufficient nitrogen from plant food, the fault is in his digestive capacity, and not in the chemical composition of vegetable foods. But man’s digestive apparatus is almost the counterpart of the anthropoid apes, who secure sufficient nitrogen from nuts and fruits. Personal experience also furnishes an ample reply to this objection made on theoretical grounds. The vegetarians of splendid physique and great endurance, and those of brilliant intellect, all testify that the nitrogen is not lacking in their diet, and that their digestive systems have not been disordered by too bulky food. We are free to admit that many people adopting a vegetarian diet do it unwisely, selecting too large a proportion of carbohydrate food instead of securing a fair proportion of foods rich in nitrogen, such as the nuts and legumes. Such may suffer from mal-nutrition, and from dilated stomachs, fermentation, and other dyspeptic symptoms.