seventeenth & eighteenth centuries
Although vegetarianism had decline in popularity during the Middle Ages, the movement was revived in 1683 when English writer Thomas Tryon published The Way to Health, Long Life and Happiness.
In his book, Tryon argued for a vegetarian diet for two main reasons. Firstly, consuming meat caused suffering and death to animals. Since it was possible to live without meat, Tryon concluded this animal suffering was unnecessary and thus cruel. Secondly, he argued that consuming meat was sinful. In the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were vegetarians prior to the fall. Since they had lived peacefully with animals, Tyron believed a vegetarian diet was the least cruel and most moral way to live.
Tryon also revolutionized the vegetarian argument by reviving Plutarch's argument that meat was harmful to body and mind and using rational arguments to prove his point. Medical thought in the 17th century consisted of a theory of bodily humours; doctors believed that an imbalance of the essential Humours caused illness. Using the theory of the bodily humours, Tryon argued that eating meat brought an imbalance due to the fact that it is highly putrescible. Since meat rots faster than vegetables, it is more likely to bring "rotten" Humours into the body as well. (1) |
Tryon was not the only vegetarian in the seventeeth century however. John Evelyn, a founding member of the Royal Society and renowned scholar and diarist, wrote a nutritional guidebook and cookbook in 1699 titled Acetaria: A Discourse of Saletts. Evelyn believed that salad greens had many health benefits and classified 73 herbs for use in his cookbook. Above all else, he had a practical argument: if people were to consume leafy greens, they must do so with a tasty salad dressing and so his cookbook provided recipes for salad dressings. His book also produced an A-Z of all salad ingredients and their medicinal and cultural uses. For example, the cucumber can "sharpen the appetite and cool the liver" and leeks were consumed "by the Welsh, who eat them much." (2) When Europeans entered the Age of Enlightenment, arguments for a plant-based diet became even more influenced by physiology, science and religion. |
Answer me, mechanist, Has nature arranged all the springs of feeling in this animal in order that he should not feel? Has he nerves in order to be unmoved?” |
Rene Descartes' argument that living beings were nothing more than mere machines, introduced a new focus in animal welfare studies. Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire and Jeremy Bentham began to question if animals could feel pain or not. According to Bentham, an animal's ability to reason or talk was irrelevant. Animals deserved proper welfare practices if they could feel pain. A series of experiments were launched in this time period to understand if animals did indeed feel pain. Most experiments concluded that animals did feel pain; these experiments thus were used by vegetarians to justify and advocate for a vegetarian diet. (3)
|
1. “Vegetarianism” in The Cambridge World History of Food, ed. Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Connèe Ornelas, Cambridge Histories Online (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), chap. V17, 1553-1564, accessed November 10, 2014, http://universitypublishingonline.org/cambridge/histories/, 1554-1555.
2. William Sitwell, A History of Food in 100 Recipes (New York: Little Brown & Company, 2013) , 121-123.
3. "World History of Vegetarianism," Vegetarian Society, accessed November 10, 2014, https://www.vegsoc.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=830.
"Project Gutenberg's Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets, by John Evelyn," http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15517/15517-h/15517-h.htm.
2. William Sitwell, A History of Food in 100 Recipes (New York: Little Brown & Company, 2013) , 121-123.
3. "World History of Vegetarianism," Vegetarian Society, accessed November 10, 2014, https://www.vegsoc.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=830.
"Project Gutenberg's Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets, by John Evelyn," http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15517/15517-h/15517-h.htm.