[497] in Vegetarian_Support_Group
Re: red meat & C, e.b. pointer to research articles ...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (rdshydur@MIT.EDU)
Tue Apr 11 17:16:34 1995
From: rdshydur@MIT.EDU
To: vsg@MIT.EDU
Cc: rdshydur@fille.MIT.EDU
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 1995 17:15:13 EDT
(from the e.b. on-line, courtesy mit libraries,
via your friendly lynx browser, courtesy ukansas, via sipb. - r)
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 95 15:46:38 -0400
X-Within-Url: http://www.eb.com:180/cgi-bin/g?DocF=micro/619/45.html&hits=10%20articles&context=all%20articles&bold=on&sw=vegetarian&#first_hit
To: rdshydur@MIT.EDU
Subject: 45.html&hits=10-articles&context=all-articles&bold=on&sw=vegetarian&#first_hit
(britannica on-line: search on `vegetarianism', produced 10 articles,
from which the following is excerpted. - r)
VEGETARIANISM,
(lots of the usual deleted)
Ancient period.
Deliberate avoidance of flesh eating probably first appeared
sporadically in ritual connections, either as a temporary purification
or as qualification for a priestly function. Advocacy of a fleshless
diet for normal use began around the middle of the 1st millennium BC
more or less simultaneously, and probably independently, in India and
in eastern Mediterranean lands as part of the philosophical awakening
of the time. In the Mediterranean lands, avoidance of flesh eating is
first recorded as a teaching of Pythagoras of Samos (fl. 530 BC) and
his followers. The [Index] Pythagoreans generalized certain Orphic
ritual restrictions--they rejected not only flesh but beans and
mallows--and may have been influenced by Egyptian priestly customs or
even by individual thinkers in the Fertile Crescent. The Pythagoreans
alleged the kinship of all animals as one basis for human benevolence
toward other creatures, which should not be killed for food. From
Plato onward many pagan philosophers (e.g., Epicurus, Plutarch) and
particularly the Neoplatonists recommended a fleshless diet; the idea
carried with it condemnation of bloody sacrifices in worship and was
often associated with belief in reincarnation of souls--and, more
generally, with a search for principles of cosmic harmony in accord
with which human beings could live. In India the Buddhists and Jains
refused to kill animals for food, on ethical and ascetic grounds: the
human being should not inflict harm on any sentient creature. The idea
was soon taken up also in Brahman circles, and was applied especially
to the cow; as in Mediterranean thought, the idea carried with it
condemnation of bloody sacrifices and was often associated with a
sense of cosmic harmonies.
In later centuries vegetarianism had a differing fate in the Indic and
the Mediterranean spheres. In India itself, though Buddhism gradually
declined, the ideal of harmlessness (ahimsa), with its corollary of a
fleshless diet, spread steadily in the 1st millennium AD until many of
the upper castes (especially of Vaisnava faith), and even some of the
lower, had adopted it. Beyond India it was carried, with Buddhism,
widely northward and eastward, as far as China and Japan; but less
conscientious Buddhists limited themselves to avoiding the killing of
animals and would eat of a carcass if someone else supplied it. In
some countries, fish were included in an otherwise fleshless diet.
West of the Indus, the monotheistic traditions that came to power were
less favourable to vegetarianism. In the Hebrew Bible, however, is
recorded the belief that in Paradise the earliest human beings had not
eaten flesh: that it was permitted only after Noah's flood and even
then the blood in it, as being the life of it, was not to be consumed.
Ascetic Jewish groups and some early Christian leaders disapproved of
flesh eating as a luxury, gluttonous, cruel, and expensive. Some
Christian monastic orders ruled out flesh eating, and its avoidance
has been a penance even for lay persons. Many Muslims have been
hostile to vegetarianism, yet some Muslim Sufi mystics (who became the
chief guides of Muslim spiritual life) recommended a meatless diet for
spiritual seekers. Akbar, the 16th-century Muslim emperor in India,
recommended a fleshless diet as a Sufi custom.
Modern period.
With the transformation of Western and then world life in modern
times, vegetarianism too entered a new phase. As part of the
humanitarianism of the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe, with its
confidence in moral progress, sensitiveness to animal suffering was
revived and with it the Pythagorean disapproval of flesh eating.
Certain Protestant groups came to the fleshless diet by way of their
perfectionistic reading of the Bible. Persons of diverse philosophic
views advocated vegetarianism--for example, Voltaire praised, and
Shelley and Thoreau practiced, the diet. Vegetarians of the early 19th
century usually condemned the use of alcohol as well as flesh and
appealed as much to the nutritional advantages of light fare, in
contrast with the rich and heavy meat diet of that day, as they did to
ethical sensibilities. Some advocated only what could be eaten without
cooking. As always, vegetarianism tended to be combined with other
efforts toward a humane and a cosmically harmonious way of life.
During the 19th century the movement began to produce results even
among nonvegetarians. By the early 20th century it was contributing
substantially to the drive to vary and lighten the nonvegetarian
person's diet--especially in English-speaking countries; such foods as
peanut butter and cornflakes were invented by vegetarians in the
United States. In some places a vegetarian diet was regarded simply as
one among many regimens indicated for specific disorders. Elsewhere,
in contrast, and notably in Germany, the fleshless diet was regarded
as but one element in vegetarianism, which was expected to be a
comprehensive reform of life habits in the direction of simplicity and
healthfulness--the term being derived (by such vegetarians) not from
"vegetable food" but directly from the Latin vegetus, meaning "active,
vigorous."
The vegetarian movement as a whole was always carried forward by
ethically inclined individuals, such as (in modern times) Leo Tolstoy
and George Bernard Shaw, and by certain religious sects, such as the
Seventh-Day Adventists and the Theosophists; but special institutions
have grown up to express vegetarian concerns as such. The Bible
Christian sect of England and the United States (Philadelphia) took
the lead in establishing national vegetarian societies, each
publishing its own journal; the first such society was formed in
England in 1847. An international federation of vegetarian societies
was founded tentatively in 1889 and more enduringly in 1908, as the
International Vegetarian Union; in later years Westerners were joined
in this by some vegetarians of the Indic and Buddhist traditions.
Vegetarian restaurants, schools, and rest homes have sprung up,
especially in certain European countries (in India, the railroads
necessarily developed a double restaurant system, vegetarian and
nonvegetarian). In the West a special industry processes high-protein
vegetable foods to simulate various meats in form and flavour, so as
to ease the transition from the accustomed flesh eating; and "health
food" stores offer products conforming to vegetarian tastes. To the
same end, vegetarian societies publish recipes which, ever since the
importance of protein was recognized, have centred on the tasty use of
legumes, nuts, cheeses, and eggs.
(a pointer to source of research articles) The Science Council of the
International Vegetarian Union abstracts articles from scientific
journals that may bear upon efforts to develop foods and medicines
that would be more consistent with vegetarian ethical standards.
_________________________________________________________________
Copyright (c) 1995 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. All Rights Reserved
_________________________________________________________________
Related Propaedia Topics:
Feeding behaviour: hunger, satiety, and the physiological regulation
of body weight
--------
eof;
.
