Vegetarianism is the practice of not eating meat or fish. Some vegetarians eat or drink animal products, like milk, eggs and honey - those who don't are called vegans. Vegans also often will not use animal products like leather, but many vegetarians do.
Vegetarianism probably first featured in connection with religious purification rituals; for instance a vegetarian ideology was practised among religious groups in Egypt around 3,200 BC, with abstinence from flesh based upon their reincarnation beliefs.
Advocacy of a regular fleshless diet began around 500 BC in India through the teachings of Buddhism and Hinduism. These religions condemn the taking of animal life to obtain food because of their belief in the rebirth of the soul in animal bodies.
In the eastern Mediterranean the philosophical teachings of the philosopher Pythagoras included advocating a diet which precluded meat (it is not known if he ate fish) in relation to the gluttonous excesses of his fellow Greeks.
In ancient times non-meat eaters were generally known as Pythagoreans or adhering to the "Pythagorean System". The word "vegetarian" to describe non-meat eaters wasn't coined until the mid-19th century.
Pythagoras Advocating Vegetarianism (1618-1630) by Peter Paul Rubens (below) was inspired by Pythagoras's speech advocating vegetarianism in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
Roman gladiators and legionnaires ate a vegetarian diet consisting of three-quarters carbohydrates, mainly from wheat or barley.
For many centuries in the medieval era, Christian monks, hermits and ascetics forsook flesh eating as cruel, gluttonous and expensive. However, by the 13th century though many monks still lived in austere circumstances, not so many were vegetarians. For instance Saint Dominic, the founder of the Order of the Dominicans ate sparingly often just a couple of egg yolks but his diet did often include a small piece of fish.
In 1339 the Pope conceded that the monks might continue to eat meat provided that only half their number did so at a time, the other half maintaining a vegetarian rule.
From the 13th to 17th centuries when meat was largely a scarce and expensive luxury for the rich, an open vegetarian ideology was a rare phenomenon. Indeed by the beginning of the 18th century it was common to torture animals before killing them in the mistaken belief it improved their taste in the cooking process.
With the Enlightenment there arose a new assessment of man's place in the order of creation and moral objections were raised at the mistreatment of animals. In parallel with this many radical Christians were giving the cause of non-flesh eating great impetus in Britain including John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, who believed in its health aspects.
The Bible Christian Church was founded by the Reverend William Cowherd in Salford, NW England in 1809. He saw vegetarianism as a form of temperance. To join the church, members had to sign a pledge that committed them to abstaining from meat eating. One of his followers a Martha Brotherton, published the first vegetarian cookbook, Vegetable Cookery, in 1812.
Two others of the Reverend William Cowherd's followers, the Reverend James Clark Reverend and the William Metcalfe emigrated to the United States in 1817 with 39 other members of the Bible Christian Church and formed the nucleus of a vegetarian movement in America. By the 1830s vegetarian communes were evident in the USA.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word vegetarian was first used in 1842. The word should not be confused with the word "vegetable"; it is derived from the Latin "vegetus", meaning "whole, vigorous, active."
The Bible Christian Church took the lead in establishing the first national Vegetarian Society. The initial meeting to bring like-minded people together was held in the less-than-aptly named Ham Common. A second meeting was held on September 30, 1847, at Northwood Villa, home of the Hydropathic Institute in Ramsgate, Kent. Joseph Brotherton, the husband of Martha Brotherton, was invited to chair the historic meeting, and the Vegetarian Society was born.
By the end of the 19th century, vegetarian restaurants were becoming increasingly popular in London, offering cheap and nutritious meals in respectable settings.
In 1994 controls of export of British beef to Europe were imposed due to fears of contamination from BSE. Such health scares contributed to the increasing amount of consumers turning to vegetarian options.
In 2014, the Indian town of Palitana became the first city in the world to be legally vegetarian. It has outlawed, or made illegal, the buying and selling of meat, fish and eggs, and also related jobs or work, such as fishing and the rearing of animals for food. Palitana, which is located in Bhavnagar district, Gujarat, India is a major pilgrimage centre for Jains.
Daniel, a Jewish exile in Babylon in the 6th century BC and a member of the royal household refused to eat meat. This was because the food being offered to him was "non-kosher" and may have been slaughtered as part of pagan religious rites. As a consequence Daniel, along with three others opted for a vegetarian diet and amazed the chief official by appearing healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food.
Pope Gregory I (c540-604) who introduced the Gregorian chant into Christian church services, refrained from eating the flesh of animals. From his mid-thirties, as befitting his ascetic lifestyle, he ate only raw fruit and vegetables.
Bruno of Cologne (1030-1101), along with six companions, founded the Carthusian order in the isolated valley of Chartreuse, near Grenoble in SE France. There they lived as hermits, eating only vegetables and coarse bread.
In 1115 Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), a son of a French baron, entered Citeaux monastery
along with twenty-seven of his relations including four of his brothers. He had elected to withdraw from riches to live a life of extreme austerity and a diet of cooked beech and herbs.
Leonardo Da Vinci was a devoted vegetarian, a nearly-unheard of practice at his time . His love for animals was such that he would often purchase caged birds just to release them.
Benjamin Franklin became a vegetarian at 16, in part because he could save half of what his brother paid him, to buy more books. Franklin also declared the consumption of meat to be "unprovoked murder."
After a few years of vegetarianism, despite his dislike of their aroma, Franklin’s liking for fish tempted him back to eating flesh.
The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was a strong advocate of vegetarianism. Shelley wrote several essays advocating a vegetarian diet, "A Vindication of Natural Diet" and "On the Vegetable System of Diet".
His wife Mary Shelley was also an ethical vegetarian and strong advocate for animals. One can see references to vegetarianism in her writing. For example, in her novel Frankenstein, the 'monster' was a vegetarian.
Sylvester Graham (July 5, 1794 – September 11, 1851) was an American Presbyterian minister who preached nutrition and wanted to reform the eating habits of America and the world. Graham reached this conviction as the result of a bout of sickness he suffered. On his recovery, he gave much thought to the influence of diet on man's state of health and he became an advocate of vegetarianism stressing the advantage of eating a sufficient amount of roughage. The minister embarked on a campaign to induce people to eat cereals and bread baked from coarse grain. Preferably, he suggested, the bread should be stale, as this would aid digestion.
Sylvester Graham developed Graham bread a natural, whole grain bread, which proved successful. It was the first internationally consumed bread.
In 1887 an 18-year-old South African Indian Mohandas Gandhi was sent to London to study law at the University College. He had vowed to his mother that he would observe vegetarianism but at first he struggled and his friends warned him that it would wreck his studies as well as his health. Fortunately for Gandhi he came across a vegetarian restaurant and he was able to feed himself amply rather than nearly starving himself.
Later in his life, the vegetarian Gandhi would not even pluck fruit from a tree as he felt this was too violent a gesture. He relied on gathering fruit once it had fallen to the ground. At one time he reduced his daily food to four ingredients, wheat, vegetables, a little oil and fruit but he became very ill. So he added to his diet goat's milk and salt.
A 1992 market research study conducted by the Yankelovich research organisation concluded that "of the 12.4 million people in the US who call themselves vegetarian, 68% are female and only 32% are male.
In 1971, 1 percent of U.S. citizens described themselves as vegetarians. By 2015, another Harris Poll National Survey found that 3,4% Americans ate a solely vegetarian diet.
A 2018 study by comparethemarket.com found that approximately 14% of British people are vegetarian.
India is the country with the largest number of vegetarians. In fact it has more vegetarians than the rest of the world put together. According to the 2006 Hindu-CNN-IBN State of the Nation Survey, 31% of Indians are vegetarian, while another 9% also consume eggs (ovo-vegetarian).
Since India has over 400 million vegetarians, every packaged food or toothpaste in India must have a mark to distinguish whether it is vegetarian or non-vegetarian. The vegetarian symbol is a green square with a green dot in the center while the non vegetarian is the same in red.
HISTORY
Vegetarianism probably first featured in connection with religious purification rituals; for instance a vegetarian ideology was practised among religious groups in Egypt around 3,200 BC, with abstinence from flesh based upon their reincarnation beliefs.
Advocacy of a regular fleshless diet began around 500 BC in India through the teachings of Buddhism and Hinduism. These religions condemn the taking of animal life to obtain food because of their belief in the rebirth of the soul in animal bodies.
In the eastern Mediterranean the philosophical teachings of the philosopher Pythagoras included advocating a diet which precluded meat (it is not known if he ate fish) in relation to the gluttonous excesses of his fellow Greeks.
In ancient times non-meat eaters were generally known as Pythagoreans or adhering to the "Pythagorean System". The word "vegetarian" to describe non-meat eaters wasn't coined until the mid-19th century.
Pythagoras Advocating Vegetarianism (1618-1630) by Peter Paul Rubens (below) was inspired by Pythagoras's speech advocating vegetarianism in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
Roman gladiators and legionnaires ate a vegetarian diet consisting of three-quarters carbohydrates, mainly from wheat or barley.
For many centuries in the medieval era, Christian monks, hermits and ascetics forsook flesh eating as cruel, gluttonous and expensive. However, by the 13th century though many monks still lived in austere circumstances, not so many were vegetarians. For instance Saint Dominic, the founder of the Order of the Dominicans ate sparingly often just a couple of egg yolks but his diet did often include a small piece of fish.
In 1339 the Pope conceded that the monks might continue to eat meat provided that only half their number did so at a time, the other half maintaining a vegetarian rule.
From the 13th to 17th centuries when meat was largely a scarce and expensive luxury for the rich, an open vegetarian ideology was a rare phenomenon. Indeed by the beginning of the 18th century it was common to torture animals before killing them in the mistaken belief it improved their taste in the cooking process.
With the Enlightenment there arose a new assessment of man's place in the order of creation and moral objections were raised at the mistreatment of animals. In parallel with this many radical Christians were giving the cause of non-flesh eating great impetus in Britain including John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, who believed in its health aspects.
The Bible Christian Church was founded by the Reverend William Cowherd in Salford, NW England in 1809. He saw vegetarianism as a form of temperance. To join the church, members had to sign a pledge that committed them to abstaining from meat eating. One of his followers a Martha Brotherton, published the first vegetarian cookbook, Vegetable Cookery, in 1812.
Two others of the Reverend William Cowherd's followers, the Reverend James Clark Reverend and the William Metcalfe emigrated to the United States in 1817 with 39 other members of the Bible Christian Church and formed the nucleus of a vegetarian movement in America. By the 1830s vegetarian communes were evident in the USA.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word vegetarian was first used in 1842. The word should not be confused with the word "vegetable"; it is derived from the Latin "vegetus", meaning "whole, vigorous, active."
The Bible Christian Church took the lead in establishing the first national Vegetarian Society. The initial meeting to bring like-minded people together was held in the less-than-aptly named Ham Common. A second meeting was held on September 30, 1847, at Northwood Villa, home of the Hydropathic Institute in Ramsgate, Kent. Joseph Brotherton, the husband of Martha Brotherton, was invited to chair the historic meeting, and the Vegetarian Society was born.
 |
| Society notice (1890) |
By the end of the 19th century, vegetarian restaurants were becoming increasingly popular in London, offering cheap and nutritious meals in respectable settings.
In 1994 controls of export of British beef to Europe were imposed due to fears of contamination from BSE. Such health scares contributed to the increasing amount of consumers turning to vegetarian options.
In 2014, the Indian town of Palitana became the first city in the world to be legally vegetarian. It has outlawed, or made illegal, the buying and selling of meat, fish and eggs, and also related jobs or work, such as fishing and the rearing of animals for food. Palitana, which is located in Bhavnagar district, Gujarat, India is a major pilgrimage centre for Jains.
FAMOUS VEGETARIANS
Daniel, a Jewish exile in Babylon in the 6th century BC and a member of the royal household refused to eat meat. This was because the food being offered to him was "non-kosher" and may have been slaughtered as part of pagan religious rites. As a consequence Daniel, along with three others opted for a vegetarian diet and amazed the chief official by appearing healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food.
 |
| Bible Illustrations by Sweet Media |
Pope Gregory I (c540-604) who introduced the Gregorian chant into Christian church services, refrained from eating the flesh of animals. From his mid-thirties, as befitting his ascetic lifestyle, he ate only raw fruit and vegetables.
Bruno of Cologne (1030-1101), along with six companions, founded the Carthusian order in the isolated valley of Chartreuse, near Grenoble in SE France. There they lived as hermits, eating only vegetables and coarse bread.
In 1115 Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), a son of a French baron, entered Citeaux monastery
along with twenty-seven of his relations including four of his brothers. He had elected to withdraw from riches to live a life of extreme austerity and a diet of cooked beech and herbs.
Leonardo Da Vinci was a devoted vegetarian, a nearly-unheard of practice at his time . His love for animals was such that he would often purchase caged birds just to release them.
Benjamin Franklin became a vegetarian at 16, in part because he could save half of what his brother paid him, to buy more books. Franklin also declared the consumption of meat to be "unprovoked murder."
After a few years of vegetarianism, despite his dislike of their aroma, Franklin’s liking for fish tempted him back to eating flesh.
The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was a strong advocate of vegetarianism. Shelley wrote several essays advocating a vegetarian diet, "A Vindication of Natural Diet" and "On the Vegetable System of Diet".
His wife Mary Shelley was also an ethical vegetarian and strong advocate for animals. One can see references to vegetarianism in her writing. For example, in her novel Frankenstein, the 'monster' was a vegetarian.
Sylvester Graham (July 5, 1794 – September 11, 1851) was an American Presbyterian minister who preached nutrition and wanted to reform the eating habits of America and the world. Graham reached this conviction as the result of a bout of sickness he suffered. On his recovery, he gave much thought to the influence of diet on man's state of health and he became an advocate of vegetarianism stressing the advantage of eating a sufficient amount of roughage. The minister embarked on a campaign to induce people to eat cereals and bread baked from coarse grain. Preferably, he suggested, the bread should be stale, as this would aid digestion.
Sylvester Graham developed Graham bread a natural, whole grain bread, which proved successful. It was the first internationally consumed bread.
 |
| Vegetarian s'mores made with graham crackers |
In 1887 an 18-year-old South African Indian Mohandas Gandhi was sent to London to study law at the University College. He had vowed to his mother that he would observe vegetarianism but at first he struggled and his friends warned him that it would wreck his studies as well as his health. Fortunately for Gandhi he came across a vegetarian restaurant and he was able to feed himself amply rather than nearly starving himself.
Later in his life, the vegetarian Gandhi would not even pluck fruit from a tree as he felt this was too violent a gesture. He relied on gathering fruit once it had fallen to the ground. At one time he reduced his daily food to four ingredients, wheat, vegetables, a little oil and fruit but he became very ill. So he added to his diet goat's milk and salt.
FUN VEGETARIANISM FACTS
A 1992 market research study conducted by the Yankelovich research organisation concluded that "of the 12.4 million people in the US who call themselves vegetarian, 68% are female and only 32% are male.
In 1971, 1 percent of U.S. citizens described themselves as vegetarians. By 2015, another Harris Poll National Survey found that 3,4% Americans ate a solely vegetarian diet.
A 2018 study by comparethemarket.com found that approximately 14% of British people are vegetarian.
India is the country with the largest number of vegetarians. In fact it has more vegetarians than the rest of the world put together. According to the 2006 Hindu-CNN-IBN State of the Nation Survey, 31% of Indians are vegetarian, while another 9% also consume eggs (ovo-vegetarian).
 |
| A vegetarian thali from Rajasthan, India. By Raveesh |
Since India has over 400 million vegetarians, every packaged food or toothpaste in India must have a mark to distinguish whether it is vegetarian or non-vegetarian. The vegetarian symbol is a green square with a green dot in the center while the non vegetarian is the same in red.
Kangatarianism is a vegetarian diet with the addition of kangaroo meat as a choice. It has environmental benefits because indigenous wild kangaroos require no extra land or water for farming and produce little methane.
Cats can go blind and die if forced onto a vegetarian diet.
John Lennon was the only Beatle who didn't become a full-time vegetarian.
Source Food For Thought by Ed Pearce
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