“A Vision of Vegetarianism and Peace” is a compilation of excerpts from two of Rabbi HaCohen Kook’s early essays, ItAfik:m. Published in 1903–4, it is the only treatise in rabbinic Judaism on the topic. Rav Kook believed that the permission to become vegetarian was essential for spiritual growth and urged religious people to become involved in social questions and efforts to improve the world. His powerful words on vegetarianism are found primarily in “A Vision of Vegetarianism and Peace”, edited by Rabbi David Cohen.
Rav Kook’s famous thesis about the ideal of vegetarianism was about two generations ahead of his time, and he is still considered the greatest of the leading intellectuals in the field. This edition of “A Vision of Vegetarianism and Peace” includes Rav Kook’s words to his son, Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook, on becoming vegetarian.
The book is a must-read for anyone interested in Judaism and spirituality, as it incorporates all cf traditional views, synthesizes them, and goes beyond them. The Jewish Vegetarian, founded by Philip L. Pick, is the official journal of the Jewish Vegetarian and Ecological Society.
In summary, “A Vision of Vegetarianism and Peace” by Rav Kook is a comprehensive and influential work that offers a unique perspective on the relationship between religion, spirituality, and peace.
📹 The Cure for Literally Everything | Vegetarianism
Corn Flakes and Graham Crackers, two seemingly innocuous snack foods that were invented to reduce people’s carnal desires.
What is the mission statement of the vegetarian society?
The movement focuses on animal rights, aiming to eliminate suffering and eliminate the view of animals as food. It is a collective effort to improve society through vegetarianism, which offers personal health benefits and societal benefits. The movement also considers the planet, recognizing that widespread vegetarianism can help combat climate change by reducing emissions and supporting climate justice. Together, they are fighting for a better world.
Why vegetarianism will save the world?
The vegetarian diet is a significant step towards reducing one’s ecological footprint and ensuring environmental sustainability. By adopting a vegetarian diet, individuals can significantly reduce the amount of land, water, and oil resources consumed and the pollution they may cause. This also means causing less harm to the Earth’s non-human inhabitants, as each person can save over 100 animals each year from the cruelty of the meat industry.
As the world’s population continues to grow, our need for food will also increase, requiring 30 of the total soil available, 20 of fossil fuel energy, and a major part of the fresh water flow. Raising cattle is one of the most damaging components of agriculture, causing the most environmental damage of any non-human species through over-grazing, soil erosion, desertification, and tropical deforestation. Studies on world food security estimate that an affluent diet containing meat requires up to 3 times as many resources as a vegetarian diet.
Global production of meat has increased dramatically from 130 million tones in the late 1970s to 230 million tones in 2000. Meat is now the single largest source of animal protein in all affluent nations, and demand for animal flesh is expected to more than double by the year 2050. To meet this growing appetite, animals will likely be reared more intensively and cheaply with factory farming and aquaculture (fish farming), causing further pollution, water demand, and land usage. If nothing is done, the environmental impact of meat production can only increase.
Adopting a vegetarian diet is an important tool to achieve environmental sustainability. The EarthSave Report highlights the importance of vegetarianism as the most effective tool against climate change in our lifetimes, and the United Nations FAO Newsroom warns that raising cattle produces more greenhouse gases than driving cars.
In conclusion, adopting a vegetarian diet is a crucial step towards reducing one’s ecological footprint and ensuring environmental sustainability. By adopting a vegetarian diet, individuals can save over 100 animals each year from the cruelty of the meat industry and contribute to a more sustainable future for the planet.
What is the philosophy behind vegetarianism?
Ethical vegetarians argue that killing animals is justified in extreme circumstances, such as when one’s life is threatened, and that humans are morally conscious of their behavior and have a choice. This concern has become more widespread in developed countries due to the spread of factory farming, more open documentation of human meat-eating, and environmental consciousness. Reducing global food waste would also contribute to saving animals.
Equal treatment of humans and animals is described as a form of speciesism, such as anthropocentrism or human-centeredness. Val Plumwood (1993, 1996) argues that anthropocentrism plays a role in green theory, analogous to androcentrism in feminist theory and ethnocentrism in anti-racist theory. Melanie Joy has dubbed meat-eating “carnism”.
The animal rights movement seeks an end to the rigid moral and legal distinction between human and non-human animals, the status of animals as property, and their use in the research, food, clothing, and entertainment industries. Ethologist Jane Goodall states that farm animals are more sensitive and intelligent than we ever imagined, and neuroscientists in the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness in Non-Human Animals stated that all mammals and birds possess the neurological substrates that generate consciousness and are able to experience affective states.
What are the important points of vegetarianism?
Vegetarian diets are popular in Western countries due to health consciousness and their nutritional benefits. They offer lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein, while providing higher levels of carbohydrates, fiber, magnesium, potassium, folate, vitamins C and E, and phytochemicals. However, non-lacto vegetarian diets may increase the risk of calcium deficiency and low bone mineral density. A 2019 review found that vegetarians have lower bone mineral density at the femoral neck and lumbar spine compared to omnivores.
A 2020 meta-analysis found that infants fed a lacto-vegetarian diet exhibited normal growth and development. A 2021 review found no differences in growth between vegetarian and meat-eating children. Vegetarian diets are under preliminary research for their potential to help people with type 2 diabetes.
What is the justification for vegetarianism?
Vegetarians are often motivated by health, religious beliefs, animal welfare concerns, and environmental concerns. The popularity of vegetarianism has grown due to the availability of fresh produce, vegetarian dining options, and the growing influence of plant-based diets. Historically, vegetarianism was primarily focused on potential nutritional deficiencies, but recent studies have confirmed the health benefits of meat-free eating. Plant-based eating is now recognized as nutritionally sufficient and a way to reduce the risk of chronic illnesses.
The American Dietetic Association states that appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. However, becoming a vegetarian requires following guidelines on nutrition, fat consumption, and weight control. A wide variety of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains is essential for health, and saturated and trans fats should be replaced with good fats like those found in nuts, olive oil, and canola oil.
Overeating calories, even from nutritious, low-fat, plant-based foods, can lead to weight gain. Therefore, portion control, reading food labels, and regular physical activity are essential for maintaining a healthy vegetarian lifestyle.
What is the idea of vegetarianism?
Vegetarianism is the practice of living solely on vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, and nuts, with or without the addition of milk products and eggs, for ethical, ascetic, environmental, or nutritional reasons. Vegetarians exclude all forms of flesh (meat, fowl, and seafood) but often use milk and milk products. Vegans, lacto-vegetarians, lacto-ovo vegetarians, and pescatarians are those who exclude land-based meats but consume fish and shellfish.
Deliberate avoidance of flesh eating likely first appeared sporadically in ritual connections, either as a temporary purification or as qualification for a priestly function. Advocacy of a regular fleshless diet began around the middle of the 1st millennium BC in India and the eastern Mediterranean as part of the philosophical awakening of the time. In the Mediterranean, avoidance of flesh eating is first recorded as a teaching of the philosopher Pythagoras of Samos (c. 530 BC). Pagan philosophers, especially Neoplatonists, recommended a fleshless diet, condemning bloody sacrifices in worship and often associated with cosmic harmony.
In India, followers of Buddhism and Jainism refused to kill animals for food on ethical and ascetic grounds, which was later adopted in Brahmanism and Hinduism, particularly for the cow. The ideal of harmlessness (ahimsa) with its corollary of a fleshless diet spread steadily in the 1st millennium CE, spreading northward and eastward as far as China and Japan. In some countries, fish were included in an otherwise fleshless diet.
What is the main goal of vegetarianism?
Vegetarian diets are often chosen for various reasons, including personal preference, health concerns, ethical reasons, environmental concerns, and religious beliefs. Some vegetarians avoid meat due to concerns about animal welfare and treatment on industrial farms. The environment is also a concern, as animal waste from factory farms can pollute land and water, and trees are cut down for cattle grazing.
Religious beliefs, such as ahimsa, which means “do no harm”, also play a role in vegetarianism. Jainism, Hinduism, Seventh-day Adventists, and Buddhists all practice vegetarianism, with some consuming fish or meat. Overall, vegetarianism is a complex and diverse approach to dietary choices.
What are 3 benefits of being a vegetarian?
Vegetarian diets offer distinct advantages over meat-based diets due to lower intakes of saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein, as well as higher intakes of complex carbohydrates, dietary fiber, magnesium, folic acid, vitamin C and E, carotenoids, and other phytochemicals. However, there are many contradictions and misunderstandings about vegetarianism due to scientific data from studies without differentiation. Vegetarian diets have been previously described as deficient in several nutrients, often due to poor meal planning.
Well-balanced vegetarian diets are suitable for all stages of life, including children, adolescents, pregnant and lactating women, the elderly, and competitive athletes. Vegetarian diets are beneficial in preventing and treating certain diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, osteoporosis, renal disease, dementia, diverticular disease, gallstones, and rheumatoid arthritis.
The reasons for choosing a vegetarian diet often go beyond health and well-being to include economic, ecological, and social concerns. The influences of these aspects of vegetarian diets are the subject of the new field of nutritional ecology, concerned with sustainable life styles and human development.
What psychology say about being vegetarian?
Vegetarianism is a form of nutrition that involves the partial or complete omission of various animal products, often defined as the abandonment of all meat and seafood products without exception. There are different subgroups, such as flexitarians, semi-vegetarians, and pescatarians, which occupy an intermediate position between omnivorism and vegetarianism.
In recent years, vegetarianism has gained increasing attention in medical, ecological, political, and other contexts, particularly in Western countries. The proportion of vegetarian people is growing noticeably, with approximately 7. 3 million vegetarians in the US (3. 2 of the population), 5 of Americans, and 8 million in Germany.
The reasons for adopting a vegetarian diet in the Western world are primarily related to health, ethics, and morality. In contrast, the motivations for following a vegetarian way of life in “newly industrialized countries” are based on religion and culturally rooted. For example, in India, approximately 20-42 of the population follow a vegetarian diet, with Hinduism being a decisive reason for this.
In conclusion, vegetarianism is a growing trend in Western countries, with a growing number of people adopting a vegetarian diet due to health, ethics, and morality. However, the motivations for following a vegetarian lifestyle in these countries are primarily based on religion and cultural roots.
What are the moral reasons for vegetarianism?
There are a number of reasons to support ethical vegetarianism, including animal welfare, environmental concerns, global food scarcity, resource distribution, and the welfare of animals, the environment, global food scarcity, and resource distribution for future generations.
What is the main idea of vegetarian?
A vegetarian diet excludes meat and seafood, with variations including eggs and dairy. Vegetarians avoid meat for various health, environmental, ethical, religious, and economic reasons. There are various types of vegetarianism, and a well-planned vegetarian diet can meet nutritional needs throughout life. However, certain nutrients, like protein, iron, calcium, zinc, vitamin B12, and vitamin D, may be harder to obtain from certain types of vegetarian diets. Special care is needed during pregnancy, breastfeeding, and with children on vegetarian and vegan diets.
📹 World Religions and the VEGETARIAN DIET
This essay was written by Prof. Gene Sager of Palomar College and revised for the Society of Ethical and Religious Vegetarians …
I have a potential theory for why they used silver for the sutures. Silver is a natural antimicrobial. That’s actually why it is often a symbol of purity and healing. People believe that’s why silver became tied to folklore in stopping werewolves and vampires in the first place, because they are “impure” humans.
In Finland we have this concept of “chips-and-beer veganism”, specifically to combat the idea of veganism as a moralistic diet of salad and oatmeal. I’m not vegan but many of my close friends are, some of them are amazing chefs. They also know all the vegan potato chip brands by heart and are very chill about their lifestyle.
I had a moment during nursing school where i felt like I was going insane. I had previously known about the whole John Kellogg story and sure enough, when I was in a class focusing on Maternity nursing, the subject of circumcision came up. Circumcision was taught as a medically necessary procedure to maintain hygiene and cleanliness. I had brought up the entirety of the Kellogg story and people simply did not believe it at first. They insisted that uncircumcised men were signifcant risk of infection and, “the cheese,” from growing. The argument was eventually settled when the professor looked up the information for themselves on the smart board. To give them credit, they did actually change their stance on the subject and apologize to me.
Folding Ideas and Knowing Better both dropping articles within 24 hours of each other is like finding a hundred dollar bill in your pocket at the flea market. You’re shocked and ecstatic about all the weird shit you’re about to hear, see, and learn about, and you know it’s gonna be a great time no matter what you stumble on
Interesting fact: One of the earliest (possibly the earliest) European to advocate for vegetarian on ethical grounds was Pythagoras (yes, triangle guy), there was a whole religious cult associated with him focused on worshiping the cosmological significance of maths and also, somewhat randomly, vegetarianism.
What fascinates me most about people claiming that masturbation led to poor health is that people often turn to masturbation as a means of self-soothing, which is something you tend to seek out when under the stress of poor mental or physical health. The association probably didn’t come out of nowhere but people had to get weird and judgmental and victim-blamey about it
1:08:50 A dedicated article on the Eugenics movement in the USA would be VERY interesting in my opinion, with your typical long form thoroughness. I think it is a part of the USA’s history that is either glossed over, or best case not discussed/looked into, at least as much as i feel, it should be. I did a school project on it a LONG while ago, and only did a small amount of digging, but covering the organizations (as you did greatly in this article), as well as detail on those creepy “Better Baby Contests”, and also Data Collection which one group did quite extensively if I remember correctly. Tying into the broad theme of Slavery as practiced in the Americas may be good too. Either way i think this would be an interesting, important, and well suited to your work type of article! That’s just my thoughts though, schedule is probably plenty full as is lol.
Having been raised SDA, I love all these articles you do adjacent to the worldview I was raised in. I do hope you eventually cover SDA though because I love hearing people cover it that weren’t raise in it. The indoctrination is so strong in it and outside voices help remind me how wild what I grew up in was. Thanks so much for your incredible articles. I look forward to every release!
9:30 Romantic love most certainly was a concept, it definitely existed by the middle ages in Europe, I slogged through several boring books about it for some essays I had to do for my Courtly Love class. The Ancient Greeks had a bunch of words for love and one of them was Eros which can be lust but it can also be passionate romantic love. I love this website but you got this part wrong my brother. I will agree that most marriages at the time you are speaking of were mostly arranged, the concept of romantic love did exist.
Personally I wasn’t looking to be a vegan or vegetarian, but to be able to stick my limited income’s small monthly budget. Yes it began with Meatless Mondays, but as prices of meat grew w/ inflation my meatless days grew to 2 then to 1 meal on the other days. So IDK where in this I lay, maybe accidental vegetarian, but I still enjoy having a cheeseburger, steak, etc yet I’ve always loved eating my vegetables. LOL ☺️
the link between vegetarianism and eugenics helps me to understand why many prominent Nazis were vegetarians and are therefore not really linked to modern vegetarians’ concerns as the early vegetarians were focused on themselves and improving their personal lot and not necessarily focusing on the greater societal good as their principle driving force. So when Jordan Peterson points out that most of the senior Nazi leadership were vegetarians, he is relying on reading modern vegetarians’ concerns for animal welfare back onto people who would not have recognized those concerns. On the other hand, I can hardly believe that I just spent 2 hours to find out this little tid bit of information, and yet this was all strangely addictive and goes to underscore how little American proseletizing methodology has changed over the last century and a half!
I’ll be honest, I was really apprehensive going onto this article (being vegan myself), as most of the time we’re mentioned online it’s very unfriendly in nature, but this was really, really interesting! I appreciated the ending a lot, I think it’s a really valuable message, and it was also very interesting to learn about the partial history of vegetarianism (at least in the US)
First off, I VERY MUCH enjoy your work as a whole. Long time watcher/lurker, first time commenter. But…as someone who has a PhD in Medieval Studies and who specialized in a theological topic for her dissertation (penitential despair, because I’m completely emotionally healthy, why do you ask?), your theology of love could use a bit of nuance. (I had a similar take on your Dante article but it seemed mean to quibble.) You could certainly love yourself and your neighbor, or else Matthew 22: 37-39 makes no sense. Yes, these were reflections or lesser copies of the love you owed God, but still valid. That’s the truth behind the three kinds of violence punished in the Seventh Circle, after all. (Violence against neighbors, self, and God). And don’t even get me started on the different kinds of love according to classical philosophy/ early Christianity (eros, amor, agape/caritas, etc.) and the emergence of romantic love… C.S Lewis’ The Four Loves is helpful in this regard. Dante’s love for Beatrice represents the depth of these nuances and complications. Also, you go from referencing “the Christian world 1000 years ago” to the Renaissance and then back to ca. 1200, which is on the vague side. I studied the 12th and 13th centuries especially and have never heard of a formalized “demonic possession theory.” I know what you’re getting at, but I would say it wasn’t as formally and specifically articulated as you imply. Sorry if this has already been covered above. Thank you so much for your work!
Can I just say thank you for choosing a safe for work title? I feel like some other creators may have chosen a more salacious title, which I normally don’t mind, but it makes listening to some article essays at work look a bit sus if someone comes up to my desk and I’m not prepared for them and it takes me a bit longer to close my phone. Also as usual this was beyond fascinating and you’re one of the most well-researched websites on this platform!
As a European vegetarian I find this so interesting. For us vegetarian is a modern thing associated with healthy living and environmentalism, very post-war. We do have a lot of traditional vegetarian food, which it seems like america doesn’t, and it was very hard to find food I could eat in America. I hope to find out more about this and this article is an excellent starting point.
I always assumed that the modern Western vegetarian/vegan movement vaguely came from the hippy movement so all of the very strange ideas about health and sex and religion mixed in historically were fascinating. The Vegetarian Society is still around in the UK; I don’t know how official it is but you see their logo on some certified vegan and vegetarian products. I never expected that their origins were obscure Christian groups!
I’ve been vegan for over a year now. Believe it or not but abstaining from meat has been the easy part. I buy soy meat substitute and then do non-vegan recipes. If you didn’t know it was soy substitute you might not even realize that my diet is vegan. I also realized that the main issue with vegan cooking is that people don’t use enough oil in their cooking because they cook with the expectation of fats from the meat. Soy meat is too lean to contain those fats so you need to add extra oil in the cooking to make up the difference, otherwise your food risks becoming too dry or lackluster. The hard part is abstaining from other animal products, mostly leather and wool since manufacturers don’t offer the consideration that these things deserve.
Amazing article! I wasn’t expecting it to go pro-vegetarianism at the end, and I was low-key blown away by the gamefied harm reduction approach to vegetarianism that followed it. This article was like a movie full of delightful surprises, with a twist-ending AND a thought-provoking message. I’m recommending it to all my friends. ❤
Here in Germany, bread very often still is the meal. For breakfast and dinner people will often have slices of bread, with various spreads and toppings. The traditional big and warm meal of the day is lunch. Although with more and more people not having access to a propper big meal at noon, lunch and dinner often switch places, with another bread based meal for lunch, but a large, cooked meal for dinner. Some people nowadays might actually instead have a cooked meal both for dinner and lunch. But the proper way is cold bread- warm and big- cold bread again.
Wow. My paternal grandparents were born in the 1910s and lived on a farm in Michigan not far from Battle Creek. My grandma was at one point very obsessed with how many bowel movements she had in a day, at one point becoming upset when the number wasn’t enough. I always assumed that that was just the dementia setting in (which she did have). They weren’t vegetarian or Seventh Day Adventist and neither of them ever talked about yogurt enemas or water baths, but they were teetotalers (abstained from alcohol). This article now makes me wonder if there was more than just the dementia going on.
I’ve been a vegetarian for a very long time, and I gotta say, this has been a fascinating history on these early weirdos. It’s also pretty refreshing to hear a fair take on the modern diet from someone with different eating habits. I usually avoid telling people how I eat cause they tend to get all weird and defensive or start with the jokes.
The conclusion rings true: I was vegan last year, but as I ate meat in a few social settings at the beginning of the year, I stopped, feeling I “failed” at being vegan, so I went back to eating meat and dairy products. But, seeing it in terms of % is a healthier approach. I still go meatless during the week, big batches of curry or chili are an easy staple, but I’ll strive to increase the % of meatless meals I have.
So I knew Kellogg’s cereal was invented by a Seventh Day Adventist but I did not know the same guy invented peanut butter. Weird to think one guy is essentially responsible for about 3/4 of the breakfasts I have ever eaten. I would love to see a article on Seventh Day Adventists! It would tie in nicely to both this article and the previous articles on religions that were invented in the U.S. My mom had a Seventh Day Adventist penpal for a little while but I don’t know a lot about them. Also, for those who might be wondering, Bronson Alcott was Louisa May Alcott’s dad.
Zwieback is a staple snack food here in Switzerland so I was really taken aback when you said people didn’t like it, but I’m guessing that American version of Zwieback didn’t contain sugar, whereas Swiss Zwieback is basically crunchy Brioche bread, i.e. pretty sugary PS: in German the letter ’Z‘ is pronounced like ’ts‘, not ’s‘ like in English. So ’zwieback‘ is pronounced ’tswiback‘
I subscribed to your website after your last upload, so this is my first new upload! Very excited. Since subscribing, I’ve caught up on a lot of your past topics, and I love the style/tone/discussion you try to foster. Some of the very cheesy cutaways make me think of Doctor Who, in the best way! Thanks for doing what you do, sincerely, internet stranger.
As a “statistically vegetarian” myself, I’m happy that this article ends on promoting this approach. It is so much more friendly, and is perfectly compatible with environmental motivation. Also, it took moving from Eastern Europe to US and discovering great traditional vegetarian cuisines like Indian for me to even consider going vegetarian. Enjoyment is the integral part of a healthy relationship with food.
My partner and I are vegans and we appreciate your making this article. It was facinating. I am not surprised that progressive activists like abolitionists often did not eat meat. Other ideas like eugenics are obviously fundamentally wrong, but the goal of improving mankind was a noble one. Their method for doing so was the problem. Education is the key to improving mankind. Learning about this important topic is one way to do that.
It’s good to be back! Ready to know better. 6:34 anybody amused by the fact a guy named Cowherd got a bunch of people to stop eating meat? 7:19 Okay, glad KB pointed it out lmao 10:00 Why is this man SO FUNNY 16:56 I will never forgive him for introducing me to the concept of TOAST WATER 20:42 Fresh wheat bread is awesome, I’ll give Grahan that 21:30 I can’t imagine how people smelled before baths became regular… and they were still making so many babies, ew 23:09 Aw shit, MBE making a comeback? 25:29 I’m guessing he’ll mention the sheer volume of Willams later? 29:09 Hey, I knew of both of those books! I guess I… Noah Little Better! 35:43 “Selling ice to an Eskimo” vibes 37:01 LMAO why is he so funny?! 40:55 JOHN BROWN HECK YEAH!!! 43:21 “Ah yes, the DANCING killed my husband!” 48:09 Damn, Trall spittin’ 50:42 “My source is that I made it the f*ck up!” 53:08 Imagine thinking that literally making humans is bad for humanity- well, actually…. 54:26 …gross. 56:34 idk, strawberries are apparently very sexy, Kellogg 59:54 That’s a load of shit 1:02:53 Now, I’m waiting for the Corn Flakes article 1:02:59 Damn, KB is goooooood 1:05:30 Thay is quite literally the most boring name ever… 1:12:06 Same bro, same 1:14:55 As a diabetic, I have to be careful about my diet. Modern corm flakes aren’t great for me, mostly thanks to the excess sugar the USA puts in everything Man, this article was fun!
It’s not directly related to anything, but I guess similar to how you forgot bread is vegetarian it’s funny to me how often I forget that insects aren’t vegetarian or vegan. Like, any time the environmental benefits come up when talking with a vegetarian, I think “yeah, and another thing that would help is if we ate more crickets-ah, right, you don’t do that.”
I don’t care about being vegetarian because I used to work on a lettuce farm. We killed plenty of deer and other things that would eat the greens, seeds, etc. I think a discussion on dialectical materialism is important here. Advocating for better systems that don’t obsess over making all the grain we can is also important. Advocating for animal rotation practices to help fields come back. In addition, getting rid of the obsession of meat products is also important. Giving people information on vegan meals is important.
I really like the percentile approach. When I first became a vegetarian I found it so difficult to not eat any meat at all and would be really hard on myself whenever I gave in and ate some but that’s not exactly a productive mindset. So now I still call myself a vegetarian even though I eat meat every few months (bc 99% of my meals are vegetarian)
I grew up in Battle Creek! The BC Sanitarium building is still there, but now serves as the local Federal Center. The old Kellogg factory there used to have a tourist destination known as cereal city – you could get a custom printed Corn Flakes box with your photo on it – several family members have one still.
If you care about animals but want to eat meat: invest in, support and talk about labgrown meat. Lab grown meat is the future, or at least part of the future. maybe it will never replace murder meat fully, but at some point it will replace big part of it, the only question is how much time it would take.
I always wondered about the origins of Australias “Sanitarium” breakfast food company run/owned by the Seventh Day Adventist’s. It looks like there’s a direct line between one of Kellogg’s sanatorium bakers who emigrated to Australia and helped established the company (with no other connection to the modern Kellogg company)
A few years ago I asked my grandmother if I could see her butcher a chicken. Seeing as in today’s age we’re really disconnected from our food, I figured I’d have to learn to accept the brutality of it one way or another. While I was there, I went out for a walk on the modest patch of farmland behind her house and accidentally stepped on a snail. Even two years on the crack of its shell still echoes in my brain. Seeing in writhe on the ground in a sort of amorphous blob with pieces of shell still attached, knowing that I couldn’t do anything to fix it… I ran inside and cried for half an hour. I felt so guilty. That poor snail had no reason to die. I still eat meat. I never went to see my grandma butcher that chicken. I keep that in a dark part of my brain, too.
For me, the saddest take on the whole “Graham routine improving health conditions” is the general trend of society only accepting health advice if its wraped in fringe pseudoscience… If the leading thesis on the COVID was “5G eletromagnectic waves causes imbalances on the four humours of the body and cause the sick, therefore people should avoid public areas with wi-fi and stay home” the quarantine effort probably would be more sucesfull
Having bought into multiple ideological diets and researched the health and environmental implications I’d have to say that no one diet fits all people. For your own health we have to note our body’s responses to different food and alter it accordingly. This is why I’m no longer vegetarian or vegan, I couldn’t survive healthily on it. In terms of diet, the primary path we all need to take towards healthy eating is to avoid processed foods. Another important point is that animal rights activists have had a massive impact on affecting our attitudes towards the ethics and environmental soundness of eating meat. Their voice and rhetoric has drowned out a lot of relevant research that we as a society are not taking into account. In environmental terms our priority should be local, ethical production of food, and eating according to the season.
I really like the gentle call to action at the end. It’s that exact perspective that convinced me to start cutting out meat at my own pace, and now I’m at a place where I’m perfectly happy with how little my “percentage” is. Being allergic to dairy did give me quite the head start on the non-meat side of veganism, though.
A suggestion for folks who wanna eat less meat but are worried their food just won’t be appetizing/ “hit the spot” the same way Mushrooms. They are your friends. A common brown or white mushroom can be tossed in any kind of liquid cooking oil ( I like olive oil ) and seasoned up just like meat, and maintains similar chew after cooking. It’s a favorite of mine when I stopped putting bacon in my eggs. Oil your mushrooms in a big bowl, add salt, pepper, dried or fresh herbs, toss until everyone is fully coated, let stand for 15 minutes, then fry in a smoking hot pan to get a nice fry while the mushrooms express all the water they’ve got inside. Also, marinating your veggies is a general way to add flavor; it ain’t just for meat! I’m a farmer’s kid. I’ll probably never fully give up meat because I can’t picture a universe in which my mother stops raising animals. Raising animals means managing their waste, protecting them, providing a safe environment, feeding them… and, when a goat grows old, using every part of their corpse after they’re gone. Meat gets canned for future use, fat is cooked down to make lye soap with wood ash, the bones are buried in the yard to decompose, and on and on. The chickens also help with food waste; whenever the family doesn’t finish a meal it’s sent back to the chickens after anything that can make them sick is removed ( chickens tend towards fatty liver disease when fed processed grains like those found in pasta ). They also eat every type of annoying insect that lives in or reproduces on grass, so their foraging during the day has a pest control effect for the wider area.
I really love this. I grew up in a Seventh Day Adventist house hold, and most of my family was vegan. I’ve eaten mostly vegan foods but was only ever fully vegan for a few months and I enjoyed it. What ruined it was my Mom homemade Gumbo and it broke my heart wanting to eat it so bad. I ate the gumbo. I stopped being vegan all together. That being said, I actually prefer plant based dishes (eating a circulatory system specifically really wigs me out). I understand that humans, in spite of what we tell our selves, are omnivorous; I’d like to commit my self to being as high a percentage vegan as possible. That definitely brings back the warm and fuzzies and takes the pressure off of slip ups. With that mind set of being “75% vegan”, I know for a fact I will be far more vegan with that mind set rather than sticking to the “all or nothing” vegan perspective which is super stressful. Absolutely brilliant perspective. Thank you for sharing this history! The history of Graham and Kellog (and Post if you look into it) is absolutely BANANAS.
As someone raised vegetarian who is still a vegetarian and plans on always being a vegetarian (due to the fact that meat just isn’t food to me, s’like asking me to eat a rock,) the whole idea of ‘vegetarianism in percentages’ at the end was just plain wild lol. I wasn’t expecting so much of the vegetarian diet’s history to be about masturbation, holy crap. 🤣 I think I remember hearing the term ‘extreme vegetarianism’ being used in place of veganism as a kid btw. I haven’t heard that term in yeeears! Kellogg was definitely a fruit loop that caused a LOT of harm to people (like circumcision and those chastity ideas ow, so glad female genital mutilation never caught on in full in North America like it did elsewhere,) but I sure am grateful that he created peanut butter and introduced us to nomming on nuts! (Although California’s natural ecosystems probably don’t appreciate the craze for almonds and almond beverages.)
“purity test” vegetarianism was partially responsible for the first major inter-buddhist conflict. Devadatta, a highly respected monk and the Buddha’s cousin, and wanted strict vegetarianism (along with some ascetic rules) to be compulsory for all monastics, rather accepting anything that people gave for alms. The Buddha rejected this, on the grounds that monastics should encourage generosity however people have the means to do so, given that they could not accept meat if it were specifically killed to feed them. Devadatta persisted, broke away with his own group, and thus created the first Buddhist schism.
Humans are not designed to be herbivores, we need protein & plant protein is less bioavailable for us & has less amino acids. We are omnivorous in many ways but also have a lot of hypercarnivorous traits (Such as a very acidic stomach) from back when we hunted mammoths. Our big brains are for increased hunting efficiency as ice age megamammals died out..
Dairy sings a siren song to me. Even though it gives me stomach aches in large quantities, I can’t help myself.😅 I pretty much gave it up when I was dialysis ~ 10+ years ago, pretty easy when you have no appetite and what little you do have is used to force down meat/eggs to keep your albumin up. I only had it in my coffee, or once in a great while, on pizza after lab day. Right now, my transplant isn’t doing so hot, so I’ve had to cut back my protein intake, and I’m sort of accidentally vegetarian several days of the week. Luckily, rice and veg is the meal of the gods.
Isn’t it ironic that Graham and Kellogg’s main argument against masturbation and sex, that it’s a very intensive exercise to the body, is what nowadays considered the healthiest aspect of sex? So, for the disturbing text that wasn’t read out loud -> If I understand it correctly, the idea was to surgically tie the foreskin over the glans (or head) of the penis to encase the latter inside the former. By doing this, the penis would tear itself in half if it ever got an erection, and either case (limp or torn penis) was great in the eyes of Kellogg. What I don’t understand, however, is how the hell was the guy supposed to pee?
I don’t think I would find converting to full vegetarianism difficult at all. It’s just that I’m not convinced that it is as healthy as eating meat. I already eat bowels and bowels of vegetables and fruits, and I often add meat to it unnecessarily. But all articles I have ever read are full of asterisks and point to imperfect controversial studies. To be honest, all dietary studies seem pretty inconclusive, unreproducible and often overturned within years. I’m not taking any chances with this, especially not with my kids’ diet, even though I know that they love animals so much that it would be an easy-ish sell to get them to become vegetarian.
I don’t think I’ve ever considered the consumption of meat…wrong. I don’t view the idea of consumption of an animal for consumption and energy as an issue. I grew up deep in the sticks. I’ve been hunting and fishing since I was old enough to. I field dressed my first dear when I was 14. But I also helpped grow the plants in the garden. I could never see my diet life with out both meat and vegetables together. (Granted beef kinda sucks compared to venison.)
11:26 made me really curious. If they called masturbation Onanism in the past I was curious if the name of the popular masturbation toy Onahole is also derived from that story as well. It might but more likely it’s derived from the Japanese term “onai” or eng. “To love oneself” fyi if you were as morbidly curious as I was…
As an SDA that is having a huge back-and-forth in the church as of late over the vegetarian thing (I am not a vegetarian). If you ever so a article on it then I’d love to offer an insider’s critique on how absolutely EG White dependent the vegetarian ‘message’ is and how pushy some members are in instilling that lifestyle on the membership. It goes to a sickening level where baptism is sometimes denied or put off due to smoking or drinking. It’s not right.
Just wanted to say that your recent comments on Palestine made me unsubscribe and unfollow you on twitter. I thought you were a measured, intelligent and empathic person who tried to be as objective as possible in all instances, but turns out that in the end, you couldn’t get past your American-ness. For shame.
My favorite old-timey Utopian vegetarian society is Oahspe, where an 1880’s dentist had a religious vision, wrote his own Bible, and moved to Arizona to start his own vegetarian commune. He got orphans from all around the Southwest for general farm labor but knew almost nothing about farming and after his crops failed he had to give the orphans *back*. Which they’d let you do. I I found a copy of book in a collection of occult literature owned by a deceased Vietnamese expat, which sounds like how an HP Lovecraft story starts, and it’s the book of Mormon but with books attributed to various pagan gods, Kabbalah diagrams, and that sort of thing. It never caught on
Had a friends wife grow up “vegetarian”. One day, as an adult, the persons parents showed up and they cooked dinner. The father brought his bag of secret ingredients he used to sprinkle on the wife’s food while growing up. She raved about it and couldn’t wait to get her family to taste the yummy food. Everyone loved it and once completed, she finally asked, what was the secret ingredient being used in the food. Ground beef
No reason to eat vegetables or not-eat meat. A vegetarian diet is just … vegetarian. It’s not more nutritious, less animal-cruel, or any non-arbitrary dimension more/less than meat-eating diets. Ironically, I’m ALMOST vegan, but not for any dogmatic (stupid) reasons. Just health and wealth. I think most people would be better off eating less meat, but to optimize diet for meat vs vegetable vs fungi consumption is stupid and arbitrary. Eating more vegetables doesn’t make you any less animal-suffering-inflicting nor any healthier. So, optimize around cost, animal-suffering (regardless of whether it’s meat or veg or fungi you eat), health, or some other non-arbitrary dimension.
This kind of misses that certain groups in Egypt, Greece, and areas influenced by them practiced vegetarianism for ethical and spiritual reasons well before Christianity became big and a renewed interest in these ancient philosophies was an influence on later movements in the west. Not to mention that some Christian monastic orders were vegetarian.
A note about the bit at the end: I started being vegetarian 3 years ago, and in that time I’ve accidentally eaten meat products like 4 or 5 times. While I got frustrated with myself, I never took those mistakes as reasons to stop. I’ve kept on going like nothing happened and encourage anyone else looking to change themselves to keep on it too.
So far the one that is closest to like doing something (especially for the time) is the water cure. I mean on the scale of might work for what ales you, hydrating, cleaning your self and taking sauna break to soothe the sinus may actually do the trick. Probably won’t help with a broken arm or anything, but a spa day is still better than just eating bread and water I guess.
I’m in a strange position when it comes to this, because I’m an ex-vegetarian. My mom is a vegetarian, and my dad is not, but since my mom was the one that cooked, she passed her vegetarianism on to me and my siblings. She was part of the wave that did it for animal welfare. She was always pretty moderate about it, enough to marry someone who eats alot of meat. There were two main reasons I converted to being an omnivore. 1. Health: We humans are naturally omnivores. Growing up I regularly took vitamin and mineral supplements, and went out of my way to eat eggs, the fake meat we would buy (which we affectionately refer to as Snausage and Shicken), drink milk, because i just always felt like i was not getting “enough.” Since I’ve started eating meat I’ve felt this way alot less, and have generally felt better than I did before, even though I’m not going to the gym as much as I used to. 2. Alot of meaty stuff looked like it tasted really good. Admittedly, alot of it did not live up to the hype, especially bacon. the way people talked it up made it feel like I ought to start crying for joy when I bit into it for the first time, but when i tried it it was just good. You all gassed it up way too much I was honestly so disappointed when i tried it for the first time. I still have that hatred of factory farming that most vegetarians have, and would end it if i could. I try to get free range/humane stuff when I can, and in particular I have no issues with hunting. At the end of the day, meat eating is natural.
Having just killed a deer a couple of days ago, I found this interesting, I don’t care if you’re a vegetarian, carnivore, or somewhere in between, but all people need to understand where there food is coming from. If it means a life is taken, then you should really understand that. I know many people that eat meat and want to pretend that burger didn’t have a face. I dealt with that intimately the other day and thanked the animal for his life.
“The food groups can easily be sorted using this simple health shape! Choosing normal plain-looking foods like bread, cream, white sauce, and aspic keep the body ticking over just nicely! Isn’t that right?” “But wait! What’s this?” “Fancy, show-offy foods like cooked meats, fruit salad, soil foods and yolk! These foods will clog up the body with unnecessary detail!”
I keep track of my food intake, and found that, ironically, while I’m not a vegetarian or vegan, the vast majority of my food is plant based. Even if you go to McDonalds for a burger, the majority of the burger is plant material and even the burger patty itself is probably cooked with some kind of vegetable oil. At least from my habits, I have to make a bit of a focused effort to eat more meat than you already do. Also, I see eating eggs as fine from a moral standpoint because it hasn’t developed into anything yet. It’s the starting point.
Once a bunch of vegan protestors went in a public plaza and set up a big screen projecting a slaughterhouse article, trying to shock everybody. I went there, stood in front of the screen with 3 other guys, then people started clustering… And then, when the credits started rolling, just before the movie resumed… I shouted HOLY SHIT, I’M STARVING! WHO’S UP FOR MCDONALD’S? and went straight in to get a burger. I can still hear the vegans angry at me. It’s one of the proudest moments of my life.
Man is always s good day when knowing better uploads a article. I ve learned so much from his articles, his articles are a very very well put documentary. From serious thing to random things to his personal life. He is a veteran and well dont stop giving the Internet knowledege i will join to your patreon. Regards from Mexico
Hey KB, another thing that connects everything together: in 1815 Mount Tambora in Indonesia erupted, an eruption so large that 1816 was known as the Year Without a Summer worldwide. Crops failed all around, which caused many migrations, including people moving from New England to the Midwest through upstate New York. Wonder what was happening in that area around that time… Anyway, I haven’t finished the article yet, so maybe you already mentioned it, but I couldn’t wait to write this.
Honestly, I was ok with vegans and vegetarians until they started forcing this onto cats – literal obligate carnivores. Then a bunch came for me when I explained the meaning of obligate and the proven numerous health issues forcing this diet onto obligate carnivores can and will have on cats. I had to turn off my comment notifications. It’s legit insanity. Also it’s been awhile, glad to see you uploading 💙 Edit: why are weird things always tied back to some hardcore fundamentalist religious take. Seems to never fail… oy.
This is very interesting as a current vegetarian. I am not religious at all and became vegetarian once I was in college and could choose my food. For health, ethical, and environmental reasons. I’m much healthier now and I’m not disgusted doing the dishes anymore. Any reason to abstain is a good reason imo. I never imagined there was such a rich vegetarian background in the US!
I have always agreed with the macrobiotic diet recommendation (George Oshawa and Michio Kushi) of meat and animal products making up only 5-10% of the human diet. If this was the norm, many of the problems in human health and the environment stemming from the current dietary norms would be alleviated.
silver was historically used to line barrels in Rome and onwards – apparently it has some kind of antibacterial effect. much like we use aluminium as a rust-magnet in boat motors, silver was used as a bacterial magnet, neutralizing whatever else it was in contact with. so silver was an accidental way to use disinfectant threads in surgery i think
I wondered if you had a new article out & was about to go searching when I saw this one! Good timing! My aunt is a vegan & is very judgmental about it; nothing to do with religion for her though. My mom is mostly a ovo-vegetarian but occasionally has chicken. Both changed their diets later in life. I’m just too picky.
Wow. Wowowowow. As a strict vegan. I am so impressed. You have reframed how I think of my lifestyle. I had a similar thing 1:15:00 I would say; if a single parent can only afford (in time and proximity) to cut out red meat and switch to plant milk, Youre as vegan as you can be. I think it would also be helpful to children to reframe “eat your vegetables!!” To “look out for the animals”
I have been vegetarian for almost thirty years now, and did not come to it through these websites. I was always, even as a child, unhappy about the killing an animal part, and the greasiness of the average supper dishwashing. In adulthood, I was exposed to eastern spirituality and its vegetarianism, and tried it, since I was already of a mind to anyway. The spiritual part didn’t stick (atheist and proud now!) but the diet did. It just suits me. I’m not on a mission to convert anybody, and I avoid talking about as much as I can. It just works for me.
I’ve recently been diagnosed with celiac disease, after going keto all summer (no carbs for 3 months, let me not be constantly inflamed, and the slow, very slow introduction was just horrible), so imagine denying all breads (a main part of my life’s diet) and then when restarting with half a piece of sourdough, and feeling nothing but pain
9:22 in English we have” love” which we determine the type by the context. In Greek there are four different words for lov, each meaning different kinds. I refuse to believe that people didn’t know what love is 1,000 years ago. Only the rich and landed people married simply for procreation and status. To blame it all on religion is exact what they would say.
I’m not even sure I could be vegan. Maybe vegetarian. But I’m allergic to: beets, spinach, all nuts, mushrooms… I tried dating a vegan (she was getting a degree in environmental science) and holy shit it was very difficult to eat out together. I assumed it would be harder to accommodate me but when I went to vegan restaurants… I had to ask for modifications (I felt like such an ass but I am genuinely allergic to a lot.) It sucks but I can’t meet my nutritional needs without animal products.
You’re a over a hundred years off at a minimum for American vegetarianism let alone the entire west. We have health books from various countries in Europe from the 1400s that preached the virtues of vegetarianism. Benjamin Franklin was inspired at the age of 16 to become vegetarian by Thomas Tyron’s 1691 book Wisdom’s Dictates. I would like to see a sequel article with a deeper dive since I like your style and think you can do the subject justice.
DUDE that was fantastic. I like how your conclusion actually works for breaking any habit you wish to change. As someone whose always been vegetarian, I remember gym teachers and other kids thinking it was weird or claiming that I couldn’t get all my nutrients via such a diet. It was a welcomed experience as the climate and environmentalism movement embraced the cause. Granted I never liked the people who looked down on others for eating meat. Moral superiority is typically for the insecure. Kellogg though, GOSH!!!! There was some repressed feelings in that man…..to say the absolute least.
Thank you for doing this article. This saved me from wasting time going down the Health reform/SDA/Peanut butter/vegetarianism rabbit hole again. It’s interesting how those movements sometimes started as religious reforms that progressively left religion behind in favour of secular ideas and end up contradicting the original beliefs. There’s nothing new under the Sun it seems.
oh, the reason they picked silver wire for it is because silver (especially sterling alloys) are very non-reactive to skin and blood. less likely to rust, infect, or cause allergic reaction than other metals. huge part of why most piercings were silver or gold before surgical steel and titanium alloys became normal for the actual bars that go through the skin
Now that I’ve matured somewhat, I can’t believe I used to watch your articles and think of them as brilliant. In fact, there are so many multi-layered reasons why your articles teach wrong things that I am baffled where to even begin explaining. I suppose this occurs when one lives a godless life in a secular nation with degenerate culture treated as normal. The Americans never fail to disappoint the devil in serving him, knowingly or unknowingly.
I’m by no means a vegetarian by ideology, but… I really don’t eat that much meat. i usually get my protein from soy and beans and the like, and have a meal with meat in it every once in a while. to be honest, I’ve probably had “streaks” of no meat completely by accident. I’ll still cook up a venison steak, or make some Tikka Masala, or go out to sushi every once and a while but that dosen’t bother me when its so easy to eat “mostly vegetarian-ish on accident” for less cost than a meat-heavy diet anyways I’d never get that close to vegan though, the loss of butter alone would do me in lol
I do not understand the argument that eating meat is wrong. So is every animal that eats another animal wrong? I dont just mean out of necessity cats kill just to kill. My cats wont even eat the mice and chipmunks they kill. If we all come from the same primordial stew then we should have the same ethics as all creatures.
While I think this article was very well and thoroughly done, I have to disagree with your conclusion. ” You can say it’s natural all you want, but (deep down) you know it’s kinda messed up.” This is a very flip dismissal of a legitimate argument, and an assertion that rather smugly implies that you know people better than they know themselves. It is literally natural for omnivores to eat meat. Human bodies evolved that way. Being human, people with enough resources will almost always overindulge, hence our concerns for climate change and health. But contrary to your belief, I have no compunction about killing animals for food — provided that they are raised or hunted and slaughtered humanely. I go out of my way to find properly fed and free-range animal products. Having worked in the health care industry for a couple decades, I have concluded that the most important thing for life is to help prevent suffering as much as possible. Not death, suffering.
I have been a vegitarian for well over 30 years, I’m now in my mid forties and occasionally consume fish-containing products or oils thereof (like bread made with fish based margarine, which is common where I live). None of this is based on religion, doctrine, environmentalism or liking cuddly animals (although I do like cuddly animals), I just couldn’t stomach the thought of consuming flesh one day as a kid and found the smell and texture disgusting. My parents tell me this was a thing since I was a baby and usually just ate the potatoes and other veggies and left the meat or fish untouched on my plate. A matter of taste, I guess. So this article is extremely interesting to me, I do not want to be associated with any of this madness but people automatically assume I am some vegan fanatic when I ask for non-meat alternatives. It has gotten easier over the years, but this leads to another problem, now crazy vegans regard me as “one of their own” and lecture me about my dairy consumption (cheese is like my favourite food) so I have had to basically stay silent on the whole issue for years after PETA and other nutjobs rose to prominence. I guess I just can’t win on this one, but I sure as hell won’t be going back to eating meat. Most modern vegan foods are disgusting to me as well, why the hell would I even obstain from things like honey? It’s insect vomit. OK, so that is probably a good reason, but still, leave my honey nut cheerios alone.
I understand and support many of the reasons others won’t eat meat, but I just can’t do vegetarianism. There’s something about the flavor or texture of most vegetables that just make me feel nauseous or whatever it is is just so unappealing I can’t go through with eating it. I guess it sounds weird, but I just can’t help having a diet of mostly meat and grains.
you didn’t make a whole 1:16:00 vid about the history of European vegetarianism and not do any research before the founding of the U.S., right? Right? you did read up on the Neoplatonics, right? the Sammi vegetarians? at the very least you saw the vegetarian body builder image macros about how some Gladiators were primarily vegetarian, right?
Was carnist for a while, ovolacto for a bit, now I just eat whatever but try to buy less meat for environmental reasons. Either way it amuses me how early (western) Vegetarian movements were all about making food _as bland as humanly possible_. You can make your vegan food so good with some good application of spices.
Darwin was very much against slavery but he spoke very highly of Argentinian meat during his trips off the Beagle: “Meat roasted with its skin (carne con cuero) is known over all these parts of S. America for its excellence. — it bears the same relation to common beef, which venison does to mutton. — I am sure if any worthy alderman was once to taste it; carne con cuero would soon be celebrated in London.”
Weird way to end the article. Thats a good mentality to accomplishing goals, but I’m a little confused by the message. We should all eat less meat because some people think it’s wrong? The argument for or against vegetarianism was not in the scope of the article, so why take a position at the last second? It felt kinda tacked on for me, but the rest of the article was very well made, as usual.