Who’s the Strongest? The Meat Eaters or the Vegetarians?
The consensus of nutritionists at the end of the nineteenth century was clear. It was the meat eaters.
But important minority movements (sometimes derisively called the nuts and the berries) who disliked the line the nutritionists took, argued for the grain eaters. It was a debate that spilled over into national nutritional politics, the feeding of the poor, the military, prisoners, and the insane, and the future of entire nations.
One of those who urged a vegetarian diet was John Harvey Kellog, of Cornflakes fame. The Old Foodie has a fascinating post today in which she reproduces the list Kellogg published in 1923 of vegetarian societies that he believed had heft.
I’m intrigued by his listing for two Mexican groups the “Tobasco Indians” who supposedly lived on maize, sugar and a mysterious etc, and “Mexican Indians and Miners” who apparently subsisted on maize, sugar, omelets and vegetables. The maize is fine but where the sugar comes from I haven’t a clue. And is he confusing the Spanish tortilla, an egg and potato omelet, with the maize tortilla of Mexico? Who knows?
But follow the link and check out your own favorite group.
Fascinating topic. Unfortunately when i click on the link to the oldfoodie post it gives an error.
I’ve tagged you in a game of blog-tag, Rachel. :)
Yours in grainy goodness (sometimes),
A Nut and Berry (always).
Hi Rajagopal, I’ve fixed the link. Not much on India though those of Madras live on “rice, etc.” Etc. does a lot of work in this list.
Karen, I’m new to blog tags. This may take a while for my pea brain to figure out!
I remember a section in Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden Pond” where he pointed out to a farmer how strong his ox was in pulling the plow and yet the ox did not eat meat. He makes a good point. Most of the strongest creatures on Earth do not eat red meat.
Rachel. It’s fascinating how this argument is nothing new. I’m giving a paper more or less on this topic at Oxford. An early 18th c. French debate over whether one can live a healthy life eating vegetables, and here it’s defended scientifically – or at least using the science available. It’s also something Bruyerin Champier was discussing in the mid 16th century, and I’m sure many before too.
But where did Kellogg get this bizarre list??? Friendly Islands?
Ken
It would be interesting to see some data on the rate of iron deficiency based on diet. The papers that I have seen are usually based on data from Urban Western vegetarians, it would be interesting to see data from the rural poor in various regions.
Interesting quote from Thoreau, Bob. And Ken I agree this argument has deep historical roots. But one reason I tend to shy away from the term “vegetarianism” (which you may be using as a shorthand) is that there are such varied reasons for not eating meat. I think in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, one of the issues was protein and everyone agreed that many grains contained protein. And there was more enthusiasm for grains than for the leafy green veggies which had not yet received their blessing from the nutritionists. And Adam I suspect all kinds of deficiency, not just iron. The frequent remarks of city elites that the rural poor were stupid and sluggish were not, I suspect, simply prejudice though there was doubtless that too. But I suspect many were incredibly badly nourished by contemporary standards, specially those who did not include beans in the diet. And since Ken’s in on this discussion, I’m sure you all know Ken (Albala’s) book Beans.
True, there are all sorts of deficiencies (originally “cretin” refered to a idiot from an alpine village = iodine deficiencies), but iron defeciency is the “Big One” and the the one that the WHO is most keen on eliminating.
http://www.who.int/nutrition/topics/ida/en/index.html
But of course I know Ken’s Jane Grigson Award winning book “Beans” (I am even mentioned in it ;)). Many pulse are an excellent source of iron, but red meat is better.
In Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s classic novel, “The Leopard”, the protagonist Prince makes a statement blaming the overall shortness of Sicilians on their lack of protein in their diet. Of course, di Lampedusa wrote the book in the late 1950’s so he had the the advantage of ‘modern’ nutritional science to back up the claims of the Prince in 1860.
Adam, thanks to that WHO link. It seems very clear that if the problem is still that widespread today, it must have been a huge problem in the past. And thanks for the reference, Judith. When I lived in Hawaii the difference between the Hawaii-Japanese (fourth generation Americans) and Japanese Japanese was striking. The former were a head taller (and had quite different body language as well),
I don’t know whether you know the book The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death by Robert William Fogel. It sums up demographic research on Europe and should be required reading for anyone who wants a retreat to pastoral times.
Anemia – especially of women – is surely a huge problem here in Burundi. And some of this based on cultural practices / ideology: A couple of days I was having lunch in a local restaurant and the couple sharing my table ordered a plate of rice, meat/sauce and sombe [manioc greens]. Meat is often considered a man’s food here, and so it was not surprising that the husband ate meat and rice and sombe; the woman ate mainly rice with a little sauce. Not unusual. Though in more educated families this is not so.