Chicago Tribune/1895/April/29/Meat Not Needed as Food

by J. Howard Moore

Chicago, April 26.—[Editor of The Tribune.]—The consternation caused by the rise in the price of meat is all unnecessary. There is no reason in the world why human mammals may not keep up as successful and interesting an existence without ox hips as with them. In fact, after a careful study of the science of foods and a personal experience of many months, allow me to assert with a good deal of enthusiasm that physiological integrity may be much more accurately sustained by a judicious diet of fruits and vegetables than by a diet in which flesh is a distinguished constituent.

The Vegetarian Eating Club of the University of Chicago, which has now been in existence about one year and which is today one of the most prosperous gastronomic enterprises of the many connected with the university, is a living illustration of what I have just said. It was organized in April, 1894, amid plentiful prophecies of premature collapse. It began its career with fewer than a dozen members, and its cradle days were days of great lack of sunshine. But as the days of June warmed and lengthened into the days of July, our members increased, and the prophets of our demise became more reticent. Today, the club has a membership of about thirty, with facilities taxed.

The club is composed of women and men, and around its tables gather many of the brightest and most interesting people of the university. Prof. Starr, head of the department of anthropology, has been a member of the club from its inception. The club runs at the uniform rate of $2.50 a week, and by eliminating the uneconomical article of meat, our menus are able to compare favorably with clubs paying $3.50 and $4 a week. We use fruits, grains, vegetables, nuts, dairy products, and eggs—in fact, everything of the nutritious sort except the flesh and bones of other animals. Most people who are not vegetarians, who are ignorant of the ways and glories of vegetarianism, imagine that without meat there must be such a monotonous and inexpressible lack of variety.

In fact, the thought that comes to the mind of one who, for the first time, contemplates the vegetarian régime is that he will either starve to death in a short time or else stretch out a depleted existence on an insipid diet of bread and milk. I had just such apprehensions when my views first became vegetarian. I became a vegetarian for ethical reasons before I knew there were other vegetarians in the world, and I was enthusiastically dubious about its possibilities. I know now that my apprehensions were those of ignorance. The variety of fruits and vegetables is so bewildering, especially in a market like that of Chicago, and the possibilities of their preparation are so nearly numberless that the most exacting epicure may be satisfied.

We come to our breakfast table in the morning, and there comes before us a bowl of oatmeal and cream, or it may be barley flakes, or wheat groats, or one of the other dozens of farinaceous preparations. Instead of flesh, we may begin our breakfast with a morsel of fruit or a plate of strawberries, toast or fritters. After this may come eggs in some of the multiple ways in which they are baked, poached, scrambled, or fried, or it may be a baked apple, sauce, or grits and Welsh rarebit, with cocoa, coffee, and milk as beverages. Our dinners begin with soup, a plate of chopped cabbage with olives, and nuts, or potato salad. Then comes some fresh vegetable, as beets, squash, and milk. At dinner we have our soups and roasts, sweet or Irish potatoes, and beans cooked with nuts or cream, followed with a dessert of strawberry shortcake.

The menus of no two days are alike, and in the daily preparation of the meals, care is taken to furnish symmetrical amounts of the albuminoids, carbohydrates, and minerals. To one living on such a beautiful and interesting diet for a few weeks or months, the flesh consumer’s performances at the slaughterhouse become not unnatural but disgusting and horrible. The vegetarian régime thus rises and mounts to the summit to remain unaltered forever as well. A breakfast of oatmeal and milk, a couple of eggs, graham muffins, and butter, and a nice ripe banana is the most civilized, nutritious, and economical human breakfast in which nobody’s beef plays chief role.

The most brilliant burden-bearers of the world today are from races of necessary vegetarians. The red Indian, longshoremen, perhaps the most powerful bipeds of the planet, are life-long vegetarians. So also are largely the peasantry of Russia, Germany, and even of Norway and Sweden. Away from the season of superabundance lives the courageous Japanese, and the redoubtable Chinese coolies are all vegetarians. The nutritious qualities of vegetables and grains are everywhere underrated. The idea that meat is the only genuine source of strength and nutriment is so ridiculous that it actually deserves to be regarded with the uninitiated as the posthumous delusion of our primal ignorance. The milder form of nutrition—that even abolishes milk, butter, and eggs—finds its enthusiasts in every clime.

There are vegetables and grains richer in necessary constituents than steaks. Fish, for instance, contains 13 per cent of albuminoid; pork, an average of 15 per cent, and beef 17½ per cent; while nuts furnish from 15 to 25 per cent, grains 10 to 15 per cent, eggs 12 per cent, cheese 20 per cent, peas 22 per cent, lentils 25 per cent, and beans 23 per cent. To compare some unknown what could be substituted for lard for culinary purposes, we use cotton oil. It is much more pure and economical than hog fat.

For 50 cents a gallon and use for all purposes of cooking, even to the preparation of pastries. This beautiful fat oil is so much superior to the animal fats that its merits need to become known to everyone supplied. To any one contemplating the vegetarian life, I will say: You may expect some opposition and some slight inconvenience from the change. But persist. The inconvenience will be trifling in the comparison with the pleasure of a few weeks there will come to you a knowledge of elegance and superiority, of soul and body, that are forever unattainable to the old days of blood and grind. Your eye will be clarified and refined. Your brain will be more obedient. You will be heartier and lighter, can sleep better, and do more work with ease. This has been my experience, and the experience of dozens of others with whom I have associated during these long years of vegetarianism.

I cannot refrain from saying that I am a vegetarian not more for the benefit of my soul than my body, nor for the good of myself for the benefit of the world. It will be a great day when omnivorous creatures have crossed this wonderful bridge of propitious diet and naturally and painlessly from the kingdom of butchery.

J. Howard Moore. University of Chicago.