Vegetarianism Activists

"Individual action is great, but antibiotic resistance and climate change—they require more. Besides, convincing the world to eat less meat hasn't worked. For 50 years, environmentalists, global health experts and animal activists have been begging the public to eat less meat. And yet, per capita meat consumption is as high as it's been in recorded history."

"We don't want to disrupt the meat industry, we want to transform it. We need their economies of scale, their global supply chain, their marketing expertise and their massive consumer base."

"Bruce Friedrich...realized at a certain point that his activism wasn’t achieving his goal — getting fewer people to kill, eat and wear animals...These days, he is hoping capitalism might work where activism and persuasion fell short."

"We need to change the meat, because we aren’t going to change human nature."

"When about 16 Years of Age, I happen’d to meet with a Book, written by one Tryon, recommending a Vegetable Diet. I determined to go into it. My Brother being yet unmarried, did not keep House, but boarded himself & his Apprentices in another Family. My refusing to eat Flesh occasioned an Inconveniency, and I was frequently chid for my singularity. I made myself acquainted with Tryon’s Manner of preparing some of his Dishes, such as Boiling Potatoes or Rice, making Hasty Pudding, & a few others, and then propos’d to my Brother, that if he would give me Weekly half the Money he paid for my Board I would board myself. He instantly agreed to it, and I presently found that I could save half what he paid me. This was an additional Fund for buying Books: But I had another Advantage in it. My Brother and the rest going from the Printinghouse to their Meals, I remain’d there alone, and dispatching presently my light Repast, (which often was no more than a Biscuit or a Slice of Bread, a Handful of Raisins or a Tart from the Pastry Cook’s, & a Glass of Water) had the rest of the Time till their Return, for Study, in which I made the greater Progress from that greater Clearness of Head & quicker Apprehension which usually attend Temperance in Eating & Drinking."

"… far greater Advantages would come to pass amongst Christians, if they would cease from Contention, Oppression, and (what tends and disposes them thereunto,) the killing of Beasts, and eating their Flesh and Blood; and in a short time humane murthers, and devilish feuds and cruelties among each other, would abate, and perhaps scarce have a being amongst them."

"Refrain at all times such Foods as can­not be procured without violence and op­pression. For know, that all the inferior Crea­tures when hurt do cry and send forth their Complaints to their Maker or grand Foun­tain whence they proceeded. Be not insensible that every Creature doth bear the Image of the great Creator ac­cording to the Nature of each, and that he is the Vital Power in all things. Therefore let none take pleasure to of­fer violence to that Life, lest he awaken the fierce wrath, and bring danger to his own Soul."

"To remake meat is how we solve climate change. Remaking meat is how we prevent the next pandemic. Remaking meat is how we take antibiotics out of the food system."

"Behind the scenes of this surge [in demand for meat alternatives]—everywhere you turn, from advising new companies and funding scientific research to sparking our cultural obsession with meat alternatives—is Bruce Friedrich."

"Jesus' message is about love and compassion, but there is nothing loving or compassionate at factory farms and slaughterhouses, where billions of animals endure miserable lives and die violent deaths. Jesus mandates kindness and mercy for all God's creatures. He'd be appalled by the suffering that we inflict on animals today to indulge our acquired taste for their flesh. Catholics, and all Christians, have a choice. When we sit down to eat, we can add to the violence, misery and death in the world, or we can respect God's creatures with a vegetarian diet. I believe we're obligated to make choices that are as merciful as possible, and we can all do that at the dinner table with a vegetarian diet. There won't be any factory farms and slaughterhouses in heaven."

"lab grown [meat] is just a misnomer. Lab grown is what the media often times likes to call it. It’s somewhat sensationalist. But lab grown is just wrong. At scale, once this stuff is commercialized, it’s not going to be grown in a lab—it’s going to be grown in essentially a meat brewery. That’s what it’s going to look like. So every processed food starts in a food lab but we don’t say lab grown Cheerios, or lab grown whatever else. It isn’t anymore. It started in a food lab, now it’s in a factory. And the factories for clean meat are going to look like breweries, so we’re calling it clean meat and we’re talking about meat breweries."

"Now, I'm no shrinking violet. I played hockey until half of my teeth were knocked down my throat. And I'm extremely competitive on a tennis court — I'll dive for any ball on any surface. But that experience at the slaughterhouse overwhelmed me. When I walked out of there, I knew I would never again harm an animal! I knew all the physiological, economic, and ecological arguments supporting vegetarianism, but it was that firsthand experience of man's cruelty to animals that laid the real groundwork for my commitment to vegetarianism."

"We see that their most worthy Physicians and Philosophers were also of the same Opinion. Antonins Musa, who merited a public Statue in Rome ( i) for the perfect and happy Cure perform'd by him upon Augustus, made of Lettice (2) principally therein: and by his Advice it was that this great Prince came into that sparing and simple Pythagorean Diet, which Suetonius (3) minutely describes, confiding principally of Bread topp'd in cold Water, and of some Sorts of Apples of an agreeable and vinous Acidity. Horace also made great Use of the Pythagorean Diet, as he tells us in may Places of his judicious and most excellent Poems, therein following, as we suppose, the Advice of the fame Musa, who was his Physician."

"Pythagoras was certainly one of the greatest geniuses that ever Human Nature produc'd."

"We find the same Preference given to vegetable Food by all the other ancient Latin Writers, who had any Understanding of the Nature of Things, and by Galen, and Plutarch, who has shown more particularly, perhaps than any one, the Danger of animal Diet, in his Precepts of Health, and in his Discourses on eating Flesh."

"The following Discourse having been received in Italy with a great deal of Approbation... The Author was some years ago in England, is now Keeper of the Great Luke of Tufcany'j Museaum, a Fellow of our Royal Society, as well as of the College of Physicians in Florence, and will be found to speak of the English Nation in the highest Terms of Regard. [Preface]"

"I wished to show that Pythagoras, the first founder of the vegetable regimen, was at once a very great physicist and a very great physician; that there has been no one of a more cultured and discriminating humanity; that he was a man of wisdom and of experience; that his motive in commending and introducing the new mode of living was derived not from any extravagant superstition, but from the desire to improve the health and the manners of men."

"The vulgar opinion, then, which, on health reasons, condemns vegetable food and so much praises animal food, being so ill-founded, I have always thought it well to oppose myself to it, moved both by experience and by that refined knowledge of natural things which some study and conversation with great men have given me. And perceiving now that such my constancy has been honoured by some learned and wise physicians with their authoritative adhesion, I have thought it my duty publicly to diffuse the reasons of the Pythagorean diet, regarded as useful in medicine, and, at the same time, as full of innocence, of temperance, and of health. And it is none the less accompanied with a certain delicate pleasure, and also with a refined and splendid luxury, if care and skill be applied in selection and proper supply of the best vegetable food, to which the fertility and the natural character of our beautiful country seem to invite us."

"It being far more reasonable to believe, that wise Man, who was... of the Truth of the Phenomenon as we are, was likewise no less capable of understanding the true Reason thereof founded on the Elasticity or natural Contraction of the Fibres whereof the human Body is composed... A Belief that Health is the principal part or Basis of human Happiness, and that it depends on a Harmony, that is, a Correspondence of the several Motions with the Powers that produce them..."

"I have always named fresh Vegetables, because the dry'd ones have almost all the bad Qualities of Animal Food, particularly as their earthy and oleaginous particles are too strongly coherent together."

"How effectual then this Pythagorean Diet is, towards obtaining the End for which, as has been said, it was principally intended by its Author; that is, for preserving the present Health of the Body... may easily be understood by whoever will but consider the Nature and Faculties of our Bodies, as also of the Aliments which sustain them"

"I find in his original Writings consisted in drinking largely of Lemon and Orange Juice, or in some Cafes even of Verjuice with a great deal of Water: and in taking no other Food but the Crumb of Bread, boiled or sop'd in fair Water."

"It seems much more reasonable to suppose, that the symbolical Prohibition of Beans was something entirely different, of an important and secret Signification; and that the real Abstinences intended, were indeed first prescribed by others before him, and for other Ends"

"And as we find, on the other hand, that Pythagoras made no Difficulty of eating them, and that he extended his Prohibition concerning Food even to other kinds... also to old Cocks, plowing Oxen, and many other Substances"

"Abstinency from Beans, it is now plain, from the general Sense of all the antient Writers, that this Prohibition of his was allegorical, and that it would be now a vain Undertaking to attempt finding out the literal Sense of it, since those who knew it were so industrious to keep it secret."

"One of these Abstinences, rigorously and universally observed in Egypt, was that from Beans"

"His two only Meals in a Day, equivalent to our Collations, were for the most Part of Bread only..."

"He forbid, in Flesh itself, that of carnivorous Animals above all other Kinds; and, for the same Reason, that of Wild Boars, and what was taken in Hunting"

"Milk and Honey made up part of this Diet: Eggs, on the contrary, were excluded, Their Drink was to be the purest Water; neither Wine nor any vinous Liquor."

"I mean the Pythagorean Diet, which consisted (i ) in the free and universal Ufe of every Thing that is vegetable, tender and fresh, which requires little or no Preparation to make it fit to eat, such as Roots, Leaves, Flowers, Fruits and Seeds: And in a general Abstinence from every Thing that is animal, whether it be fresh or dried. Bird, Beast, or Fish."

"Pythagoras.. was both a very great Philosopher and an able Physician.. whole Motive for the so much commending and introducing his Way of Life, was not any Superstition or Extravagance; but a Desire to be assisting to the Health and good Behaviour of Mankind..."

"I have thought it my Duty thus publicly to set forth the Reasons for the Pythagorean Diet, considered as fit to be used in Medicine, and at the same time perfectly innocent, well adapted to Temperance, and greatly beneficial and conducive to Health."

"Nor has our Age been destitute of Examples of Men, brave from the Vigour both of their Bodies and Minds, who at the same time have been Drinkers of Water, and Eaters of Fruits and Herbs. In certain Mountains of Europe, there are People, even at this Time, who live on Herbs only and Milk; yet are very invincible and stout; and the Japanese (who are very resolute in dispelling Dangers, and even Death itself) abstain from all animal Food; and there are besides a thousand Examples known to every one, of Nations and Persons of great Temperance, joined with all other consummate Virtues."

"True and constant vigour of body is the effect of health, which is much better preserved with watery, herbaceous, frugal, and tender food, than with vinous, abundant, hard, and gross flesh. And in a sound body, a clear intelligence, and desire to suppress the mischievous inclinations, and to conquer the irrational passions, produces true worth."