I am asked many questions as to my attitude toward the question of
meat-eating. I was brought up on a diet of meat, bread and butter,
potatoes, and sweet things. Four years ago when I found myself
desperately run down, suffering from nervousness, insomnia, and
almost incessant headaches, I came upon various articles written by
vegetarians, and I began to suspect that my trouble might be due to
meat. I went away on a camping-trip for several weeks, taking no meat
with me, and because I found that I was a great deal better, I believed
that the meat had been responsible for my trouble. I then visited the
Battle Creek Sanitarium, and became familiar with all their arguments
against meat, and thereafter I did not use it for three years. I called
myself a vegetarian; but at the same time I realized that I differed
from most vegetarians in some important particulars.
For instance, I had never taken any stock in the arguments for
vegetarianism upon the moral side. It has always seemed to me that
human beings have a right to eat meat, if meat is necessary for their
best development, either physical or mental. I have never had any
sympathy with that "humanitarianism" which tells us that it is our duty
to regard pigs and chickens as our brothers. I was listening the other
day to one of these enthusiasts, who had been reading aloud one of the
"Uncle Remus" stories, and who went on in touching language to set
forth the fact that his vegetable garden constituted one place where
"Bre'r Rabbit" was free to wander at will and to help himself; and he
described how happy it made him to see these gentle animals hopping
about among his cabbages, having lost all their fear of him. That sort
of thing will work very well so long as it is confined to one farm,
and so long as there is a hunting season upon all the other farms in
the locality; but let the humanitarians proceed to apply their regimen
in a whole state, and they will soon have so many billions of rabbits
hopping about among their cabbages that they will have to choose
between shooting rabbits or having no cabbages.
The reader, I presume, is familiar with calculations which show
the rate at which rabbits multiply, how many tens and hundreds of
millions would be produced by a single pair of rabbits in ten years.
It should be quite obvious that the time would come when all human
beings would be spending their energies in planting gardens to support
rabbits; and that if ever they stopped planting gardens, there would
be a famine for the rabbits, with infinitely more suffering than is
involved in the present method of keeping them down. Also, even though
the humanitarians might have their way with men, the hawks and the
owls and the foxes would probably remain unregenerate. I remember,
when I was a small boy, being sternly rebuked by an agitated maiden
lady who discovered me throwing stones at a squirrel. Not so many
days afterwards, however, the lady discovered the squirrel engaged in
carrying off young birds from a nest outside her window, and she found
her theories about "kindness to dumb animals" rudely disturbed.
The same thing, it seems to me, is still more true of domestic animals.
Domestic animals survive on earth solely because of the protection
of man, and for the sake of the benefits they bring to him. If it is
necessary to human health and well-being to slaughter a cow rather than
to wait and let her die of old age and lingering disease, it seems to
me that nothing but mawkish sentimentality would protest.
It is pointed out to us what places of cruelty and filth our
slaughter-houses are; the reader may believe that I learned something
about this in my preparations for the writing of "The Jungle." But
then this is not necessarily true about slaughter-houses--any more
than it is necessarily true that railroads must kill and maim a couple
of hundred thousand people in this country every year. In Europe they
have municipal slaughter-houses which are constructed upon scientific
lines, and in which no filth is permitted to accumulate; also they
have devised means for the killing of animals which are painless. In
the stockyards I have seen a man standing upon a gallery, leaning over
and pounding at the head of a steer with a hammer, and making half a
dozen blows before he succeeded in knocking down the terrified animal.
In Europe, on the other hand, they fit over the head of the animal a
leathern cap, which has in it a steel spike; a single tap upon the
head of this spike is sufficient to drive it into the animal's brain,
causing instant insensibility.
And it must be borne in mind also that the sufferings of dumb animals
are entirely different from our own. They do not suffer the pains of
anticipation. A cow walks into a slaughter-house without fear, and
stands still and permits a leathern cap to be fitted over its head
without suspicion; and while it is placidly grazing in the field, it
is untroubled by any consciousness of the fact that next week it will
be hanging in a butcher's shop as beef. I recall in this connection
an observation of that wise philosopher, Mr. Dooley, concerning the
inhumanities of vegetarianism. He said that it had always seemed to
him a very cruel thing "to cut off a young tomato in its prime, or to
murder a whole cradle full of baby peas in the pod."
These things will convince the devotee of the religion of vegetarianism
that I am a lost soul, and always have been. Perhaps so. I try to
guide my conduct by scientific knowledge; what I ask to know about the
question of meat-eating is the actual facts of its effect upon the
human organism--the amount of energy which it develops, the diseases
which it causes, or, on the contrary, the immunity to disease which it
claims to confer; also, of course, its cheapness and convenience as
an article of diet. Some evidence of this sort we possess; but very
little, it seems to me, in proportion to the importance of the subject.
Professor Fisher has conducted some thorough experiments as to the
influence of meat-eating upon endurance, which seem to develop the
fact that vegetarians possess a far greater amount of endurance than
meat-eaters. These experiments are what we want, but they seemed to me,
when I read them, to be weak in one or two important particulars. They
did not tell us what the vegetarians ate, nor what the meat-eaters ate.
Those who are vegetarians at the present day are very apt to be people
who have given some thought to the question of diet, and have attempted
to adopt sounder ways of life; while, on the other hand, meat-eaters
are generally people who have given no thought to the question of
health at all--they are very apt to be smokers and drinkers as well as
meat-eaters. Also it is to be pointed out that endurance is not the
only factor of importance to our physical well-being.
There have been numerous expositions of the greater liability of meat
to contamination. Dr. Kellogg, for instance, has purchased specimens
of meat in the butcher-shops, and has had them examined under the
microscope, and has told us how many hundreds of millions of bacteria
to the gram have been discovered. This argument has a tendency to appal
one; I know it had great effect upon me for a long time, and I took
elaborate pains to take into my system only those kinds of food which
were sterilized, or practically so. This is the health regimen which
is advocated by Professor Metchnikoff; one should eat only foods which
have been thoroughly boiled and sterilized. I have come, in the course
of time, to the conclusion that this way of living is suicidal, and
that there is no way of destroying one's health more quickly. I think
that the important question is, not how many bacteria there are in the
food when you swallow it, but how many bacteria there come to be in
food after it gets into your alimentary canal. The digestive juices
are apparently able to take care of a very great number of germs;
it is after the food has passed on down, and is lodged in the large
intestine, that the real fermentation and putrefaction begin--and these
count for more, in the question of health, than that which goes on in
the butcher-shop or the refrigerator or the pantry.
Do not misunderstand what I mean by this. I am not advocating that
anyone should swallow the bacteria of deadly diseases, such as typhoid
and cholera; I am not advocating that anyone should use food which
is in a state of decomposition--on the contrary, I have ruled out of
my dietary a number of foods in common use which depend for their
production upon bacterial action; for instance, beer and wine, and
all alcoholic drinks, all kinds of cheeses, sauerkraut, vinegar, etc.
My point is simply that the ordinary healthy person has no reason for
terrifying himself about the common aërobic bacteria--which swarm
in the atmosphere, and are found by hundreds of millions in all raw
food, and in cooked food which has not been kept with the elaborate
precautions that a surgeon uses with his instruments and linen; also
that the real problem is to take into the system those foods which can
be readily digested and assimilated, and which afford the body all the
elements that it needs to keep itself in the best condition for the
inevitable, incessant warfare with the hostile organisms which surround
it.
So far as meat is concerned, of course no sensible person would use
meat which showed the slightest trace of being spoiled, nor any meat
which had been canned, or ground up and made into messes, such as
sausage. If one uses reasonably fresh meat, the bacteria which may
be on the outside of it will be killed by proper cooking. And so the
question is, it seems to me, what does meat do after it gets into the
stomach? And that is a matter for practical experiment, which very few
people have made, so far as I have any information. Innumerable people
are eating meat, of course; but they are eating it in combination with
all other kinds of destructive foods, and they are eating it prepared
in innumerable unwholesome ways. So far as I know, no scientist has
ever taken a group of normal men and kept them for a certain period
upon a rational vegetarian diet, and then put them for another period
upon a diet containing broiled fresh meat, and made a thoroughly
scientific study of their condition, as, for instance, Professor
Chittenden did for his "low proteid" experiments.
For about a year previous to reading about Dr. Salisbury's "meat diet,"
I had been following the raw-food regimen. I had gained wonderful
results from this, and I had written a good deal about it; but I had
got these results while leading an active life, and not doing hard
brain-work. I found continually that when I settled down to a sedentary
life, and to writing which involved a great nervous strain, I began to
lose weight on raw food; and if I kept on with this regimen, I would
begin to have headaches, and other signs of distress from what I was
eating. As an illustration of what I mean, I might say that quite
recently I plunged into a novel in which I was very much absorbed, and
I lost twelve pounds in sixteen days; and this, it must be understood,
without changing my diet in the slightest particular. I went on with
the work for about six weeks, and by that time I had lost twenty
pounds. In explaining this to myself, I was divided between uncertainty
as to whether I was working too hard, or whether I was eating too much.
Finally I took the precaution to weigh what I was eating, and to make
quite certain that I was eating no more than I had been accustomed
to eat during periods when I had remained at my normal weight. I then
cut the quantity of my food in half, and found that I lost much less
rapidly. This served to convince me that the trouble lay in the fact
that I had not sufficient nervous energy left to assimilate the food
that I was taking.
And I have known others to have this same experience. Bernarr
Macfadden, in particular, told me that he could not get along upon
the nut and fruit diet while closely confined in his office, and that
he found the solution of his problem in milk. Inasmuch as there is
nothing that poisons me quite so quickly as milk, I had to look farther
for my solution. As a matter of fact, I had been looking for this
solution for more than ten years, though it is only quite recently that
I had come to understand the problem clearly. It is a problem which
every brain-worker faces; and I am sure, therefore, that there will
be many who will find the report of my experiments and blunders to
be of interest to them. I have tried, under these circumstances, all
kinds of the more digestible foods--toast, rice, baked potatoes, baked
apples, milk, poached eggs, and so on; always I have found that these
foods digested perfectly, but they poisoned my system because of their
constipating effect; and this was a dilemma which I was never able to
get around.
I now read Dr. Salisbury's book, "The Relation of Alimentation to
Disease." Many of his experiments I found extremely interesting. Dr.
Salisbury described the consequences of the ordinary starch and sugar
diet as making a "yeast-pot" of one's intestinal tract. I found in my
own case many of the symptoms which he described, and I determined to
see what would be the effect of the meat diet in my case.
I began the experiment with reluctance. I had lost all interest in the
taste of meat, and I had a prejudice against it; I hated the smell of
it, and I hated the feeling of it, and I was prepared for the direst
consequences, according to the prophecies of my vegetarian friends. I
should not have been at all surprised if I had been made very ill by
my first meal. I was prepared to allow for that, supposing that after
three years I had perhaps forgotten how to digest meat. To my surprise,
however, I found no difficulty at all. I soon gave up preparing the
meat according to the elaborate prescription of Dr. Salisbury, and
contented myself simply with eating good lean beef-steak. I continued
the experiment for two weeks, living upon meat exclusively. I found
that all my symptoms of stomach trouble disappeared, and I had no
headaches whatever. I got quite weak upon the exclusive diet, but this
was according to Dr. Salisbury's statement; just as soon as I added a
little shredded wheat biscuit and dried fruit to the menu this trouble
disappeared, and I gained in weight with great rapidity, and was soon
back where I had been before.
I did not continue the diet, owing partly to distaste for it, and
partly to the inconvenience of it. I had accustomed myself to the
raw food way of living, and any one who knows what this means can
understand my distaste for washing plates and scraping frying-pans, and
going to the bother of getting fresh meat and keeping it and cooking
it. Also, of course, there was the item of expense. Upon the raw-food
diet I had been able to live for ten cents a day. I am never accustomed
to spending more than thirty or forty cents a day, even when indulging
in abundant fresh fruit.
Perhaps I ought also to specify that a good deal of the success of the
diet may have been owing to the hot-water regimen which is a part of
it. An hour or two before every meal one is supposed to sip at least
a pint of very hot water, which has the effect of cleansing out the
stomach, and stimulates peristaltic action to a remarkable degree. I
had been accustomed to drink hot water while fasting, but I had never
taken it systematically, as I did at this time. It is a trick well
worth knowing about.
I ought also to mention the fact that I suggested to several others
that they try this meat diet. One of them, a friend who had been
eating raw food at my suggestion, with the very best results, began
the experiment and continued for three days, and the results were
most disappointing. This friend, a woman in middle years, became very
ill, with all the symptoms of stomach trouble, diarrhoea, and general
poisoning. She wrote me that she gave up the diet at the end of three
days, because she saw no use in making herself desperately ill. She
added: "I followed the regimen in every smallest detail, precisely
according to Dr. Salisbury's direction. You know me, and you know that
when I do a thing I do it thoroughly, so there is no need to say any
more about that." Which only goes to show that, as the proverb has it,
"One man's meat is another man's poison."
Dr. Salisbury recommends the meat diet especially in cases of
tuberculosis. He finds that the predisposing cause of this disease
is "vegetable fermentation." He declares that the excessive starch
and sugar diet leads to the production of yeast spores and other
ferments in the intestinal tract, and that these are absorbed into
the circulation and ultimately clog the small capillaries in the
lungs. Dr. Salisbury's theory was set forth over thirty years ago, and
that was before Koch had made his discovery of the tubercle bacillus.
This discovery would seem to put Dr. Salisbury's theory out of court
altogether; but as we physical culturists are inclined to suspect,
there are causes of disease lying behind the attack of the specific
bacillus. These causes are a depleted blood supply and a weakened
system; and it seems to me, from what I have observed of consumptives
and their diet, that Dr. Salisbury's theories fit in very well indeed
with the Koch theory.
I wrote recently to Professor Chittenden to ask him what, in his
opinion, would be the effects of the meat diet upon tuberculosis.
He replied that he knew no reason for believing that it would be of
special benefit but that the whole subject of diet in tuberculosis
seemed to him to be one concerning which there was urgent need of
experiment and investigation. This is unquestionably the case. I know
no two physicians who seem to agree in the diets they prescribe to
consumptives, and I have never met two consumptives who followed the
same regimen. The general idea seems to be to stuff as much food in
your system as you possibly can, especially milk and raw eggs; and it
seems to me quite certain that, whatever system may be correct, this
system is incorrect.
This much seems to me to be clear: tuberculosis is a disease brought
about by under-nourishment. It is a disease to which the poor are
especially liable; and while this is undoubtedly in part due to bad
air, it is also due to bad feeding. And when ignorant people wish to
live cheaply, the foods they eat are the sugar and starch foods. I
remember in Thoreau's "Walden" he sets forth how he lived for many
months upon five or six dollars' worth of food. He does not give the
amount of the food by weight, so of course we cannot tell exactly; but
he gives the prices he paid, and the leading articles in his diet were
flour, rice, corn-meal, molasses, sugar and lard. One is, therefore,
perfectly prepared to learn that Thoreau died of consumption. And
the same thing, I believe, will happen to a good many enthusiastic
vegetarians of my acquaintance. They have given up meat, and they have
made up for it by increasing their consumption of bread and crackers,
rice and potatoes, and prepared and predigested cereals, which they eat
with cream and sugar. Even when they use high proteid food, it is in
some form such as beans, which contain a great deal of starch, and in
a form which is difficult of digestion. As a result of this, they are
thin and anæmic looking--they do not seem to be able to put on flesh by
means of intellectual fervor and an optimistic philosophy. The result
of my meat-diet experiment has been to convince me yet more firmly
that the cooked-vegetable diet is the worst diet in the world for
myself. (I am content to phrase it that way, and leave it for others
to find out about their own case.) There has been some agitation in
vegetarian circles since the report has gone around that I have become
a backslider, and have gone back to the flesh-pots. I state the facts
here for what they may be worth to others. I shall never call myself a
"vegetarian" again--though I shall be a vegetarian the greater part of
the time.
For it should be noted, of course, that the objections which I have
brought against the cooked vegetarian diet do not apply at all to the
raw-food diet, which is entirely a different matter. If one lives upon
nuts, whole grains boiled or shredded, salad vegetables and fruits,
he does not get an excess of either starch or sugar, but a perfectly
balanced dietary, every article of which is rich in natural salts--in
which the starchy foods, and especially the prepared cereals, are
fatally deficient. Such a diet can be followed by any person in normal
health, who is leading a physically active life. I have known a number
of people, old and young, to start out upon this way of life without
any preliminaries, and they have noted a great gain in health and
efficiency, and have had no trouble of any sort. This diet is as cheap
as the bean and white flour and rice diet of the ordinary "vegetarian,"
and it is, by all odds, the simplest and most convenient diet in the
world.
I have been accustomed all my life to think of meat as a very "heavy"
article of food, an article of food suited for men doing hard physical
labor; it is a curious fact that the view I am setting forth here is
precisely the opposite. So long as I am doing hard physical labor,
whether it is walking ten miles a day, or playing tennis, or building a
house, I get along perfectly upon the raw food; but when I settle down
for long periods of thinking and writing--often sitting for six hours
without moving from one position--I find that I need something else,
and nothing has answered that purpose quite so well as beef-steak. It
appears to be, so far as I am concerned, the most easily digested and
most easily assimilated of foods. And because the work that I am doing
seems to me to be important, I am willing to make the sacrifice of
money and time and trouble which it necessitates. My diet at such times
will consist of beef or chicken, shredded wheat biscuit, and a little
fruit. If any one is disposed to follow my example and make this
experiment, I beg to call his attention especially to the fact that I
name these three kinds of food, and none others; and that I mean these
three kinds and none others. The main trouble with advising anybody to
eat meat is that he proceeds to eat it in the everyday world, where
it means not the eating of broiled lean beef, but also of bacon and
eggs, and of bread and butter, and of potatoes with cream gravy, and of
rice pudding and crackers and cheese and coffee. Please do not proceed
to eat these things and then hold meat-eating responsible for the
consequences.
I do not for a moment wish to give the impression that I believe that
meat-eating is necessary to a normally active person, or that humanity
will always continue to eat meat. No invention of science can ever make
meat as cheap a food as nuts and fruit, and nothing can ever make it
as beautiful or attractive a food, nor as clean a food, nor as easily
prepared a food. I believe that children can be brought up without
knowing the taste of meat, and can be trained to lead normal and active
lives from the very beginning, and can live on the raw-food diet and
thrive. What I am discussing here are my own experiences, and I do not
regard myself as a normal specimen of humanity, because I work a great
deal harder than anybody has a right to work. I do that because there
are so many idle and useless people in the world at present--and some
have to make martyrs of themselves, until conditions of injustice and
cruelty have been done away with.