Encyclopedia of Diet: A Treatise on the Food Question, Vol. 1Christian, Eugene
Science
Encyclopedia of Diet: A Treatise on the Food Question, Vol. 1
Christian, Eugene
Diet; Diet in disease; Food
I will now consider vegetarianism from the standpoint of true food
science, or the welfare of the physical man. It will be observed that in
the lesson entitled "Evolution of Man," one of the first considerations
taken up is the scientific discussion of man's natural adaptation to the
use of flesh foods. By natural adaptation I mean Nature's evolutionary
plan of fitting the physiological organism to the food man is able to
procure. The organism of man will, to a certain extent, adapt itself to
a given diet within the brief period of one generation, just as, in the
long ages of evolution, the digestive organs of any species of animal
become adapted to such diet as may be procured. Thus it is of especial
importance for us to know the diet of primitive man at a time before his
intellectual resourcefulness made it possible for him to gather his bill
of fare from the four corners of the earth.
[Sidenote: Primitive diet of man]
The diet of our related anthropoid apes, of every primitive savage
tribe, and of our ancestors, indications of which have been found
in fossils and caves--all three throw light upon the subject. The
consensus of these various studies indicates that the original or
natural diet of man was one drawn chiefly from the vegetable kingdom,
but not entirely so. Fruits, nuts, green vegetables, edible foliage,
tubers or roots were all included in man's primitive diet. The foods
of animal origin were varied, and consisted of such articles as birds,
eggs, shell-fish, many insects, and other forms of lower animal life, of
which our modern habit of eating frogs' legs, eels, escargots (snails),
etc., is merely an inheritance.
[Sidenote: Why flesh-eating is unnecessary]
Since the digestive, the assimilative, and the excretory organs of man
have been constructed from, and adapted to, the use of vegetables, it
is obvious that the flesh of animals is unnecessary, especially in view
of the fact that there is nothing in flesh that cannot be secured from
the vegetable world in its best and purest form. Man's primitive diet
does not prove that he is by nature a vegetarian, as is the cow, and
therefore entirely unsuited to digest any material of animal origin. The
anatomy of man's teeth and of his digestive organs, however, indicates
that he is by nature a vegetarian, and that his digestive organs are
prepared to dissolve and to assimilate a diet that is somewhat more
bulky than that of carnivorous animals, but, on the other hand, less
bulky than the diet of animals which subsist wholly upon succulent
plants, as do the purely herbivorous species.
[Sidenote: Food problem of the Aryan races]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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