SENSIBLE VEGETARIANISM.
ONE good thing has come to us through the pressure of " hard times." The Doctors, especially the fashionable doctors, are not only interesting themselves, but trying to interest every- body else, in food economy. Sir Henry Thompson has descanted at some length in the Nineteenth Century on popular ignorance in regard to wholesome diet, and now Mr. Ernest Hart, in the British Medical Journal, takes up the parable, and lectures us all on our extravagance in eating. At first one is apt to say that there is something grotesque in this remonstrance against Gargantuan i profligacy, seeing that it is delivered in lean and hungry days, when people are beginning to feel rather proud than other- wise of being impecunious, and when poverty runs some risk of becoming not merely respectable, but modishly "proper." Who are the people that are scandalising the doctors by living too luxuriously P Curiously enough, not the rich merely, but the poor also. Their offence, we are told, is doubly rank, for not only do they eat flesh in stupendous quantity, but they waste nearly as much nutriment as they consume, by ruinous methods of cooking: Flesh, say the physicians, is not necessary for nutrition. It is assuredly most expensive, and it is probably, as an article of diet, far from wholesome. And thus, by easy stages, do the savants lead us into what is, to all
intents and purposes, sheer vegetarianism,—the revival of
which in these days, and amongst the .educated classes, is one of the most unaccountable phenomena of modern
life. Not so very long ago, Vegetarians were regarded as a kind of gentle monomaniacs, whose one objectionable characteristic was the illogical advocacy of an inoffensive crotchet. Now, under the mask of enlightened dietetics, their tenets are preached far and wide by the high-priests of science, and the cultured classes, without knowing it, arc gradually
being imbued with the doctrines of the vegetable-feeders. How long time fashion will last, or how far the process of conversion will go, cannot as yet very well be estimated. It may be said that amongst poor people this nee-vegetarianism may take firm and permanent root, because, whatever we may say against it, there is this in its favour,—that it teaches people how to sustain physical life cheaply. 'With the rich, however, the question is not one of money, but of taste, and as flesh foods, deftly pre- pared, minister to our pleasures, the eating of them will never be given over merely beause West-End doctors have a passing " fad " in favour of vegetable feeding.
To the poor, however, it must be very comforting to know that the ascetic menu, to which hard necessity has habituated them, is not only scientifically correct, but sanctioned by the casual patronage of the cultured classes and the warm approval of physicians of high rank. The . knowledge of this fact may, perhaps, not do much to moisten a dry crust or season a cupful of watery pea-soup, but it may possibly do a little to disabuse their minds of that hallu- cination, so common in England, that a man is starving when he is not fed on beef. The great bulk of the world's manual work is done by men who rarely taste flesh food,—men who, like the aristocrats in " Lothair," live "in the open air and never read," and whose burly, big-boned, sinewy frames prove that flesh food is not necessary for the attainment of high physical development. The finest breed of men in Europe probably were--we might almost say are—the. " men of the Morse," the most northernly half of the ancient kingdom of Mercia. Yet, as most Scotsmen know, all over this region, from childhood to the close of life, the common people hardly ever tasted flesh food save on rare occasions, when they held high festival. Milk, cheese, butter, and oatmeal formed the greater part of their daily diet; and even in these days, when what some people call " luxury " has de- moralised this hardy and stalwart race, the little flesh-meat used by them is by thrifty cooking made to do what, to the average Englishman, would seem double, or even treble, duty. Obs'erva- Con of the facts of life, apart altogether from chemical analysis, is enough to prove that the doctors are in the right, when they tell us that we need not go beyond the vegetable kingdom for the essen- tial elements of wholesome food. Force-giving materials exist abundantly in the grains. The flesh-forming ingredients in the "pulses " are as effective, or even more effective, in subsorving the constructive processes as are those in a beefsteak or a mutton- chop. As the late Dr. Parkes once said, " A labouring man, by ringing the changes on oatmeal, maize, peas, and beans, rice and macaroni (which is made from corn), to which may be added cheese and bacon occasionally, may bring up his children as well nourished as those of the richest people, and at a small cost,"—a cheering message to the families of struggling profes- sional men and the poorer clergy, amongst whom, in the fight to " keep up appearances," the claims of the stomach are apt to be ignored. But after we have to the full admitted the truth and the force of all this teaching, the question, in so far as practical conduct is concerned, is left pretty nearly where it was. People who are not poor will not become vegetable-feeders merely out of deference to scientific doctrines, and that savants appear to be utterly impervious to this truth is perhaps due to the fact that all through this discussion they ignore two important circumstances,—namely, individual taste and daily occupation.
Men and women of all classes eat not solely for the purpose of building up their bodies, but also for the purpose of enjoy- ment. Food must therefore be not only nutritive, but palatable ; and as a rule, the messes of the Vegetarians aro not palatable. It may be that we can get as much food out of a lump of pease- pudding as out of a beefsteak. But so long as the former tastes like damp sawdust, people will prefer, if they can afford it, to dine off the latter. We are aware that the Scots profess to have discovered the art of cooking vegetable foods so as to make them palatable. But if the matter be gone into, it will be found that
their skill comes to no more than this :—Doubtless, from their ancient Gallic alliance, they inherit certain traditions of soup- making,—traditions that are as much venerated in the cot- tages of the poor as in the castles of the rich. But whilst the broths and soups of the Scots are plentifully filled with vegetables, it will be noted that in some shape or form animal juices enter into their composition also,— scraps and scrags of beef or mutton, bones cooked or uncooked, odds and ends of bacon, all the nameless items of the mysteri- ous compound called "stock," are, to use the northern phrase, " put intil't." Thus, evou amongst a nation of so-called vege- table-feeders, do we see that for enriching and rendering savoury their vegetable preparations, animal food—of the cheapest sort, we allow, but still animal food, for all that—is most skilfully employed. We do not say that the end of life is physical enjoy- ment; but still, there is no harm in trying to get as much innocent pleasure out of existence as can without moral injury be extracted from it. In that case, it is impossible to approve the teaching that would-.--merely because some fashionable doctors have " taken up " Vegetarianism—urge the consumption of tasteless din- ners, when tasteful and succulent ones can be had. If the poor in Scotland do manage to live better than the same class in England, and yet spend less money on their food, what is the reason P Simply that they pay great deference to this question of taste, which is being lost sight of in recent con- troversies bearing on economising food. The monotonous round of " roasts " and " grills " which delight the English- man are eschewed in the North, where savoury vegetable soups and succulent vegetable stews, fortified by the addition of a moderate allowance of flesh-stuffs, form the favourite dinners of the thriving workman's family. This, of course, leads us to.say that as it is not necessary to be extravagant to be tasteful, such portions of the doctrines of neo-vegetarianism as condemn wasteful methods of cooking are, of course, worthy of all possible respect, and are about the only ones that are likely to be of much practical value. No man is ever so rich that he or his household can be justified in wasting things, and there is good ground for hoping that if economy in preparing food be- came the rule amongst the wealthier classes, others, to whom thrift is of more consequence, would soon follow the lead thus set them.
Lastly, the question as to whether we ought or not to become vegetable-feeders is materially affected by the influence of daily occupation on the individual. Looking around at the unin- formed and instinctive practice of mankind, we notice as a remarkable fact that the vegetable-feeders are usually people who live in the open air, and have stomachs of the " cast-iron type." The indoor workers, the men and women of sedentary occupations, are almost invariably " shrewd eaters of beef." Whatever may be said of the highly nutritive value of vegetable food, it must be taken in large quantities. This means that it can only be taken by people with strong stomachs and vigorous digestions. Animal food, on the other hand, is stimulating, and a smaller bulk of it suffices to sustain the strength. • It is therefore fitter for sluggish digestions than messes of lentils, dried peas, and beans, and iu our climate at least it will always be the favourite food of the head, as distinguished from the hand, worker. At the same time, a glance at his dentition shows that man is meant to be an omnivorous animal, and it is, therefore, un- wise to restrict oneself to one kind of diet only. What Dr.
Parkes called " ringing the changes " on different kinds of food, animal and vegetable, varying these with fish diet every now and then—fish being, according to the late Louis Agassiz, " the food of philosophers,"—will be found in practice the most effective way of inducing the digestion' of the sedentary worker to do its work. Next to scarcity of food, what a man with a weak stomach and a worn brain has most to dread is monotony of diet. In attempting, then, to limit the upper classes and the busy toilers in the intellectual professions to one of the three kingdoms of Nature for their food, the fashion-
able physician is doing • that against which Nature itself will rebel. He might as well whistle to the wind or talk to the tide,
as preach vegetarianism to hard-working, sedentary men and women who, with a capacity to enjoy a "good dinner," have the means of procuring one.
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