Brief summary and highlights.
Before the Industrial Revolution. Meat is eaten little almost everywhere (compared to today’s standards). 1900-1960 Meat consumption has risen strongly in the West as transport and refrigeration have become easier 1971 — The publication of Diet for a Small Planet by Francis Moore Lappe launches the vegetarian movement in the US, but unfortunately it presents the myth that vegetarians need to “combine” protein to get “complete” protein. 1975 — The publication of Animal Liberation by Australian ethics professor Peter Singer gives impetus to the birth of the animal rights movement in the United States and the founding of the PETA group, ardent supporters of vegetarian nutrition. End of 1970’s — Vegetarian Times magazine begins publication. 1983 — The first book on veganism is published by a certified Western physician, Dr. John McDougall, The McDougall Plan. 1987 John Robbins’ Diet for a New America inspired the vegan movement in the US. The vegan movement is back. 1990-e Medical evidence of the benefits of a vegetarian diet is becoming ubiquitous. Vegetarianism is officially endorsed by the American Dietetic Association, and books by famous doctors recommend a low-fat vegan or near-vegan diet (eg, The McDougall Program and Dr. Dean Ornish’s Heart Disease Program). The US government is finally replacing the obsolete and meat and dairy-sponsored Four Food Groups with a new Food Pyramid that shows that human nutrition should be based on grains, vegetables, beans and fruits.
Before the appearance of written sources.
Vegetarianism is rooted in times far before the appearance of written sources. Many anthropologists believe that ancient people mainly ate plant foods, were more gatherers than hunters. (See articles by David Popovich and Derek Wall.) This view is supported by the fact that the human digestive system is more like that of a herbivore than a carnivore. (Forget fangs—other herbivores have them too, but carnivores don’t have chewing teeth, unlike humans and other herbivores.) Another fact that early humans were vegetarians is that people who eat meat are much more likely to suffer from heart disease and cancer than vegetarians.
Of course, people began to eat meat long before the appearance of written references, but only because, unlike animals, they are capable of such experiments. However, this short period of meat-eating is not enough to be of evolutionary significance: for example, animal products increase the level of cholesterol in the human body, while if you feed a stick of butter to a dog, the level of cholesterol in his body will not change.
early vegetarians.
The Greek mathematician Pythagoras was a vegetarian, and vegetarians were often called Pythagoreans before the invention of the term. (The term “vegetarian” was coined by the British Vegetarian Society in the mid-1800s. The word’s Latin root means source of life.) Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, and George Bernard Shaw were also vegetarians. (Modern legend says that Hitler was a vegetarian, but this is not true, at least not in the traditional sense of the word.)
Increasing meat consumption in the 1900s.
Before the mid-1900s, Americans ate much less meat than they do now. Meat was very expensive, refrigerators were not common and meat distribution was a problem. A side effect of the Industrial Revolution was that meat became cheaper, easier to store and distribute. When that happened, meat consumption skyrocketed—as did degenerative diseases like cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. As Dean Ornish writes:
“Prior to this century, the typical American diet was low in animal products, fat, cholesterol, salt, and sugar, but rich in carbohydrates, vegetables, and fiber…Earlier in this century, with the advent of refrigerators, a good transportation system, agricultural mechanization, and a flourishing economy, the American diet and lifestyle began to change radically. Right now, the diet of most people in the United States is rich in animal products, fat, cholesterol, salt, and sugar, and poor in carbohydrates, vegetables, and fiber.” (“Eat more and lose weight”; 1993; reissue 2001; p. 22)
The origins of vegetarianism in the United States.
Vegetarianism was not particularly common in the US until 1971, when Frances Moore Lappé’s bestseller Diet for a Small Planet came out.
A Fort Worth native, Lappe dropped out of UC Berkeley graduate school to start her own research on world hunger. Lappe was amazed to learn that the animal consumes 14 times more grain than it produces meat – a huge waste of resources. (Cattle eat over 80% of all grain in the US. If Americans cut their meat consumption by 10%, there would be enough grain to feed all the hungry in the world.) At the age of 26, Lappe wrote Diet for a Small Planet to inspire people do not eat meat, thereby stopping food waste.
Even though the 60s were associated with hippies and hippies with vegetarianism, in fact, vegetarianism was not very common in the 60s. The starting point was Diet for a Small Planet in 1971.
The idea of combining protein.
But America perceived vegetarianism in a very different way than it does today. Today, there are many doctors who advocate reducing or eliminating meat consumption, as well as the results of successful athletes and celebrities who confirm the benefits of vegetarianism. In 1971 things were different. The popular belief was that vegetarianism was not only unhealthy, that it was impossible to survive on a vegetarian diet. Lappe knew her book would get mixed reviews, so she did a nutritional study on a vegetarian diet, and in doing so made a major mistake that changed the course of the history of vegetarianism. Lappe found studies done early in the century on rats that showed that rats grew faster when they were fed a combination of plant foods that resembled animal foods in amino acids. Lappe had a marvelous tool for convincing people that they could make plant foods “as good” as meat.
Lappe devoted half of her book to the idea of “combining protein” or “completing protein”—like how to serve beans with rice to get a “complete” protein. The idea of pairing was contagious, appearing in every book published by every vegetarian author since, and infiltrating academia, encyclopedias, and the American mindset. Unfortunately, this idea was wrong.
The first problem: the theory of protein combination was only a theory. Human studies have never been done. It was more of a prejudice than science. No wonder rats grew differently than humans, since rats need ten times more protein per calorie than humans (rat’s milk contains 50% protein, while human milk has only 5%.) Then, if plant protein is so deficient, then how do cows, pigs and chickens, which eat only grains and plant foods, get protein? Isn’t it weird that we eat animals for protein and they only eat plants? Finally, plant foods are not as “deficient” in amino acids as Lappe thought.
As Dr. McDougall wrote, “Fortunately, scientific research has debunked this perplexing myth. Nature created our food with a complete set of nutrients long before they hit the dinner table. All essential and non-essential amino acids are present in unrefined carbohydrates such as rice, corn, wheat and potatoes, in quantities that are significantly higher than the human need, even if we talk about athletes or weightlifters. Common sense says that this is true, since the human race has survived on this planet. Throughout history, breadwinners have been on the lookout for rice and potatoes for their families. Mixing rice with beans was not their concern. It is important for us to satisfy our hunger; we don’t need to be told to mix protein sources to achieve a more complete amino acid profile. This is not necessary, because it is impossible to create a more ideal set of proteins and amino acids than in natural carbohydrates. ”(The McDougall Program; 1990; Dr. John A. McDougall; p. 45. – More details: The McDougall Plan; 1983; Dr. John A. MacDougall; pp. 96-100)
Diet for a Small Planet quickly became a bestseller, making Lappe famous. So it was surprising—and respectable—that she admitted to the error in what made her famous. In the 1981 edition of Diets for a Small Planet, Lappe publicly acknowledged the error and explained:
“In 1971, I emphasized protein supplementation because I thought the only way to get enough protein was to create a protein that was as digestible as animal protein. In combating the myth that meat is the only source of high-quality protein, I created another myth. I put it this way, in order to get enough protein without meat, you need to choose your food carefully. In fact, everything is much simpler.
“With three important exceptions, the risk of protein deficiency on a plant-based diet is very small. The exceptions are diets that are very dependent on fruits, tubers like sweet potatoes or cassava, and junk food (refined flour, sugar, and fat). Fortunately, few people live on diets in which these foods are almost the only source of calories. In all other diets, if people get enough calories, they get enough protein.” (Diet for a Small Planet; 10th Anniversary Edition; Frances Moore Lappe; p. 162)
End of 70’s
Although Lappe didn’t solve world hunger alone, and aside from protein-combining ideas, Diet for a Small Planet was an unqualified success, selling millions of copies. It served as an impetus for the development of the vegetarian movement in the United States. Vegetarian cookbooks, restaurants, cooperatives and communes began to appear out of nowhere. We usually associate the 60s with hippies, and hippies with vegetarians, but in fact, vegetarianism was not very common until the release of Diet for a Small Planet in 1971.
That same year, San Francisco hippies founded a vegetarian commune in Tennessee, which they simply called “The Farm.” The Farm was large and successful and helped define a clear image of the “commune”. “Farm” also made a great contribution to the culture. They popularized soy products in the US, especially tofu, which was virtually unknown in America until the Farm Cookbook, which contained soy recipes and a recipe for making tofu. This book was published by The Farm’s own publishing house called The Farm Publishing Company. (They also have a mailing catalog whose name you can guess.) The Farm also talked about home births in America, and raised a new generation of midwives. Finally, the people of The Farm have perfected methods of natural birth control (and, of course, written books about it).
In 1975, Australian ethics professor Peter Singer wrote Animal Liberation, which was the first scholarly work to present ethical arguments in favor of meat aversion and animal experimentation. This inspiring book was the perfect complement to Diet for a Small Planet, which was specifically about not eating animals. What Diet for a Small Planet did for vegetarianism, Animal Liberation did for animal rights, launching animal rights movements overnight in the US. In the early 80s, animal rights groups began popping up everywhere, including PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). (PETA paid for an extra edition of Animal Liberation and distributed it to new members.)
Late 80s: The Diet for a New America and the Rise of Veganism.
Diet for a Small Planet started the vegetarianism snowball in the 70s, but by the mid-80s some myths about vegetarianism were still circulating. One of them is the idea presented in the book itself, the protein-combining myth. Many people considering going vegan have given up on it because they would have to carefully plan their meals. Another myth is that dairy and eggs are healthy foods and that vegetarians need to eat enough of them to keep from dying. Another myth: It is possible to be healthy by being a vegetarian, but there are no special health benefits (and, of course, eating meat has not been associated with any problems). Finally, most people did not know anything about factory farming and the environmental impacts of livestock farming.
All these myths were debunked in the 1987 book Diet for a New America by John Robbins. Robbins’ work, in fact, contained little new and original information – most of the ideas had already been published somewhere, but in scattered form. Robbins’ merit is that he took a huge amount of information and compiled it into one large, carefully crafted volume, adding his own analysis, which is presented in a very accessible and impartial way. The first part of Diet for a New America dealt with the horrors of factory farming. The second part convincingly demonstrated the deadly harmfulness of a meat diet and the obvious benefits of vegetarianism (and even veganism) – along the way, debunking the myth of combining proteins. The third part talked about the incredible consequences of animal husbandry, which even many vegetarians did not know about before the publication of the book.
Diet for a New America “restarted” the vegetarian movement in the US by launching the vegan movement, it was this book that helped introduce the term “vegan” into the American lexicon. Within two years of the publication of Robbins’ book, about ten vegetarian societies were formed in Texas.
1990s: Amazing medical evidence.
Dr. John McDougall began publishing a series of books promoting a vegan diet for the treatment of serious illnesses, and achieved his greatest success in 1990 with The McDougall Program. That same year saw the release of Dr. Dean Ornish’s Heart Disease Program, in which Ornish proved for the first time that cardiovascular disease could be reversed. Naturally, the bulk of Ornish’s program is a low-fat, almost entirely vegan diet.
In the early 90s, the American Dietetic Association published a position paper on the vegetarian diet, and support for veganism began to emerge in the medical community. The US government has finally replaced the obsolete and meat and dairy-sponsored Four Food Groups with the new Food Pyramid, which shows that human nutrition should be based on grains, vegetables, beans and fruits.
Today, representatives of medicine and ordinary people like vegetarianism more than ever. The myths still exist, but the general shift in attitudes towards vegetarianism since the 80s is amazing! Having been a vegetarian since 1985 and a vegan since 1989, this is a very welcome change!
Bibliography: McDougall Program, Dr. John A. McDougall, 1990 The McDougall Plan, Dr. John A. McDougall, 1983 Diet for a New America, John Robbins, 1987 Diet for a Small Planet, Frances Moore Lappe, various editions 1971-1991
Additional Information: The founder of modern veganism and the author of the word “vegan”, Donald Watson, died in December 2005 at the age of 95.