IS MEAT NECESSARY?

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8182, 15 August 1906, Page 2

IS MEAT NECESSARY?

A PLEA FOR PLAINER DIETP Mr C. D. Baron, of New Plymouth, writes:—Tlie agitations that have been oxercising the public mind lately over the Chicago meat horrors, the inspection of our own meat supplies in New Zealand, the feeding of swine on uncooked offal in Auckland, etc., have been of benefit to a section of tho general pubiu, for it has lead many persons to find out whether the use of flesh is really necessary in our bill of fare. There is every indication that the eating of tho flesh of animals it, ever under the most favorable circumstances, very far from being conducive to man's best physical and moral welfare. I will advance n few of tho reasons in support of this statement. (1) Man's organism was never designed to use flesh as a natural food. Baron Currcr, an eminent authority on comparative anatomy, says: "The natural food of man, judging from his structure, appears to consist of fruit, roots and oxulent parts of vegetables." (21 Animals are never in a primary sense, force producers, but only force consumers, and when wo partake of flesh we are only getting second-hand food, and very often of a doubtful character at that. (3) It is an expensive diet whon we take into account that lib of either wheat, oatnnal, peas, beans, riee or lentils, will equal in food value 3lb of the best beef or mutton. (4) That (he use of flesh is largely the cause of a large amount of disease, of the uric acid type, such as gout, rheumatism, sciatica, lumbago, neuralgia, ohronic headaches, elc, and very probably a prodisposing cause of cancer, for one of the first pieces of adviee that most physicians give in such cases is that they must stop tho use of flesh foods. The once favorite beef tea that was thought to be so strengthening has now been weighed in the balance, and found wanting mg in strength-giving properties. Indeed, it was found to contain so much poison that it killed a dog fed upon it tn 16 days. (5) The use of flesh is always accompanied with such cruelty that most civilised beings would sooner do without their ordinary chop, beefsteak, or chicken, than have the work of killing the animal to do themselves, and it is a fact that no cannibals aro ever vegotanans, but only those whose diet consists of ih'sh foods in larger or smaller quantities. A few years ago, when the groat beef trust was formed in the IJnitcd States, the price of meat was raised to such an extent that thousands of people became vegetarians, and as they did so eminent physicians called the attention of the people to the fact that they ate too much meat and that a decreased consumption would greatly benefit the public health. Sir Henry Thompson, M.D., P.R.S., said: " 1 have come to tho conclusion that more than half tho disease that embitters life is due to ferrors in diet." Those who know anything about dietetics and tho effect of different kinds of food and drink upon their own organism oan fully bear out this statement. If we woulil plan to live simple lives, eat simpler food, discard complicated dishes, and not make our bodies the burying ground of dead animals, clean and un. clean, then there is a healthy, bright future beforo us; but if we will cling to our luxurious and unhealthy ways of living, and spend a great part of our meomo to try and satisfy the little god beneath our nose, we shall as surely go down into oblivion as a people, as did the Babylonians, Persians, Grecians, and Romans, whoso national decay was, in each case, preceded by luxury and effeminacy.