7.12.2024:
In one of my previous articles, I gave you quite a thorough tour through my personal experience of how I have become a vegan, and today I would like to go back to this topic just to give you a peek into the history of the vegan lifestyle.
As with everything in human history also veganism has its history. It didn´t suddenly appear one day just because someone woke up and decided to stop eating all animal products.
I must say that even to my surprise the history of plant-based diet is quite long and goes minimally 2,500 years back.
It All Started Already In Antiquity
Temple by djedj from Pixabay
Antiquity is the historical period from the beginning of the 1st millennium BC until the half of the 1st millennium AC.
At that time, the ancient Greeks and the ancient Romans significantly influenced the Mediterranean region. Both of those civilisations achieved impressive results in developments in all sorts of different subjects of human life.
Antiquity gave to Europe and through Europe to the rest of the world the foundations of moral philosophical principles, social institutions, objects of science, architecture etc., and it also gave us foundations of lifestyle that didn´t have a name at that time yet. Still, it was believed to be a vegetarian diet.
Behind the vegetarian lifestyle was the Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras (570–495 BC).
In 530 BC Pythagoras founded a philosophical school in Crotone in Calabria (nowadays South Italy). School members were sworn to live an ascetic life represented by kindness and compassion amongst people and animals.
It was very probably the work of one of the most important poets of all times Publius Ovidius Naso (43 BC-18 AC) that helped present Pythagoras´ ideas about the vegetarian lifestyle to the future generations.
Ovid´s most famous work is The Metamorphoses which is a unique collection of mythology from antiquity. Pythagoras is described in one of the books The Metamorphoses delivering a speech in which he appeals to his followers for a vegetarian diet.
And guess what, dear reader? Publius Ovidius Naso himself was a vegetarian.
But let´s not give all the credit to Pythagoras. Based on other sources other important characters of antiquity lived based on principles of vegetarian diet, such as Socrates (469-399 BC) and his student Platon (427-347 BC), Plutarch (46-119 AC) and others.
When I talk about antiquity, I must not forget another interesting fact that falls into the period of Ancient Rome and its famous gladiators’ games that served to entertain the people of the Ancient Romain Republic and gain favour for Romain politicians.
In 2014 The Medical University of Vienna released information stating that based on their scientific research that was carried out on the remains of Romain gladiators found in 1993 in the then-Roman city of Ephesos (now in modern-day Turkey), the gladiators ate mostly a vegetarian diet.
What is even more interesting is the fact that based on the report gladiators´ diet wasn´t any different from the local population who ate mostly meals consisted primarily of grain and meat-free meals.
But there are also other ancient spiritual and religious practices of which part is the vegetarian lifestyle, such as Buddhism which is connected with Prince Siddhartha Gautama most commonly referred to as the Buddha (‘the awakened’) who lived in South Asia approximately between 563 and 483 BC.
Based on these facts we can see that minimally the vegetarian diet is ancient. Literally.
Romanticism As the Next Milestone For The Vegan Lifestyle
Napoleon´s Wars by Peter Tóth from Pixabay
The next important period in human history on its way to the vegetarian and vegan lifestyle was romanticism.
The end of the 18th century brought the end of the so-called period of intellect, the period of the Enlightenment that culminated in important historical events, such as The French Revolution (1789-1799) that spread its ideas gradually in the whole of Europe.
The French Revolution shattered absolutistic monarchy and opened public space for a new society which was based on ideals of human rights for freedom and equality. People at that time started to turn from rationality to its opposite – irrationality, and their endeavours unfortunately led to more murderous madness.
The Revolution also brought new unfairness into society, such as the development of capitalism that reduced newly gained freedom of people into the pursuit of wealth and created controversial figures, such as Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) who was at the beginning perceived as a hero that supposed to destroy the old World and its system and ended as a dictator who drove the whole Europe into a war.
This kind of turmoil brought forth a new philosophical and artistic era, romanticism (1790s-1830s).
Typical artists of romanticism were rejecting traditional social conventions. They were creating their norms of behaviour in society. Very characteristic was for these artists bohemianism, eccentric clothing, very tense experiences of romantic relationships, all sorts of life experiments even with drugs etc. For artists of romanticism was practically impossible to have a settled life.
Romanticism brought figures, such as Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1769-1844), Walter Scott (1771-1832), Jane Austen (1775-1817), George Gordon Byron (1788-1824), Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (1799-1837) and many more. For the future of the vegan lifestyle was however the most important the controversial figure of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822).
Percy Bysshe Shelley lived a very scandalous and problematic life. He was a very enthusiastic fighter against all forms of oppression and an announcer of the ideals of The French Revolution.
As mentioned in the previous chapter, Pythagoras´ ideas about the vegetarian lifestyle were carried on through the millenniums thanks to the poet of Ancient Rome, Publius Ovidius Naso and his work The Metamorphoses.
The Metamorphoses also probably influenced Percy Bysshe Shelley who wrote an ode entitled “To the Pythagorean Diet”.
What makes Shelley´s approach towards the vegetarian lifestyle so important is his modern stand on this matter. He was able to see the health benefits that one can get by keeping a vegetarian diet but also other benefits, such as the limitation of animal suffering. Shelley was also already able to realize how inefficient is use of land in back-then agriculture and the economic inequality caused by massive animal food production.
In the above-mentioned matters was Shelley perhaps more influenced by a British vegetarianism activist John Frank Newton (1767 – 1837), author of The Return to Nature, or A Defence of the Vegetable Regimen (1811).
For the future of the vegan lifestyle, an even more interesting fact is that Newton was converted to the vegetarian diet by the controversial figure of an English physician and early veganism activist William Lambe (1765-1847).
William Lambe was considered to be a very eccentric person by his colleagues especially because of his strict diet based mostly on vegetables and distillate water, however, the fact is that he decided to give up animal food because he suffered from a variety of chronic diseases.
Because his health improved after his decision he stuck to the diet and even applied it on some of his patients. One of his patients was John Frank Newton, who was convinced to follow the vegetarian diet through Lambe’s cure.
No matter how Lambe´s diet can seem to us nowadays as a laughing matter, we cannot ignore one important fact. England’s life expectancy in the early 19th century was 40 years, and 32 years was the world average. Lambe however died at age 82.
From The Vegetarian Society To The Vegan Society
Milk & Cheese by Myriams-Fotos from Pixabay
It is believed that Percy Bysshe Shelley had a direct impact on founding the Vegetarian Society in England (1847).
In Britain, in the early 19th century people, such as John Frank Newton or William Lambe and others followed and promoted meet-free diets as was mentioned earlier.
There were also different kinds of formations and associations formed that followed the vegetarian diet, such as the Bible Christian Church (founded 1809) or Concordium also known as Alcott House (founded 1838) which pupils even followed the vegan diet.
The members of the Bible Christian Church and Concordium were also most important for founding The Vegetarian Society during the Ramsgate Conference on 30th September 1847.
London and Manchester became two British cities that were important for early vegetarians.
There were even two Vegetarian Societies in these cities that cooperated at the beginning but later on, became independent of each other because of disagreements in the matter of funding of the society.
London´s branch was considered more radical, however, because of the efforts of its members the vegetarian movement spread at the end of the 19th century to other cities, such as Oxford, Nottingham, Brighton, Guildford, and Reading, and there were even founded first vegetarian restaurants.
There were debates pretty much from the beginning within the vegetarian society about including or excluding eggs, dairy products, and honey into the diet.
These debates resulted in the 1944 founding of a separate group, The Vegan Society by Donald Watson (1910-2005), an animal rights activist Leslie J. Cross (1914-1979) and other like-minded people.
Donald Watson, the main founder of the Vegan Society became a vegetarian at age 14 under the influence of the time that he spent on his uncle´s pig farm where he lost all his idealistic views about life on a farm. He became a vegan in 1940 after learning of dairy production.
In 1949 was Leslie Cross appointed as the vice-president of The Vegan Society and came up with a definition of the word veganism, as well as an objective for what the society stands for.
“…the word ʻveganismʼ denotes a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude-as far as is possible and practicable-all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty, to animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals, and the environment. In dietary terms, in denoted the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.” – The Vegan Society, 1988.
Conclusion
Sunflowers by Bruno from Pixabay
As we can see the vegan lifestyle itself is not actually that old but the vegetarian diet in which the vegan diet has its roots is minimally 2,500 years old.
We can find the first marks of the vegetarian diet already in the era of antiquity when the most important person was the Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras who very probably brought inspiration for a vegetarian lifestyle from his travels at a young age to The Near East.
Pythagoras´ ideology was carried on to future generations through another important character of antiquity Publius Ovidius Naso and his The Metamorphoses which influenced the society of another important era, romanticism and its personalities, such as the artist Percy Bysshe Shelley whose approach towards the vegetarian lifestyle was very modern indeed.
The 19th century brought more interesting and influential personalities, such as John Frank Newton who introduced the vegetarian lifestyle to Percy Bysshe Shelley and was influenced by William Lambe, perhaps the first vegan ever.
The number of followers of the vegetarian diet gradually rose and decreased again through the whole 19th century as the founders of the first vegetarian societies passed away but, in the end, everything led to the 1847 founding of the Vegetarian Society that operates until the present day as a British registered charity.
The long-term debates among the vegetarian society about including or excluding all animal products from the diet led in 1944 to the founding of The Vegan Society by Donald Watson and other like-minded people.
The Vegan Society also operates until the present day as a British registered charity that provides information on all aspects of vegan living, campaigns on multiple issues, provides support, has its trademark, a label that ensures all products and their derivatives are free from animal ingredients and testing, publishes a quarterly magazine, and since June 2020 has a podcast called The Vegan Pod.
The number of followers of the Vegan Lifestyle or at least the vegan diet is nowadays 4.7 % in the United Kingdom (2024), 3.2 % of the European population (2023), 5 % of the USA population (2021), 2.3 % of the Canadians consider themselves vegan (2018), 20% of Mexicans identified themselves as vegetarian or vegan (2021), according to a study by Ingredion in 2020, 90% of the South America region would be interested in consuming plant-based foods, 13% of consumers across the Asia region stated that they were vegan (2020), on the African continent South Africa was considered the only African country with a sizable vegan following (2019), in Australia there are 2 % of population vegans (2021), and finally 19 % of New Zealanders say they either “always” or “mostly” eat a vegan or vegetarian diet (2022).
Most of the research was conducted quite recently. The motivations why people choose the vegan lifestyle more or less reflect the motivations I might already mentioned in my previous post about My Journey To Veganism. There are considerations about health, compassion for animals, worries about climate change or combinations of all those reasons.
I suppose that it is not a coincidence that people around the world started to reconsider their dietary habits and lifestyle in general when since the early twenties there have been a lot of discussions on the topic of climate change, there were protests and then there was the also global pandemic of COVID-19 that made all the world to stop. The time of pandemic certainly provided a time for a lot of people to pause and think and change their lives. It worked that way for me.
Now, I don´t want to say that the vegan lifestyle is the answer to all our problems, but it certainly can address a lot of the long-term issues that we face globally.
I believe that when in the future we look back to the twenties of the 21st century we realise that those were important years when a lot of people started globally think more about how our lifestyle and our diet affect not only our health but also how it impacts the health of the unique blue planet that we live on, and therefore changed their long-lasting lifestyle for good.
GEORGE
Feature Image of Vegetables by jf-gabnor from Pixabay.