CHAPTER XXII 

 FOOD AND DIETARIES 



138. Flesh or vegetable diet. The question is frequently 

 raised whether animal material or plant material is better for 

 human food, and there are some people who would rule out all 

 food of animal origin, although there are probably none who 

 argue against the use of vegetable food. Many reasons are 

 given for the exclusion of animal matter from human diet. 



One argument assumes that it is wrong to kill living beings 

 even to maintain our own lives. We know that life can con- 

 tinue only with a supply of proteins and fuel foods, that these 

 are to be found only in the bodies of living things, and that 

 only organisms with chlorophyl can manufacture the food them- 

 selves. This argument therefore implies that it is wrong for 

 flesh-eating animals to live at all, and that it is right to rob 

 plants of their food stores or to kill them for food. Some 

 vegetarians make the point that killing a plant is not wrong, 

 because plants do not have sensations and emotions like those 

 of the higher animals. Such persons do not object to using 

 eggs and milk, which can be obtained without actual slaughter. 



Another argument against the use of meat is based on the 

 structure of the human body compared to the structure of ani- 

 mals that are naturally flesh-eaters and animals that are naturally 

 fruit-eaters or grain-eaters. Our teeth are more like the teeth 

 of fruit-eating and nut-eating monkeys than they are like the 

 teeth of flesh-eating wolves or tigers. The length of the intestine 

 is also sometimes pointed to as an argument against flesh-eating. 1 



1 The table on page 106 will show us that our intestines are relatively 

 long, corresponding to the intestine of the non-flesh-eating animals, in which 

 the removal of nutrients from the food takes more time than it does in the 

 flesh-eating animals. 



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