-
George Bernard Shaw and the dreaded salad—being a vegetarian, then and now
By Roberta Attanasio The ingenious playwright George Bernard Shaw was awarded the 1925 Nobel Prize in Literature “for his work which is marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty.” He was a fervent vegetarian, and the same traits that characterized his work can be found in his staunch defense of vegetarianism. At a meeting of the University of London Vegetarian Society, held in 1923, he said: “Sages and saints and a few others recoil from eating meat.” He himself was a sage; and probably after a decent interval he would be made a saint. During the same meeting, he brought…
You May Also Like
Pythagoras, the first campaigner for ethical vegetarianism
-
Pythagoras, the first campaigner for ethical vegetarianism
By Roberta Attanasio An article published almost 120 years ago in the New York Times (1907) focused on several questions delving on “what and how a normal person should eat.” The article detailed the resulting debate, which included the voices of many scientists. One of the discussion points was vegetarianism, and a related question was: “Should we, then, being busy New Yorkers, and having no time to waste, and no energy to spare, drop meat and eggs from our diets, and substitute other foods?” The answer was “No, emphatically No!” It was given on the basis that “the arguments in favor of vegetarianism were mainly ethical or sentimental, becoming nearly…
-
Bone loss? Osteoporosis? Don’t forget your prunes
By Roberta Attanasio “I like a good prune. I mean, when it’s soft and sweaty like a candy bar on a hot day. When it’s a sinister Disney-villain shade of brownish purple, and it tastes of nothing but honey and caramel, what’s not to like?” Prunes are dried plums, rich in phenolic compounds. Carried from China along the Silk Road thousands of years ago, plum trees flourished all over the Mediterranean basin under the aegis of the Greeks and Romans. The fruits were dried in the sun or in bakers’ ovens, depending on the region, transforming them into prunes. Because of their high nutritional values and long shelf life, prunes…
-
Pythagoras, fava beans, and favism
By Roberta Attanasio Pythagoras—a cloak-wearing mystical leader with a handsome beard—lived about 2,500 year ago in a community that cherished numbers. He was a native of the Aegean Island of Samos, but later in his life migrated westward and founded a school in Kroton (now Crotone) in South Italy. The school was called the “Semicircle of Pythagoras” and followed a code of secrecy. It was a cradle of mathematical research, but it had also an ascetic and religious character. Notably, Pythagoras’ philosophical views influenced both Plato and Aristotle. Although his famous theorem about right-angled triangles was likely developed by the Babylonians, Pythagoras is considered the first mathematician and a philosophical…
