Flesh or Fruit? An Essay on Food Reform
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 First edition title page | |
| Author | Henry S. Salt |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Vegetarianism |
| Genre | Essay |
| Publisher | William Reeves |
Publication date | 1888 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland |
| Media type | Print (pamphlet) |
| Pages | 48 |
| OCLC | 316588055 |
"Flesh or Fruit? An Essay on Food Reform" is an 1888 essay on vegetarianism by the British writer and social reformer Henry S. Salt. It was first published in The Westminster Review and was later issued in London by William Reeves as a 48-page pamphlet. In the essay, Salt surveys earlier arguments for vegetarianism, cites writers including Seneca, Plutarch, Porphyry, John Wesley, Michel de Montaigne, Sylvester Graham, and Anna Kingsford, and argues for vegetarianism on humanitarian, dietary, hygienic and economic grounds. He also replies to objections, including arguments based on human anatomy and on predator-prey relations in nature. Contemporary notices in The Morning Post and Our Corner described the essay as a thoughtful plea for vegetarianism.
Henry S. Salt (1851–1939) was born at Naini Tal in India and educated at Eton College and King's College, Cambridge. After teaching classics at Eton from 1875 to 1884, he moved to Tilford in Surrey, where he adopted a simple vegetarian way of life and concentrated on writing on humanitarian and social reform.[1]
In the late 1880s and 1890s, he published pamphlets and books on vegetarianism and animal protection, including Flesh or Fruit? An Essay on Food Reform (1888) and Animals' Rights Considered in Relation to Social Progress (1892). He later published works opposing corporal punishment and wrote on literary and political subjects.[1]
The essay was originally published in The Westminster Review.[2][3] It was later issued as a 48-page sextodecimo pamphlet by William Reeves.[3]
Content
The essay surveys earlier writings on vegetarianism and discusses authors including Seneca, Plutarch, Porphyry, John Wesley, Michel de Montaigne, Sylvester Graham, and Anna Kingsford. Salt argues that a vegetarian diet is necessary for people who wish to act humanely in a consistent way, and presents it as preferable on grounds of taste, health and economy. He also responds to objections to vegetarianism, including arguments based on human physiology, such as canine teeth; appeals to nature, such as predator and prey; claims that people cannot keep to the diet; practical questions about substitutes for animal products such as leather, soap and candles; and the argument that eating animals is in the animals' own interests.[4]
Reception
A notice in The Morning Post in June 1888 said the essay set out the advantages of a vegetable diet and summarised Salt's four chief grounds for adopting vegetarian principles as humanitarian, dietary, hygienic, and economic. It added that these arguments were sufficient to warrant a "fair trial".[5]
A review in Our Corner described the book as a "thoughtful" and "careful" plea for the rejection of meat, and said Salt argued that only by doing so could people be "truly and consistently humane". It also reported that he presented vegetarianism as a matter of taste, hygiene and economy, and that the second half of the essay answered objections.[6]