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Chinese Women’s Vegetarian Houses in Singapore: (1954)*

Marjorie Topley

Jean DeBernardi (ed.)

in Cantonese Society in Hong Kong and Singapore: Gender, Religion, Medicine and Money

This chapter describes the Chinese woman's vegetarian house as it is in Singapore at the present time, and attempts to analyse the reasons for its existence. These organizations of vegetarians are ... More

This chapter describes the Chinese woman's vegetarian house as it is in Singapore at the present time, and attempts to analyse the reasons for its existence. These organizations of vegetarians are formed with the object of providing board and lodging for unattached women who worship Buddha. Many of these women are without immediate family connections in Malaya, are unmarried and have nobody to care for them and nowhere else to go in their old age. The majority of these houses are formed to meet the needs of Chinese immigrant women workers. In addition, there are those which have grown up to cater for the needs of local born women; those who have no wish to marry, or who are lonely widows with nobody to support them, or, for various reasons, prefer not to inflict themselves on their relatives and friends.Less

Jesus Christ and the Future of Animals

Stephen H. Webb

in On God and Dogs: A Christian Theology of Compassion for Animals

This chapter expands on the portrait of Jesus Christ as the face of God that puts a stop to nonvoluntary sacrifices and holds out hope for the redemption of all who suffer, including those who are ... More

This chapter expands on the portrait of Jesus Christ as the face of God that puts a stop to nonvoluntary sacrifices and holds out hope for the redemption of all who suffer, including those who are speechless. Central to the analysis is a defense of the “vegetarian Eucharist”: a reinterpretation of the central ritual of Christianity.Less

Notes on Some Vegetarian Halls in Hong Kong Belonging to the Sect of Hsien-T’ien Tao (The Way of Former Heaven): (1968)*

Marjorie Topley

Jean DeBernardi (ed.)

in Cantonese Society in Hong Kong and Singapore: Gender, Religion, Medicine and Money

Members of the Society visited four vegetarian halls at Ngau Chi Wan, Kowloon, belonging to a religious sect called Hsien-t'ien Tao [Xiantian Dao]. The notes in this chapter are based on materials ... More

Members of the Society visited four vegetarian halls at Ngau Chi Wan, Kowloon, belonging to a religious sect called Hsien-t'ien Tao [Xiantian Dao]. The notes in this chapter are based on materials provided for the visit, which are rearranged and expanded slightly, and they include also a brief account of the visit itself. The members chose vegetarian halls for the visit because they are, to many members of the public in Hong Kong, less known places of worship than the more popular temples, and the monasteries and nunneries of Buddhism. When the members first came across these particular halls in Kowloon and discovered they were of the Hsien-t'ien Tao sect they seemed to them to be an obvious choice for another reason: they follow an ideology standing outside Buddhist and Taoist religion and again far less known about them by most people in Hong Kong than other faiths.Less

Dietary patterns and coronary heart disease risk

T. P. Erlinger and L. J. Appel

in Coronary Heart Disease Epidemiology: From aetiology to public health

This chapter describes and compares selected dietary patterns, each of which has been associated with reduced coronary heart disease (CHD) risk. The dietary patterns include those consumed by ... More

This chapter describes and compares selected dietary patterns, each of which has been associated with reduced coronary heart disease (CHD) risk. The dietary patterns include those consumed by free-living persons (i.e., a traditional Mediterranean diet consumed in Crete, vegetarian diets, diets consumed in rural China, and a traditional Okinawan diet) and diets tested in clinical trials (i.e., Lyon Diet Heart Study, Indo-Mediterranean Diet Heart Study, and the DASH clinical trial). Several distinct dietary patterns are associated with lower CHD rates and with improved CHD risk factors. A common feature of these diets is an emphasis on plant-based foods. Accordingly, fibre intake is high while saturated fat intake is low, less than 10% kcal in all instances. When total fat intake is high, that is, over 30% kcal, the predominant fat is monounsaturated fats. N-3 polyunsaturated fats are frequently consumed in small quantities and in a variety of forms. Carbohydrate intake is typically high; the predominant forms appear to be complex carbohydrates, likely from whole grain products with minimal processing.Less

Proto-vegetarianism

Adam D. Shprintzen

in The Vegetarian Crusade: The Rise of an American Reform Movement, 1817-1921

This chapter discusses American vegetarianism's history which can be traced directly to proto-vegetarian movements. Groups such as Bible Christians, Grahamites, water curists, residents of ... More

This chapter discusses American vegetarianism's history which can be traced directly to proto-vegetarian movements. Groups such as Bible Christians, Grahamites, water curists, residents of Fruitlands and physiologists exposed increasing number of Americans to the potential benefits of a meatless diet. By 1850, these various interest groups joined together to propagate a new term and movement in the United States, forming the American Vegetarian Society (AVS).Less

Vegetarianism and Its Discontents

Adam D. Shprintzen

in The Vegetarian Crusade: The Rise of an American Reform Movement, 1817-1921

This chapter describes the way in which vegetarians were depicted by the popular press as well as the scientific and medical communities. They were commonly cast as weak, enfeebled faddists worthy of ... More

This chapter describes the way in which vegetarians were depicted by the popular press as well as the scientific and medical communities. They were commonly cast as weak, enfeebled faddists worthy of mockery. Such attacks were hardly surprising, given the radical nature of vegetarians' politics and dietary choices. The common themes of antivegetarian articles indicate that vegetarians offended deeply held social, political, and culinary values. With the dissolution of the American Vegetarian Society (AVS) and continued assaults by mainstream society, individual vegetarians sought to prove the physical benefits of their diet to the public at large. While such attempts made some headway during the years leading up to the Civil War, the connection of vegetarianism with muscular, strong individuals would eventually resonate with a new generation of movement vegetarians.Less

Alternative Diets

Shadi Bartsch

in Persius: A Study in Food, Philosophy, and the Figural

Persius characterizes his own verse metaphorically as a medicinal counter to the excesses of other poets. As such, he provides an alternative to Plato’s diagnosis of philosophy as medical, and ... More

Persius characterizes his own verse metaphorically as a medicinal counter to the excesses of other poets. As such, he provides an alternative to Plato’s diagnosis of philosophy as medical, and rhetoric as culinary; his poetry, like philosophy, is itself curative, a substance that can heal its readers. It is in fact like raw beets: healthy, if not that appetizing. He then turns to the signs that betray sick readers and poets in the first place: too much bile in the system is a sign of poetic insanity, and hellebore is the treatment needed to cure this insanity. Unlike Horace’s “mad poet” at the end of the Ars Poetic, Persius himself is an author who is good for people to hear.Less

Mary Shelley and the Conception of the Monstrous Vegan

Emelia Quinn

in Reading Veganism: The Monstrous Vegan, 1818 to Present

Chapter 1 argues that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) marks the origins of the ‘monstrous vegan’ trope. The chapter establishes the vegetarian contexts influencing Shelley’s novel before outlining ... More

Chapter 1 argues that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) marks the origins of the ‘monstrous vegan’ trope. The chapter establishes the vegetarian contexts influencing Shelley’s novel before outlining the principal defining traits of the monstrous vegan. First, the monster’s refusal to eat meat is evidenced and explored in relation to Romantic vegetarianism. Second, his hybrid physiognomy, composed of remnants from the slaughterhouse and charnel house, allows for close attention to acts of visual recognition throughout the novel. Third, the creature’s birth outside of the confines of heterosexual reproduction is explored in relation to his challenge to reproductive futurities, with vegetarianism seen to offer a circular return to a Golden Age of humankind. Finally, the creature’s relation to literary authorship establishes that monstrous vegans bring to the fore the difficulty of inscribing ethical identities onto bodies.Less

Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books: Food, Place, and Sparkly Glam Slinkster Cool Vegetarianism in Los Angeles

Kara K. Keeling and Scott T. Pollard

in Table Lands: Food in Children's Literature

In Dangerous Angels, Francesca Lia Block uses food to intersect the regionalism, history, and physical and cultural geographies of Los Angeles in the1980s. To explore the links among food, setting, ... More

In Dangerous Angels, Francesca Lia Block uses food to intersect the regionalism, history, and physical and cultural geographies of Los Angeles in the1980s. To explore the links among food, setting, and culture, the chapter looks at the particularities of Los Angeles, considering its geography, architecture, the urban histories of Hollywood and the foothills (especially Laurel Canyon), along with the well-documented food culture (restaurant histories, farmers markets, journalism) that marks the region. Block links knowledge, taste, and place as central to the narrative arc of the series. For all the wild eclecticism of Block’s world, the primary food signifier—that also dominates the value of place—is vegetarian home-cooking, providing physical, emotional, ethical, and intellectual support for the series’ heterogeneous community. A comfortable home with a well-stocked kitchen full of healthy vegetarian ingredients—where knowledgeable cooks happily work together making meals—makes the series’ eclecticism possible and sustainable.Less

Introduction

Adam D. Shprintzen

in The Vegetarian Crusade: The Rise of an American Reform Movement, 1817-1921

This book discusses a vital ideological and political movement in the United States in the early nineteenth century. All too often vegetarianism has been presented—even by its proponents—as a product ... More

This book discusses a vital ideological and political movement in the United States in the early nineteenth century. All too often vegetarianism has been presented—even by its proponents—as a product of twentieth-century modernism, reflecting a rise in ethical consumer awareness. But, as this chapter makes clear, dietary choices regarding meat consumption were, in fact, connected with a larger nutritional, social and individual goals for vegetarian reformers in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America. At the center of the relationship between food choices and political ambitions surrounding meat abstention was the organized vegetarian movement, which formulated and shifted significantly during this period.Less

The American Vegetarian Society

Adam D. Shprintzen

in The Vegetarian Crusade: The Rise of an American Reform Movement, 1817-1921

This chapter analyzes the rise of the American Vegetarian Society (AVS), the first national organization of its kind in the United States. It notes that the group popularized and defined the term ... More

This chapter analyzes the rise of the American Vegetarian Society (AVS), the first national organization of its kind in the United States. It notes that the group popularized and defined the term vegetarian in the United States, using it is a means to unify meatless dietary reform into a singular identity. The AVS brought together the full spectrum of reformers interested in flesh-free dietetics under a single umbrella. The group connected a vegetarian diet with the great social reform movements of the time, including abolitionism, women's rights, and pacifism. Vegetarianism was presented as a means to free slaves, liberate women from domesticity, lessen violence, and promote greater economic equality for all. Membership of the AVS shifted vegetarians away from their previous identities, with them making a conscious effort to distance their diet from the influence of Sylvester Graham.Less

Would You Like to Be a Successful Vegetarian?

Adam D. Shprintzen

in The Vegetarian Crusade: The Rise of an American Reform Movement, 1817-1921

This chapter examines the formation of the Vegetarian Society of America—a new national organization—and the role of vegetarians at the Columbian Exposition, which vegetarians used to promote a new ... More

This chapter examines the formation of the Vegetarian Society of America—a new national organization—and the role of vegetarians at the Columbian Exposition, which vegetarians used to promote a new spirit of vegetarianism connected to notions of modernity, culture, and social advancement. Chicago became a center of the new vegetarianism, supported by the city's wealthy philanthropic class, whose members believed that the diet produced morally and socially industrious individuals. Vegetarianism became a profitable commercial venture where vegetarian restaurants, clubs, publishing houses, and grocery stores opened in the years following the group's appearance in the “White City”, reflecting a new vegetarian lifestyle focused on the benefits of the diet to the individual rather than to society at large.Less

Muscular Vegetarianism

Adam D. Shprintzen

in The Vegetarian Crusade: The Rise of an American Reform Movement, 1817-1921

This chapter considers vegetarianism's connection to the growing physical culture, fitness, strength, and bodybuilding movements of the early twentieth century. Vegetarianism's most widely read ... More

This chapter considers vegetarianism's connection to the growing physical culture, fitness, strength, and bodybuilding movements of the early twentieth century. Vegetarianism's most widely read advocate became fitness guru Bernarr Macfadden. In the pages of his flagship magazine Physical Culture, Macfadden emphasized a vegetarian diet as a way to gain physical strength, a muscular body, and powerful vitality. Bodybuilders and athletes experimented with vegetarianism, believing that it maximized strength and endurance. The vegetarian movement used these advocates as living proof of the diet's benefits and promoted them as evidence that individuals could utilize vegetarianism to create social and economic success and mass audiences embraced vegetarianism's connection to these normative values.Less

Conclusion

Adam D. Shprintzen

in The Vegetarian Crusade: The Rise of an American Reform Movement, 1817-1921

The book concludes with the writing of a complete history of vegetarianism by eighty-year old VSA President Henry S. Clubb for Vegetarian Magazine in March 1907. It notes that Clubb planned that the ... More

The book concludes with the writing of a complete history of vegetarianism by eighty-year old VSA President Henry S. Clubb for Vegetarian Magazine in March 1907. It notes that Clubb planned that the series would cover the movement from biblical times through to the modern vegetarian societies and organizations that he had been personally involved in establishing. The evolution of vegetarian cuisine reflected and even drove the societal shifts both within and toward vegetarian identity where food shifted from plain, harsh wheat bread and cold water to flesh-like meat substitutes. In the 1910s, J. H. Kellogg remained at the center of the movement to capitalize on vegetarian consumption through the renamed Battle Creek Sanitarium Food Company.Less

First Offerings at Meals

Theodora Suk Fong Jim

in Sharing with the Gods: Aparchai and Dekatai in Ancient Greece

Closely related to agricultural first-fruits were first offerings of simple (and mainly vegetarian) foodstuffs made at the beginning of daily meals in private households. This was probably the most ... More

Closely related to agricultural first-fruits were first offerings of simple (and mainly vegetarian) foodstuffs made at the beginning of daily meals in private households. This was probably the most regular and common act of making first offerings, but because of its simple, informal, and private character, this preliminary ritual at meals rarely features in ancient sources and has attracted little attention from historians. After collecting the piecemeal evidence on this practice, this chapter will question the claim that these offerings could ‘sacralize the whole’ of the food substance, and will consider their significance in Greek religion.Less

A Culinary Cosmos

Thomas O. Höllmann

in The Land of the Five Flavors: A Cultural History of Chinese Cuisine

This chapter explores the culinary diversity of Chinese cuisine. Roughly speaking, Chinese regional cooking can be observed in four distinct areas. The eastern part of China is predominantly ... More

This chapter explores the culinary diversity of Chinese cuisine. Roughly speaking, Chinese regional cooking can be observed in four distinct areas. The eastern part of China is predominantly Buddhist, with an appetite for vegetarian dishes as well as seafood. The south is likewise a haven for seafood, though its history of foreign trade allows a large and at times shocking variety of flavors; including dog, cat, monkey, and rat. The north, which was traditionally the seat of the royal court, suffers from particularly tedious winters; its flavors remain modest and practical, with an emphasis on grain products and food preservation. Finally, the west is known for its spicy dishes, although the spices primarily used in its cooking had been introduced from overseas. Additionally, this chapter explores the practice of anthropophagy in Chinese culinary history, as well as the cuisines enjoyed by the minority cultures living in China.Less

Vegetarian Diets Across the Lifespan

Georgia E. Hodgkin

in Pediatric and Adult Nutrition in Chronic Diseases, Developmental Disabilities, and Hereditary Metabolic Disorders: Prevention, Assessment, and Treatment

This chapter discusses vegetarian diets across the lifespan. The health benefits of vegetarian diets, normal growth in children, nutrients of concern with vegetarian diets, and dietary management are ... More

This chapter discusses vegetarian diets across the lifespan. The health benefits of vegetarian diets, normal growth in children, nutrients of concern with vegetarian diets, and dietary management are discussed.Less

Concluding Ethical Reflections

Nicola Hoggard Creegan

in Animal Suffering and the Problem of Evil

In the concluding chapter I examine of what all this means for human behavior, especially as it pertains to animals. Should we be vegetarian or own a pet? How do we interact with animals in a way ... More

In the concluding chapter I examine of what all this means for human behavior, especially as it pertains to animals. Should we be vegetarian or own a pet? How do we interact with animals in a way that takes seriously our close embeddedness in the natural world and our long evolutionary associations while also taking into consideration our responsibilities for dominion? What does it mean to be a wild animal, and how can we maintain space for wilderness while also enhancing our contact with animals in ways that are beneficial across the species? How do our interactions with animals change when we acknowledge that they have real personality and presence and that there is huge potential for connection and communication that we have never explored? How does the acknowledgment of a wheat-and-tares world influence our ethical judgments and the limits of what we can and cannot achieve?Less

Margaret Atwood and Monstrous Vegan Words

Emelia Quinn

in Reading Veganism: The Monstrous Vegan, 1818 to Present

Chapter 3 positions Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy (2003‒13) as the culmination of the trajectory built across the previous two chapters, drawing directly on the monstrous vegans of Mary ... More

Chapter 3 positions Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy (2003‒13) as the culmination of the trajectory built across the previous two chapters, drawing directly on the monstrous vegans of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and H. G. Wells’s The Island of Doctor Moreau. The chapter argues that Atwood’s vegan monsters are presented as overdetermined literary constructions and signal the impossibility of connecting to a ‘pure’ or inherent vegan identity. Unpacking allusions to a wide body of vegetarian and vegan philosophy and thought within the texts, this chapter re-thinks ideas about narrative transmission and the reproduction of literary veganisms. The chapter ultimately argues that the recognition of historic vegan words, in the service of greater visibility and recognition, risks circumventing the complications and contradictions inherent to their transmission.Less