The word vegetarian, coined by the founders of the British Vegetarian Society in 1842, comes from the Latin word vegetus, meaning "whole, sound, fresh, or lively," as in homo vegetus-a mentally and physically vigorous person. The original meaning of the word implies a balanced philosophical and moral sense of life, a lot more than just a diet of vegetables and fruits.
Most vegetarians are people who have understood that to contribute towards a more peaceful society we must first solve the problem of violence in our own hearts. So it's not surprising that thousands of people from all walks of life have, in their search for truth, become vegetarian.
Vegetarianism is an essential step towards a better society, and people who take the time to consider its advantages, will be in the company of such thinkers as Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Clement of Alexandria, Plutarch, King Asoka, Leonardo da Vinci, Montaigne, Akbar, John Milton, Sir Isaac Newton, Emanuel Swedenbourg, Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, Jean Jacques Rousear, Lamartine, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, George Bernard Shaw, Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, and Albert Einstein.
Vegetarianism is the practice of not consuming the flesh of any animal, with or without also eschewing other animal derivatives, such as dairy products or eggs. Some vegetarians choose to also refrain from wearing clothing that has involved the death of animals, such as leather, silk and fur.
A vegetarian is someone who does not eat meat, fish, poultry or any slaughterhouse by-product such as gelatine. Vegetarians live on a diet of grains, pulses, nuts, seeds, vegetables and fruit, with or without free-range eggs, milk and milk products. Vegetarians not eating anything containing dairy products or eggs are called vegans.
The International Vegetarian Union, a union of all the national societies, was founded in 1908. Vegetarian societies (apart from India) were first formed in majority meat-eating European countries both as a means to promote the diet and to gather for mutual support. By 2000, most Western and developing nations had functioning vegetarian societies. The countries that were first to establish societies are still the ones most likely to have the greatest proportion of vegetarians within their populations.
Some facts about vegetarianism:
- Vegetarianism may have been common in the Indian subcontinent as early as the 2nd millennium BC.
- Vegetarians in Europe used to be called "Pythagoreans", after the philosopher Pythagoras and his followers, who abstained from meat in the 6th century BC. They followed a vegetarian diet for nutritional and ethical reasons.
- In looking for parallels in Jewish and Christian antiquity for these practices, some vegetarians feel a kinship with Nazarite, Essene, and Ebionite practices.
- Buddhist monks of the Mahayana school (100 CE) have also historically practiced vegetarianism.
- Vegetarianism in the 19th century was associated with many cultural reform movements, such as temperance and anti-vivisection. Many "new women" feminists at the end of the century were vegetarians.
- In the Western world, the popularity of vegetarianism steadily grew over the 20th century as a result of nutritional, ethical, and more recently, environmental and economic concerns.
