Can you really ask what reason Pythagoras had for
abstaining from flesh?
For my part I rather wonder both by what accident and in
what state of soul or mind the first man did so, touched his mouth to
gore and brought his lips to the flesh of a dead creature, he who set
forth tables of dead, stale bodies and ventured to call food and
nourishment the parts that had a little before bellowed and cried, moved
and lived. How could his eyes endure the slaughter when throats were
slit and hides flayed and limbs torn from limb? How could his nose
endure the stench?
How was it that the pollution did not turn away his
taste, which made contact with the sores of others and sucked juices and
serums from mortal wounds? … It is certainly not lions and wolves that
we eat out of self-defense; on the contrary, we ignore these and
slaughter harmless, tame creatures without stings or teeth to harm us,
creatures that, I swear, Nature appears to have produced for the sake of
their beauty and grace. But nothing abashed us, not the flower-like like
tinting of the flesh, not the persuasiveness of the harmonious voice,
not the cleanliness of their habits or the unusual intelligence that may
be found in the poor wretches.
No, for the sake of a little flesh we deprive them of
sun, of light, of the duration of life to which they are entitled by
birth and being…
--Plutarch
Go on to US News and World Report Covers Danger of Too Much Protein
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