DIET and WAR
from The Recovery of Culture (Henry Bailey Stevens, 1949)

We are now caught on the edge of the abyss where we see desperately that we must be rid of War, but its chain reactions are difficult to break.  Without in any way ceasing our direct attack upon the institution, we may well consider the effects if we cut the umbilical cord to its mother evil, the animal abattoir.  If the children of the next two generations were educated from infancy to that primate diet to which they are normally disposed, we can predict results about 2,000 A.D. somewhat as follows:

A.  The shift in food demands would reduce greatly the amount of land plowed for food purposes.  Provided fiber demands were also met from tree crops, tillage would be confined to the class 1 and 2 types of land approved by soil conservationists.  Soil erosion would be practically stopped.

B.  Several million farmers would be relieved of their present confining routine of service to livestock 365 days a year.  Agriculture would tend to shift back to a way of life in which families had their own gardens, small orchards and ornamental plants.  The unhealthy  concentration of people in large cities would be greatly reduced.  With the disappearance of the incubus of meat animals the total human population would spread out over the land for with the emphasis on small holdings, industry would find it profitable to decentralize.  Village culture in the arts, religion and government would be stimulated.

C.  Substitutes for leather and other by-products of animals would have to be found, but the industrial chemists have already practically accomplished this step. 
Any such difficulties would be more than offset by the elimination of those diseases that have been circulated through meat and livestock products.

D. 
But greatest of all would be the effect upon our ethical and aesthetic culture if we made ourselves consistent with that primate nature which was built over long ages into our very genes.  We have tried to operate a church and a schoolhouse at one end of the street and a slaughterhouse at the other, to fill our minds with kindness and our stomachs with tortured flesh; to teach peace and eat like beasts of prey.  But we have overlooked the moral in the story of Diomedes.  Each generation has run amok and torn us to pieces in turn for the ugly lies which it has been taught - viz. that animals must be killed for food and people for military objectives.


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