George Washington and plant-based diets

In Featured Posts, Plant-Based Alternatives by Prof Edward

Today we began our unit on Plant Meat and Milk. As you most certainly know, plant-based diets have attracted plenty of attention. This has occurred for all sorts of reasons, including health, environment, ethical, and sustainability reasons.

Here is an interesting article from the Conversation that was written by Dr. Maurizio Valsania, a Professor of American History and a George Washington scholar. He mentions that our founders would have been all in favor of this shift from a meat-centric diet to diets based on vegetables. Indeed, during the Revolutionary War, General Washington considered that  “The health of the army cannot be preserved without a due portion of vegetable diet. This must be procured whatever may be the expense.”

Moreover, he claims that abstaining from heavy meat diets, so-called “dude foods”, was certainly not a sign of weakness. Indeed, he suggested moderation and disciplined eating were manly attributes.

Now that’s some serious revolutionary thinking.