Famous Vegetarians
Question: What do Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Billie Jean King, Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, Paul and Linda McCartney, Plato, Rabindranath Tagore, Alanis Morissette and Bill Pearl have in common?
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(We didn’t want to make it too easy for you!)
The good folk over at HappyCow’s Vegetarian Guide have compiled a long list of famous vegetarians from down through the ages. Picture yourself tucking into steaming hot Hunza Pie with Albert Einstein sitting opposite you at the dining table or sharing a platter of fresh grapes, olives and sun-dried tomatoes with Socrates on a warm Grecian afternoon. How about snacking on chilli and avocado tacos with Jeff Beck during a break in rehearsals or enjoying fresh picked persimmons and pears while rambling through the English countryside with Lord Byron. If you’re a vegetarian (or thinking of trying a vegetarian diet), consider yourself to be in good company! Here’s a little about two of our famous vegetarians:
Bill Pearl:
Bill Pearl and his wife Judy have been vegetarians for many decades. Bill won his first title (Mr. Southern California) in 1953 and his fourth Mr. Universe title in 1971 at the age of 41. He was crowned “Best Built Man of the Twentieth Century” later that year and was inducted into the WBBG Hall Of Fame in 1978. Long retired from professional bodybuilding, Bill and Judy still follow a vigourous work-out regime to this day. This from Steve Holt’s The Vegetarian Bodybuilder:
Bill Pearl is probably the most well-known of vegetarian bodybuilders. At his own peak as a bodybuilder when he last won the Mr. Universe in 1971, Bill weighed 242 pounds at a height of 5′10″ and his arms measured 21 inches! Bill stopped using steroids by 1961. He won the professional Mr. Universe title in 1971, at the age of 41, without the use of steroids and as a vegetarian, and is recognized as one of the all-time greats of bodybuilding. Bill’s diet is lacto-ovo vegetarian, which means he eats eggs and dairy products.
He describes his experiences with the conversion to vegetarianism. “With each succeeding year the diet (lacto-ovo vegetarian), I’ve felt better. I’m more healthy, I can train with more energy, and I’m not as much of a “hard guy” as I used to be. I’ve become more concerned with my fellow man and the other inhabitants I share the planet with. I have now been vegetarian for almost 20 years. We have no fish, fowl, or red meat in our diet. Yet I can still carry the same amount of muscle as I did in winning my four Mr. Universe titles. People can’t believe it. They think that to have big muscles you have to eat meat – it’s a persistent and recurring myth. But take it from me, there’s nothing magic about eating meat that’s going to make you a champion bodybuilder. Anything you can find in a piece of meat, you can find in other foods as well.”
Albert Einstein
In a letter to Hans Muehsam which is dated March 30 1954, Albert Einstein wrote, “So I am living without fats, without meat, without fish, but am feeling quite well this way. It always seems to me that man was not born to be a carnivore”. This indicates he adopted a vegetarian diet at the end of his life. Another letter written in 1953 indicated he was still eating meat at that time.
Yet Albert Einstein appears to have supported the idea of the vegetarian diet for many years before practising it himself. In a letter to Hermann Huth, dated 27 December 1930, the famous physicist wrote, “Although I have been prevented by outward circumstances from observing a strictly vegetarian diet, I have long been an adherent to the cause in principle. Besides agreeing with the aims of vegetarianism for aesthetic and moral reasons, it is my view that a vegetarian manner of living by its purely physical effect on the human temperament would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind.” The following benevolent and lofty quotes are also attributed to Albert Einstein:
“If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals.”
“Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”
“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us the ‘Universe’, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.”
More quotes:
Vegetarian Quotes and Quotations about Vegetarianism.
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