Nowadays, vegetarianism is a consolidated movement all over the world , which has conditioned the lives, nutrition and habits of millions of people. The exponential and global growth of the people of vegetarians, or of those who follow a mainly vegetable and meat and fish-free diet , has influenced today's society as well as various sectors, from that of catering to tourism and, of course, to that of food industry. Yet what may seem like a trend born in recent times is actually a phenomenon and a food practice that has very ancient origins .

The ancient origins of vegetarianism

Most anthropologists, as well as recent studies, have shown that our ancestors, although dedicated to hunting, had a mainly plant-based diet and that a wide variety of plants formed the basis of their nutrition. Considering how dangerous and risky it was to get meat, it is not surprising to find that primitive man, already 4000 years ago, tended to vegetarianism.

According to recent discoveries, the ancient Egyptians also relied above all on cultivated vegetable products, on all wheat and barley , and ate very little meat and fish, despite the presence of the River Nile. In fact, it seems that animals such as cows, rams and pigs were at the time considered sacred and therefore sacrificed only for holidays and special occasions.

With the passage of time, around the sixth century BC, more and more religious movements conditioned and limited the consumption of meat in the sign of spiritual well-being, for example, think of numerous oriental disciplines and philosophies such as Buddhism or Taoism or the current of Orphism in the 'Ancient Greece.
Precisely in Greece can be placed what is given time celebrated as the father of vegetarianism, or the philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras . As narrated by the verses of Ovid's Metamorphosis , Pythagoras was the first to take a strong ideological position against the eating of meat and the sacrifice of animals. His belief was strongly conditioned by the doctrine of reincarnation (metempsychosis), since he was among the first in the West to believe that all living beings, including animals, had a soul .

The vegetarianism of Pythagoras was carried out by ancient Greeks and Romans who called themselves "Pythagoreans" and over the following decades its principles influenced generations of academics, philosophers and religious thinkers.

Vegetarianism was also normal in early Greek Orthodox Christianity . In Russia, Greece, Serbia, Cyprus and other Orthodox countries, people who belonged to the church followed a meat-free (and even alcohol-free) diet. More recently, this diet has been transposed to orthodox fasting only, at least for the laity: in fact, monks still do not use meat and fish to this day.

Let us emphasize that we Orthodox fast primarily to remember and emulate Adam and Eve in their original state before the Fall. At the time, according to the scriptures, they did not consume animal products of any kind, and certainly did not kill animals to eat their meat. Source> Moscow Patriarchate, Turin Orthodox Parish

Birth and evolution of the modern vegetarian movement

The turning point in the history of vegetarianism occurred in the mid-1800s in England, with the founding of the Vegetarian Society (29 September 1847) and the birth of the term "vegetarian" , a combination of the words vegetable and agrarian. An interesting curiosity: this ancient organization, still active today, split in two in 1944, when a part of the movement decided to found the first Vegan Society .

Just three years after the birth of the first vegetarian association, the American Vegetarian Society also saw the light of day in New York . All these groups pursued vegetarian ideals as well as praising the virtues of temperance, abstinence and self-control, typical of those who reduce or eliminate meat consumption.

Centuries later, another historical event consolidated the vegetarian creed, transforming it into a real movement, namely the release in the 70s of the book Diet for a Small Planet by Francis Moore Lappe , then university student, now an established American writer and researcher . This text had the merit of being the first to proclaim the vegetarian diet as a fundamental environmental practice, and not just an ethical and moral choice, as plant-based foods have a much lesser impact on the environment than meat .

A few years later, in 1975, Peter Singer's Animal Liberation followed, this being the first work that associated the vegetarian diet with the importance of supporting and fighting for animal rights . It was therefore from the 70s that vegetarianism was embraced as a diet and lifestyle by an increasingly broad and varied type of person.

Currently, you want for ethical, animal rights, environmental or health reasons, the followers of this movement born 40 years ago are growing visibly. In Italy , according to Eurispes data (30 January 2020), the increase in vegetarians recorded is 1.0% , a constant increase compared to the two previous years.

In Italy 6.7% of Italians are vegetarian, 2.2% instead claim to be vegan (8.9% of the population). The demand for food at home is also growing and curiosity is developing for new foods, such as those based on cannabis (recently regulated), while in the background the phenomenon of childhood obesity, which in our country involves a child, is increasingly worrying. out of three.

In 2020, therefore, on the basis of the indications received by the Research Institute, vegetarians and vegans increased compared to 2019 and 2018, when the percentage of vegetarians and vegans stopped at 7.1% and 7.3% respectively . Among the reasons behind the choice, above all, health, well-being (23.2%) and love and respect for the animal world (22.2%). Source> Il Sole 24 Ore

by Ivana De Innocentis
Revised, corrected and expanded by the Tumn® editorial staff