Unpolished Rice, the Staple Food of the Orient (1905)

AUTHOR: Clubb, Henry Stephen

PUBLICATION: Unpolished Rice, the Staple Food of the Orient. Philadelphia: Vegetarian Society of America, 1905.
 
This is a published lecture that was delivered two years prior (1903) to the establishment of the Vegetarian Society in Philadelphia; it was published due to public interest in the Sino-Japanese war.
 
KEYWORDS: food, race
 
RELATED TITLES:
Alcott, William. “Caucasian Vegetarians”
---. “The Wild Men of Borneo”
Clubb, Henry Stephen. “The Chemistry of Food”
---. History of the Philadelphia Bible-Christian Church for the First Century of Its Existence
---. “Summary of the Vegetarian System”
---. Thirty-Nine Reasons Why I Am a Vegetarian
---. “The Vegetarian Principle”
Kellogg, Ella Ervilla. “Vegetable Substitutes for Flesh-Food”
Kellogg, John Harvey. The Natural Diet of Man
Moore, J. Howard. The New Ethics
Nichols, Thomas Low. “American Vegetarian Convention”
---. “American Vegetarian Society”
---. Dr. Nichols' Penny Vegetarian Cookery
Trall, Russell Thacher. “Introduction”
---. John Smith, Fruits and Farinacea the Proper Food of Man
---. The New Hydropathic Cook-Book

 

SUMMARY (Bryn Skibo, edited Deborah Madsen)

This published lecture is largely an account of the nutritional merits of unpolished rice, including correspondence between Clubb and the Department of Agriculture and other food scientists who conducted analyses of unpolished, Japanese rice and polished, South Carolinian rice. At the beginning of the lecture, Clubb comments on the overall better health, resilience to disease, and physical strength in the amassed Japanese army and the lack of violence in Japanese society, except where abundant meat-eating has been introduced by other nations. Clubb makes mention of Japanese moral qualities due to their semi-vegetarianism and heavy consumption of rice: “The fact that the Japanese people are the most artistic, humane, vivacious, and happy people on the face of the earth; and that their chief food is rice, is, on its face, a strong argument in favor of the more extensive use of that cereal” (2).

 

Last updated on April 17th, 2026
SNSF project 100015_204481
How to cite this page:
Skibo, Bryn. 2024. "Unpolished Rice, the Staple Food of the Orient [summary]." Vegan Literary Studies: An American Textual History, 1776-1900. Edited by Deborah Madsen. University of Geneva. <Date accessed.> <https://www.unige.ch/vls/bibliography/author-bibliography/clubb-henry-stephens-1827-1921/unpolished-rice-staple-food-orient-1905>.