The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1818)
AUTHOR: Franklin, Benjamin
PUBLICATION: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. 1818. Cleveland, OH: The Rowfant Club, 1898.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=yale.39002040564917&view=1up&seq=9
KEYWORDS: food, frugality, health, Temperance
Allen, James Madison. Figs or Pigs? Fruit or Brute?
Anderson, Martha Jane. Social Gathering Dialogue
Child, Lydia Maria. Memoir of Benjamin Lay
Clubb, Henry Stephen. “Economy in Food”
---. “Summary of the Vegetarian System”
Clubb, Henry Stephen and F. E. Green. “Benjamin Franklin”
Cooper, James Fenimore. The American Democrat
Dodds, Susanna Way. Health in the Household
Fowler, Orson Squire. Human Science, or, Phrenology
---. Physiology, Animal and Mental
---. Self Culture and Perfection of Character
Graham, Sylvester. Lectures on the Science of Human Life
Greeley, Horace. Recollections of a Busy Life
Jackson, James Caleb. The Gluttony Plague
Kellogg, John Harvey. Man, the Masterpiece
Lane, Charles. “Temper and Diet”
Mussey, Reuben Dimond. Health: Its Friends and Its Foes
Nichols, Thomas Low. How to Live on a Dime and A-Half A-Day
Thoreau, Henry David. The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau
Trall, Russell Thacher. John Smith, Fruits and Farinacea the Proper Food of Man
Tryon, Thomas. The Country-man's Companion
SUMMARY (Ridvan Askin; edited Deborah Madsen):
Franklin reports on his experiments with vegetarianism. He values a plant-based diet for health and economic reasons, repeatedly insisting on “plain and simple” food (107) and emphasizing its “cheapness” (52). Franklin reports that plain food, without beer, is “more comfortable as well as cheaper” than a richer diet (64). He attributes “greater clearness of head and quicker apprehension” to his “temperance in eating and drinking” (26). He writes that he was primarily influenced by Thomas Tryon “recommending a vegetable diet” (25), and writes that for a while he “consider'd, with my master Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had, or ever could do us any injury that might justify the slaughter,” but ultimately he concludes that if fish “eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat [them]” (50). He recounts that his vegetarianism was a nuisance for others: “My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconveniency, and I was frequently chid for my singularity” (25). Franklin notes that, following his initial experiment, he returned to but did not sustain a purely vegetarian diet (50).