The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1818)

AUTHOR: Franklin, Benjamin

Franklin reports on his experiments with vegetarianism, motivated by health and economic rather than ethical considerations. 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).