SUMMARY (Ridvan Askin, edited Deborah Madsen):

This is a report on the first annual meeting of the American Vegetarian Society, held in Philadelphia on 4 September 1850, following from the establishment of the society earlier that year. William Alcott was elected president. Nichols himself was elected one of the nine vice-presidents, who also included Reuben Mussey, Russell Trall, and Bronson Alcott. William Metcalfe was elected Corresponding Secretary. Nichols reports primarily on the evening's luscious “vegetarian banquet” consisting of “three courses, containing over thirty cooked varieties of food, besides preserves, and not including a magnificent dessert” (157), contrasting it with the most luxuriant dinner at the famous Astor House:

When a man of thought sits down to a table like that of the Astor House, there rises before him visions of stately oxen, innocent sheep, pigs wallowing in the mire, all vilely butchered; with geese, turkeys, chickens, ducks, ruthlessly sacrificed, and not more cruelly than uselessly, to gratify a perverted appetite. Looking further, he sees a train of diseases come to avenge this barbarity. What a contrast was that afforded by the Philadelphia banquet! There was variety and profusion enough to satisfy every natural and healthy appetite; but all was bloodless, pure, and healthful. A man could sit at such a table without wondering whether the food he was eating was not tainted with disease; he could see a lovely woman eat without the idea intruding itself that her beautiful mouth was becoming the receptacle of dead carcasses, and what, but for cookery, would be carrion (157).

Nichols mentions that “[a] medical gentleman present, undertook to controvert the scientific positions” of veganism as presented in several speeches by society members, in order “to prove that flesh was the natural and appropriate food for man, but as his zeal was not according to knowledge, he made but little progress” (157). Towards the end of the article, Nichols firmly notes that “there is a natural and proper food for man, consistent with his highest degree of health, development, and happiness; and that this diet is to be found in the vegetable kingdom” (158).