SUMMARY (Ridvan Askin, edited Deborah Madsen):

The book opens with a series of quotations promoting veganism from authoritative sources ranging from the Bible to Porphyry to Plutarch to Linnaeus, followed by a series of short biographical notes on contemporary vegans, including Sylvester Graham. As Nichols states himself, in contrast to his earlier publication, How to Cook, this little booklet contains veg*n dishes only (4). He is explicit that “the vegetarian diet … is the best in every possible way” (4). He then rehearses arguments in favor of veganism:

• that it is the healthiest diet
• that it prevents and sometimes even cures disease (whereas animal food is prone to produce it)
• that it has a long history and that some of the sturdiest people are vegan
• that it is more economical than a diet including animal food
• that it prevents the unnecessary suffering of animals (5-6).

Nichols uses several diagrams to illustrate the relative nutritive value of different items of food and the quantity of food that should be eaten, before discussing in more detail on the respective characteristics and benefits of fruit, bread and porridge, milk, eggs, pulse, and vegetables.

Nichols considers fruit “the most natural food of man” (9), whereas “good bread contains all that is necessary for the nourishment of man” (10). Good bread means “whole meal ” bread (10). He asks, "Is it consistent for vegetarians to use milk as food?" (13) and proposes in response, "Well, if the vegetarian is also a mammalian — -a horse or ox, a camel or elephant — a monkey or man, we answer decidedly — YES; at least for a year or so. Milk is prepared from vegetables, grass, herbage or fruits, by the mother expressly to sustain and build up her young. It is quite consistent for any young vegetarian to live upon its mother’s milk, when she does not poison it with flesh, or narcotics, beer, gin or tobacco" (13). "Beef, bacon, beer, tobacco, tea, coffee, opium" all poison the mother's milk and, in this case, the human child should be given cow's milk in preference. Arguing that cow's milk is composed of the cow's vegetable diet, Nichols applies the same principle to the consumption of eggs. While fruit and bread, including all kinds of cereals such as rice, are good enough for the purposes of nutrition, “we do well on the whole,” Nichols says, “to eat green peas, green or 'French' beans (in their pods), and to use a certain proportion of dry peas, haricot beans, or lentils. They form the richer part of soups; they enter into the composition of vegetable stews; and peas pudding, or baked beans, are a far 'heartier' kind of food than any kind of flesh or fish, and make a meal for a ploughman or athlete, for useful labour” (15).

Nichols compares carnivorous animals to “human flesh eaters or cannibals”: “Our ancestors were savages and no doubt were cannibals. Traces of savagism remain in our butchering and flesh-eating habits, as well as in the plundering and murdering expeditions which give us wealth, empire, and glory – but we no longer devour, save in a metaphorical fashion, our nearest relation” (17). Nichols considers vegetables “not generally rich in nutritive elements” (17), but still useful and conducive to health in a variety of ways. However, stimulants like “[t]ea, coffee, wine, beer, spirits, tobacco” should be entirely abstained from (19). The remainder of the booklet contains veg*n recipes, an overview of and introduction to the works of Thomas and Mary Nichols works, and advertisements for some of their products, such as Dr. Nichols' Food of Health Biscuits and Dr. Nichols' Sanitary Soap.