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SUMMARY (Ridvan Askin, edited by Deborah Madsen):

Since “[w]e have not yet reached Christ-hood” and are not “independent of the Material Body,” as Rumford states in the Preface to his booklet, it is necessary “to teach man to be constantly well in Soul and Body.” This, indeed, is “[t]he object of the Edenic Life and Diet” (n. p.). The booklet then gives Rumford's reasons for “abstain[ing] not only from flesh-food but also from cooked food” (1), supplemented with short chapters on the “gains” and “losses” caused by raw veganism (12, 19), tips on how to change one's eating habits, and a handful of recipes.

Rumford presents three reasons to refuse flesh, with a chapter devoted to each: the anatomic-physiological, the sanitary, and the moral. By analogy with the animal realm, Rumford emphasizes that humans do not have the teeth and general physiological makeup of a carnivore (including the digestive apparatus). Instead, humans have “teeth fit for cutting, grinding and cracking” and “hands fit for plucking, opening and conveying to the mouth”(2). Physiologically and anatomically, the human is an “apelike man that should walk about, pluck and eat grain, nuts and fruit” (2). Flesh-eating “causes heart-burn, eructations, destruction of the teeth, and a putrid, loathsome, poisonous stench from the mouth” (4), and the “animals slaughtered for the market are as a rule diseased” (6). “Flesh food,” according to Rumford, “causes a feverish condition of the blood” (6) and “charges the blood with fibrin, which also causes unnatural heat, or inflammation, and thus an excessive secretion of gall; an additional cause of irritation” (7). Rumford also contends that the skin of meat-eaters has “a peculiar sour, hyena-like stench, especially to one that lives on uncooked food” (8). Generally, “[t]he germs of disease and the stenches that spread abroad from slaughter houses and meat-shops are detrimental to health” (7). But Rumford proposes that the moral reason in favor of raw veganism is most important – “far weightier than the anatomical, physiological, and sanitary” (7), as he puts it.

Rumford presents five moral objections to flesh-eating, beginning this section of his booklet with descriptions of two scenes of vivisection and slaughter, respectively, which are worth quoting in full:

It is instructive to see a bitch, big with pups, which has just licked your hands and looked into your eyes for sympathy, muzzled, tied, and strapped to a table; to see her ripped open; to see the cubs taken out and placed before her nose, that the experimenter may learn whether she recognizes them or not. The sick gain by it, don’t they?

It is also instructive to see a cow, big with calf, which has supplied you and your children with sweet, warm milk, jerked up into the air by a chain attached to one of her hind-feet; to see her hammered senseless; to see an eye or two hammered out of her head before she becomes senseless; to see her throat cut; to see her belly and womb ripped open; to see the nearly full-grown, living calf roll out on the floor; and to see him “despatched” by a few blows or kicks (8).

Rumford then makes clear that anyone who eats meat is complicit in this brutality and cruelty. He insists that animals indeed have a soul and thus a right to life: “To say that animals are not immortal is stupid; to say that they have no soul is idiotic; and to say that 'God' teaches so, is lunacy” (9). Accordingly, a truly Christian life cannot be built on “a foundation of 'bull-beef,' pork, and alcohol” (10). “No peace,” Rumford writes, “no 'good-will among men,' no purity, no holiness on a foundation of carrion and poison; only sad, ugly, unvital abortions!” (10). Rumford's next argument is based on the exploitation of women's labor: “I should hate to be a woman, if, three times a day, I had to boil and broil, wash and wipe, lay and unlay, and if, at the same time, I had to bear children. To have no time for thought, for soul-culture, for aspiration” (11). Raw veganism (rather than the right to vote) makes this possible by minimizing the exploitation of women as they no longer have to prepare meals. Finally, Rumford emphasizes that ultimately all life is interconnected, that the human “is but a part of Universal Life, by countless bonds connected with all that lives” and thus should be “interested in the welfare of all, as much as in his own” (12).

The following section expounds what he calls the “gains” of raw veganism. In contrast to cooked food, uncooked food is vital, which, for Rumford, really means life-power and is distinct from mere nutritious value. This surplus of vitality “causes temperance, activity of mind, exhilaration, vigor, and elasticity” (13). The Edenic diet is also much healthier: “Two-thirds of the diseases prevalent are curable by abstinence from food of animal origin, and by a temperate use of sun-cooked vegetables, grains, and fruit” (13). It is also beneficial to “evolution” because “[p]ure, living food is essential to him that would make progress in 'the path' of Life. Because, Nature can from such build a fit abode for the Soul, in which, untrammeled by filth, lust, and disease, development, sure and rapid, may go on” (13). While “animal food … causes a loss of will-power, and thus of self-control” (14), paving the way for gluttony and intemperance, raw veganism actively counteracts this tendency. Rumford is also eager to debunk the myth that meat equals physical strength and stamina while, conversely, a vegetable diet results in weakness and a feeble constitution. Quoting, among others, Henry David Thoreau and Susanna Way Dodds (misnamed “Dobbs”), he notes the strength of animals who subsist only on plant-based food and the fact “that four-tenths of the human race subsist exclusively on a vegetable diet, and that seven-tenths are practically (though not in principle) vegetarian” (16). Rumford contends that the Edenic diet is conducive to freedom: “The flesh-eater is a slave. The true vegetarian a lord” (18). This is so because raw veganism liberates from “Lust, Hate, Anger and Desire; the passions that torment men” and fosters “a healthy body, a pure mind, and a spotless soul” instead (18).

The list of “losses” caused by raw veganism is short. Rumford repeats much of what he has said already, presenting his arguments in inverse fashion (e.g., one loses interest in “saloons, breweries and distilleries” and starts “to dislike tobacco” (19)). Before offering practical tips for adopting the Edenic diet, he sums up his understanding of true reform and the true reformer, when he asks his readers what they may do for their “fellow-men”:

First, you will remain silent; second, you will look into your own mind and body to learn their contents; third, you will remove their contents: lust, gross appetite, and foul flesh, and substitute lovet [sic] temperance, and fresh fruit; and fourth, you will give every beas [sic], under heaven the liberty to enjoy that which is dearest to yourself – life! You will not, unless God in Person commands you (but, even then you will hesitate lest you mistake the Devil for God) destroy either gnat or elephant; in one word, before you attempt your neighbor’s reformation you will reform yourself, and dear, overburdened Mother Earth will carry one fool or one impostor less! (20).

Raw veganism is the most crucial aspect in this endeavor, as “the sun-cooked food is the true and only basis of economy, vitality, temperance, health, purity, mercy, chastity, peace, elevation of mind, soul-growth, and a blessed immortality” (22).