American Meat Boycott.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIV, Issue 14, 6 April 1910, Page 11

American Meat Boycott.

It will be interesting to see whether the recent meat boycott which lias extended through many cities ot the 1 nited States, and spread to Canada, will give any permanent inqietus to vegetarianism and other reformed systems of diet. One of the greatest obstacles to their adoption by more than a small minority of the people in any English-sjieaking country has hitherto been the absence of any strong reason for making the initial change. However highly the nutritive virtues of haricot beans and hazel nuts may be rated by medical analysts, a normally healthy family is slow to abandon beef and mutton for such dubious delicacies. But the popularity which vegetarianism seems unlikely to secure by its inherent attractiveness may to a certain extent be Avon for it if it is adopted as a voluntary alternative to paying exaggerated prices to a meat trust. On the mere score of bodily health it is impossible to condemn all departures from our customary diet, even in the direction of some of the most appetising of vegetarian innovations. Most human beings are open to the accusation of being mildly gluttonous, if we once accept the dictum that we ought always to rise from table before we have eaten quite as much as we should like. If, when faced by the more uncompromisingly reformed types of diet, our appetites seemed to fail rather sooner than usual, it might perhaps be little ths worse for u*, from any point of visw«