Vegetarianism: Early American Vegetarianism

The writings of the German mystic Jakob Böhme were instrumental in converting a young English rustic with a literary bent to a Pythagorean diet. His name was Thomas Tryon. In numerous works, Tryon advocated a Pythagorean diet on practical and moral grounds. One of his books, Wisdom’s Dictates (1691), which was a digest of Tryon’s voluminous The Way to Health, Long Life, and Happiness (1683), found its way into the hands of the young Benjamin Franklin in the 1720s. For three years, during his late adolescence, the young printer’s apprentice embraced the Pythagorean system. In his Autobiography (1791), Franklin acknowledges his debt to Tryon and, in the same passage, makes it plain that his reasons for adopting a fleshless diet were chiefly pecuniary. By not eating flesh, he found that he could cut his food expenses in half, enabling him to acquire more books for his library.