On this day in vegan history · January 17, 1706
Ben Franklin Talks Himself Into (and Out of) Vegetarianism
Born in Boston on this day, Franklin spent his teenage apprenticeship skipping meat to buy more books, until a plate of fried cod smelled too good to pass up.
The facts
- Born
- January 17, 1706, Boston
- Age when he read Tryon
- about sixteen
- The book
- a work by Thomas Tryon recommending a vegetable diet
- Where the resolve broke
- aboard ship, becalmed off Block Island, on his first voyage from Boston
Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston on January 17, 1706, and by his early teens was apprenticed to his older brother James, a printer. Around age sixteen he read a book by Thomas Tryon urging a vegetable diet and resolved to give up meat and fish. His brother agreed to hand over half the weekly board money if Franklin would feed himself instead, and Franklin banked the savings to buy more books. The resolve lasted a couple of years, until a ship becalmed off Block Island on his first voyage out of Boston caught cod, the smell of it frying won him over, and the sight of smaller fish inside the cods' stomachs gave him the excuse he needed to eat them anyway.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
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When about sixteen years of age I happened to meet with a book, written by one Tryon, recommending a vegetable diet. I determined to go into it.
Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Source: ushistory.org -
If you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you.
Benjamin Franklin, recalling his reasoning about the cod, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Source: ushistory.org
Why it still matters
It is one of the earliest personal accounts of an American choosing to stop eating animals on ethical grounds, and it is just as honest about how easily that resolve gets talked out of itself, a pattern vegans have recognized ever since.
Sources
This history is still being written.
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