Early 20th Century
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Menu from the BattleCreek Sanitairum, Jan 1 1930
Kellogg and the vegetarian Battle Creek San
Who would expect hospital food to actually be vegetarian -- or festive? On
January 1, 1930, the cooks at the Battle Creek Sanitarium of the Michigan town
of that name whipped up a holiday bill of fare that was meat-free. Battle Creek
Sanitarium was not a typical health institute, but a posh resort and holistic
health spa as well as hospital. Famous surgeon John Harvey Kellogg. M.D., who
had been the young star of the Seventh Day Adventist’s church health mission,
was the superintendent of the Battle Creek Sanitarium.
Kellogg, for several decades spanning the late 19th and early 20th Centuries,
was a leading advocate of the vegetarian diet. For example, during an era when a
meat-laden breakfast was typical, physician Kellogg perfected ready-to-eat
cereal, perhaps from a recipe for cereal that needed to be soaked over-night, a
recipe created by James Caleb Jackson, M.D. of the Dansville ( New York)
Sanitarium.
The Battle Creek Sanitarium superintendent and his wife Ella Kellogg invented
food products to help patients stay well once they returned to their homes, and
‘The San’ employed cooks and dieticians to concoct other prepared foods for a
mail order business. One of the nutrition experts who worked for Kellogg was
Lenna Cooper, who was later a founder of the American Dietetic Association.
The food products sold by Kellogg included nut-based roasts and cutlets. Later
the doctor’s brother, Will Kellogg, exploited the commercial potential of the
foods and built the business that is today a household word (and that was
swallowed up by a giant corporation in recent years).
The guests of the Battle Creek San were people from all walks of life, including
those at the top of society’s hierarchy. Among the guests of Kellogg’s opulent
establishment were captains of industry such as C.W. Barron, Henry Ford, S.
Kresge, and Harvey Firestone, and celebrated actors like Johnny Weismuller.
Few people today know that Dr. Kellogg was an influential advocate of
vegetarianism. His enthusiasm for fruits, vegetables, and nuts helped Americans
realize these are healthful and tasty foods. Kellogg, a distinguished surgeon,
taught the public through lectures and his popular magazine Good Health. His
bold efforts against the meat industry and their ‘Eat More Meat’ campaign also
fueled the vegetarian movement.
For all his good works of helping patients and the public to eat more fruits and
vegetables, Kellogg may have been a eugenicist; what this meant to him, as this
was prior to the horror of World War II, we have not researched. We have found
that vegetarian history, like all of American history, is the story of people
and their ideas and actions; some of the people may have been near saint-like,
and others may have had less-than-beneficent intent for their fellow human
beings.
It has been said that thousands of people were successfully treated at the
Battle Creek San, probably most by Kellogg, whose work in the new fields of
vegetarian nutrition and no-meat cuisine still resonate today, as others who
followed after him studied his books or used his recipes. For example, the
vegetarian advocates of the late 1960s and early 1970s had some American
resources and also relied upon literature borrowed from England, where the
vegetarian movement seems to have been more organized. American vegetarian
activists found facts of vegetarian nutrition from Kellogg’s books, as well as
from those of other food and health writers. Nutrition information was important
at a time when most people still believed that without meat in the diet a person
would become weak or sick.
Kellogg seems to spared no expense or effort in entertaining, educating, and
feeding guests of his establishment. Photos of celebrations at Battle Creek show
gentlemen and ladies dressed in fine clothes and seated for dinner in luxurious
surroundings. The menu offered to ‘San’ guests for New Year’s Day 1930 included:
Protose Loaf--Brown Gravy, Cheese Croquettes, Currant Jelly, Mushroom and Potato
Pie, and Browned Eggplant.
omplete menu, including the cover art, click
Related: Visit our holiday mini-exhibit and our new Vegetarian Musclemen page at
www.vegetarianmuseum.com
Michael and Karen Iacobbo are the authors of Vegetarian America: A History and
Vegetarians and Vegans in America Today. They are the founders of
www.vegetarianmuseum.com Contact them at vegusa@cox.net
How I Became a Vegetarian
Vegetarian Magazine, June 1924
M.R.L. Freshel and the Millennium Guild
Legacy of The Millennium Guild: Victorian Era to the Late in the 19 th Century, Maude Russell Lorraine Sharpe was an advocate for animal liberation. And ardent anti-vivisectionist, Ms. Sharpe became a vegetarian and worked well into the 20 th Century for the rights of animals. She was also a talented artist who designed the well-known Wisteria lamp manufactured by the Tiffany company.
A socialite based in Boston, Masschusetts, Sharpe was author of The Golden Rule cookbook, in which she combined recipes and philosophy, including these words: 'Do Unto Others As You Would That Others Should Do Unto You Even Though They Be Four-Footed And Dumb'. To see an image of the book’s cover click here: http://www.cookbkjj.com/MM071.ASP?pageno=237
In 1911Sharpe established The Millennium Guild, and organization founded after the Biblical promise of a return to paradise, and dedicated to vegetarian and anti-vivisection advocacy.
Today those vegetarians fortunate to live in or visit San Francisco recognize the name Millennium as that of the gourmet vegetarian restaurant, http://www.millenniumrestaurant.com/ that is not connected to the animal rights organization of the past, but is owned by a couple that shares the sensibilities of the group.
A visionary, like Ann Weed of the restaurant who features the finest dining, Maude RL Sharpe presented to Boston delicious, elaborate vegetarian Thanksgiving dinners at the posh Copley Hotel.
What is more , stylish and much-admired beauty Sharpe hosted fashion shows featuring non-animal-derived furs, feathers, and leathers. The press reported on these events without ridicule, but with curiosity about the fashionable vegetarian lady and the members of her unusual groyup devoted to the liberation of animals from the slaughterhouse, fur trap, and vivisection laboratory.
Sharpe, later “MRL Freshel’ and her spouse Curtis Freshel at their celebrated Boston area mansion held lectures by phsycians and other experts on vegetarian subjects, showed slaughterhouse films, and had a bakery.
Businessman Curtis Freshel introduced Bakon Yeast , a meaty flavoring , to the US, to enhance the flavor of vegetarian foods.
Together, Mrs. Freshel and her husband and their Millennium Guild published a book of writings by emeninet authors , statesmen and scholars against vivisection.
Eventually, the Freshels handed down The Millennium Guild to Pegeen Fitzgerald and her husnad Ed Fitzgerald, the famous and popular WOR radio talk show host duo in New York City. The couple began their onversation-type radio program during the 1940s. Pegeen Fitzgerald was a vegetarian who opposed fur coats in an era when glamourous celebrities like herself were expected to wear mink or sable coats. She discussed her vegetarianism and concern for animal rights on the radio show, leading her to eventually publish a vegetarian cookbook, as had Mrs Freshel.
It was Mrs. Fitzgerald who was the catylist behind the groundbreaking demonstrations in the early 1980s against the vivisection of cats at the NY Museum of Natural History. These protests were a factor in the invigoration of the animal rights movement that had begun even before the Freshel’s involvement, and originated in the early 19 th Century in the United States, and in Ancient times in other areas of the globe.
Pegeen Fitgerald died in 1989. Her Last Post Sanctuary for animals in Connecticut is today cared for by a pioneering woman of journalism Ms. Jeanne Toomey
Last Post Sanctuary, call 860-824-0831, or write c/o Box 259, Falls Village, Ct. 06031.
More on Freshel and the Millennium Guild
