And, of course, he was a vegetarian, a cause he embraced in middleage. Or we might say he thought he was a vegetarian; the college chef was soworried that Mayor was abstemious and getting too thin that he added meatstock to the soups that Mayor preferred to eat. Mayor was also a teetotaller.Although he didn’t foist his diet or abstention onto others, he did spread theword in his books: Modicus Cibi Medicus Sibi, or, Nature her Own Physicianin 1880, What is Vegetarianism? in 1886, and Plain Living and High Thinkingin 1897. He contributed articles to Dietetic Reformer and VegetarianMessenger, publications of the Vegetarian Society. He became President ofthe Society in 1884, a position he held until his death in 1910 when he waseighty-five – and he attributed his healthiness in later life to his diet andascetic mode of living. Over this period, Mayor had witnessed new words fortypes of vegetarians: veg (1884), fruitarian (1893), and nutarian (1909). (Theword vegan would not appear until later, in 1944.)

the word vegetarian did not existbefore 1842 (until then, those who abstained from meat were called‘Pythagoreans’ or ‘Grahamites’)

The dominion of man over animal that this naming manifests thus comes before original sin and the Fall,6

While there is limited data available that can confidently measure the expansion of the meatless population, societal indicators like the double-digit sales growth of plant-based food options between 2014 and 2017 reflect a growing consumer demand for vegan and vegetarian foods. Still, an analysis by Animal Charity Evaluators found that between 2 and 6 percent of Americans self-identify as vegetarians, and only 1 percent of Americans self-identify as vegetarians and report never consuming meat.