De gezondheidsoorlog van 1900

Vegetariërs tegen de gevestigde wetenschap

Samenvatting

In the early twentieth century, Dutch vegetarians operated in an organised network to promote their diet. Their beliefs about vegetarianism were partly concerned with the relationship between eating meat and being healthy. Unfortunately, many of their ideas conflicted with those of the contemporary health sciences. Building on the ideas of Justus von Liebig, scientists believed animal proteins were essential for human health, and thus disregarded vegetarianism as an unhealthy lifestyle. Some vegetarians created alternative scientific paradigms to disprove the conventional health sciences. Using two sources of vegetarians from that time, Salomonson and Te Hennepe, the dynamics of these paradigms will be explored.