For all vegans and vegetarians....What if you lived 500 years ago or you'd be sent back in time?

Question

What if you'd be trapped in a time where either you eat what you can of you starve. what would you do......Cause there sure wasn't any vegan in the medieval time. Well, they sure didn't stay alive long enough.

The question is....would you eat meat. I know people did what they had to survive... but if that scenario would present itself today....would you change your habbit or just die....

These awsers don't make sence....poor peolpe had livestocks....and fruits and vegetable where not availabble all year long......you had to manage with what you had........Survival folks. I want a logic explaination

Answer 1

Well first off back then animals would not have been held in extreme inhumane conditions like they are now. Which is the main reason why I am Vegetarian. So I see no reason to contribute to that when there is an abundance of healthy substitutes out there. So maybe I would not have been a Vegetarian back then society would have been extremely different. ButI back then one also could survive on fruits vegetables etc... and live a perfectly healthy life! So who knows if you were nice & beefy and times are as bad as you describe maybe you'd do :)~

Answer 2

Many Catholic religious orders did follow a vegetarian diet, and a few were actually vegan. They ate what they grew and seldom ate meat except on feast days -- if then. Meat was reserved for invalids and the very old.

Everyone also observed Lenten fasting, which, in some cases, meant no eggs or dairy products. They survived the 40 days with no apparent problems and still managed to do grueling work. (Pun intended.)

And 500 years ago, meat was not a staple of anyone's diet except for the nobility and the very rich. The average person's diet was made up of grains, cheese, milk, vegetables, fruits, and nuts or berries. Animals were used for farm work or producing milk and eggs, and they were only slaughtered when they were too old to be useful.

So all things figured, a transplanted vegetarian would do very nicely, and a vegan would survive, as well. Sorry to disappoint you, but history just doesn't support your claims.

Answer 3

Throughout history in a wide range of cultures and locations people have lived on little more than grains and beans and whatever seasonal vegetables and fruits were available...they were geniuses of preservation using drying and pickling and other preserving techniques to make things last longer. Hunting and fishing is not always a reliable way to feed yourself, so there has to be a backup plan...which is ultimately what turned most cultures from hunters and gatherers to farmers...so they could GROW a dependable food source. There are still large portions of the world today where beans, rice, corn, millet, cowpeas, etc. are THE food. Only on special occasions would these people eat an animal because it is too expensive to eat something valued as currency.

Answer 4

If I lived 500 years ago I'd possibly have a different mindset due to all the different environmental and genetic factors influencing my choice- who knows what I'd think. AND apparently there were loads of vegetarians back then. Umberto Ecco (author of 'Foucault's Pendulum') thinks the reason why civilisation boomed 500 years ago was due to the cultivation and consumption of nuts!! They provide more energy than meat and are invaluable to people that do a lot of physical labour!*

If modern-day Andielep went back in time, different matter!! They still had vegetables and fruit back then. I'd eat them and people wouldn't think I was a freak , they'd just think it was because I was poor and couldn't afford meat !! I'd boil and sieve my water too!

As for vegans not living long, was it meat that cured scurvy ? Um no it wasn't was it!!!???

Answer 5

Greenghost is right! There are many cultures that have existed since ancient times where animals are not slaughtered for meat.
Beans grown in the summer store very well for winter use, don't forget.
But to answer your amended question: Many people who have made the choice to not eat dead animals might, deprived of all other sources of food, resort to eating animals. Just as some few people who have been in starvation situations have eaten human flesh....not through choice but necessity.
What's your point? In such theoretical situations, all kinds of things may be done for survival--- like stealing things, burning great books to keep warm... just like in the movies!
Time and circumstances certainly must be considered in all our choices. We live in the present day world with its problems and its choices... Deal with that instead of a fantasy. In today's world there are MANY logical and ethical reasons for choosing to be vegetarian.

Answer 6

Sure, I'd eat meat if it was a choice between life and death. I'm a vegetarian because I think meat is gross and disgusting, not for any ethical reasons.

By the way, if I lived 500 years ago I would probably only live to be thirty! I imagine the poor diet had something to do with that!

Answer 7

People will resort to CANNIBALISM if they are facing starvation (the movie Alive ring a bell?), so I think it's safe to say that if facing starvation, most vegetarians and vegans would resort to meat (whether they think so or not). However, in most cases, some sort of non-animal food WOULD be available... but there could theoretically be situations where nothing else is available (like in severe snow, etc).

Answer 8

Are you really that stupid??? Bhuddists and Hindu populations have maintained vegetarian status for over a millennium! Is that enough to prove you a fool?

And there were religious vegetarians in pre-christian Europe.The Vatican maintains records in the Apostolic Penitentiary of the peoples they encountered and converted. If you have the intellect to learn to read Latin you can read about some of the VEGAN 'witches' that were burned for refusing to convert!

Your basic premise is fundamentally flawed! Any anthropologist can tell you that research has proved that the most successful ancient cultures depended on plants to survive and not meat!

Answer 9

I recommend researching your info before asking a question.
500 years ago in Europe only the richest few consumed meat - potatoes, grains and vegetables were the staple diet of an average man/ woman.
Of course fruit and vegetables weren't available all year round - that's why people used to preserve them by freezing or drying. Are you really that naive?
As for the average life span, of course it was shorter than it is nowadays. But do you really think that was because of their diet rather than wars and lack of resources to fight epidemics?

Answer 10

Meat was not a large part of a medieval diet for the peasant. The animals that they owned were able to produce some other sort of economic commodity besides meat. Be it milk eggs, wool etc. Killing an animal that they had to feed when it was not absolutely necessary would be extremely stupid. As we all know converting plant matter into muscle is an amazingly wasteful process.

Personally knowing what I know now if I was transported back to that time I would forgo Veganism most likely, in favor of vegetarianism. The diet of these people was predominately vegetarian anyways. i just wouldn't partake in the meat.