Comment on Why do modern philosophers live longer?
Vegan_Joe@anarchist.nexus 3 days agoPythagoras supposedly thought beans contained part of the human soul. He refused to eat them, and forbade his followers from eating them.
Supposedly, as he was chased out by an angry mob, he was stopped in his tracks by a field of beans to his ultimate peril.
The wiki says
This was long thought by many to be simply a dietary proscription, and often ridiculed, but many consider it to have originally been intended as advice against getting involved in politics, for voting on issues in his time was often done by using differently colored beans. Others have stated that it might signify a more general admonition against relying on the votes of people to determine truths of reality.
I’ve heard that, and I’ve also heard that a third of the Greek population had a severe, potentially deadly, allergy to fava beans, called “favism” due to an inability to produce a proper enzyme to digest them.
Which, would warrant keeping a proscriptive wide berth from them.
Pythagoras was pretty wild, being a very early proto-vegan.
As long as Man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.
It was complicated, to be clear (hence “proto-vegan"), but that kind of statement today would be controversial.
Nautalax@lemmy.world 3 days ago
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