Strengthening the Gut for Self-Governance. The “Whig Diet” and its Critics in Antebellum America

Abstract

This article examines a dispute between the physician and Whig politician Luther V. Bell and the diet reformer Sylvester Graham about the right diet for working men in New England. Graham, a fiery advocate of vegetarianism, argued that meat destroyed the vital energies of the system, and that only a vegetarian diet would meet the needs of workers in industrializing New England. Bell, for his part, argued that the dietary traditions of the region, which included meat, were sufficient for safeguarding workers’ health and strength. This article extends our historical understanding of Grahamite vegetarian ideas by analysing the views and motivations of the physicians who opposed him, analysing how shifts in medical theory, political context, and religious fervour shaped the debate. As the opponents of the laissez-faire Democrats, the Whigs were devoted to national development and centralized government. The “Whig Diet” therefore was designed to ensure a healthy body whose passions were kept under proper control while reason directed the action of the system. An examinination of the Whig Diet and the ideas that shaped it helps to uncover the perception of consumption and bodily regimen among antebellum Americans and how they thought it could bolster the moral and political order of their country.