Christianity had many fasting customs. Though believers often did not observe them thoroughly, they were unlike the Saxons: when St. Mark's remains were smuggled into Venice, they were hidden beneath a pile of pork, which those Saxons would not even touch.
Yet there was one bottom line believers still upheld: cannibalism was forbidden. After Protestantism declined in America, vegetarianism and Zen Buddhism rose in its place. Vegetarianism probably began sweeping the West in the seventies.
Brahmins also did not eat meat. They were the upper class in India, and the early participants in vegetarianism were likewise mainly upper-class elites. They did it largely for moral improvement and physical adjustment.
Brahmins had once served as priests, mainly controlling religious authority and Divination, while the caste that ruled the people and performed military service was the Kshatriyas. Under Buddhist rules, priests could not kill living creatures. But under the Old Testament and the Five Books of Moses, priests could kill living creatures. They had to slaughter sacrificial animals, burn the organs in the prescribed manner, and scatter the ashes.
It was impossible to expect those gaunt vegetarian white-collar workers in Manhattan skyscrapers to take up guns and join the army. The military was mostly men, and they would raise hell if there was no meat to eat.
Who could imagine that scene? A United States Marine Corps special forces soldier who could eat raw beef and a cheerleader who insisted on "vegetarianism" to maintain her figure, trapped together in desperate circumstances—which of them was more likely to escape?
Eating meat or eating vegetables had originally been neutral terms, but they were criticized because they involved ethical issues.
Humans were omnivores. It was because they ate everything that they eliminated other creatures and stood at the top of the food chain. Once humanity