Owen’s community was also supposed to be self-suffi cient, so they
grew their own food and in his original plans it was to be vegetarian.
His food reform ideas infl uenced a whole generation of people who
thought that the only way to improve society is to escape. Instead,
change the nature of work, destroy the inequality between humans,
and stop the oppression of animals.
There were a slew of utopian socialist experiments in the mid-19th
century. What all of these experiments had in common is that they
gave up private property and lived and ate communally. They grew
their own food and were often so industrious that they could sell
much of their produce or the things they made.
Some of these groups were also explicitly or quasi-religious in
nature. For example, the Shakers lived in these communes starting
in upstate New York and New England, but they spread throughout
the Ohio valley and south into Kentucky. By the mid-19th century,
there were about 5,000 members in a dozen communities. The only
reason these communities were bound to disappear eventually is
that they were also celibate.
All of these movements are a
reaction against the mainstream
food culture—as well as its ideology
of oppression and inequality. Their
diet is just one facet of a much larger
set of ideas for reform, and their
emphasis on purity of food is in part
directly stimulated by reports about
all of the food adulteration. Many of
these groups gave up coffee and tea
because of the oppression involved
in growing them. Many also began
to eat more raw foods that were less
processed as a conscious reaction
Vegetables can have healing
effects on the body.
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