Was Darwin a vegetarian?

No, he wasn’t.

That is to say, there is not a shred of evidence to make us think that he ever was—and quite a lot of evidence to the contrary. For some reason, though, many pro-vegetarian websites claim him as one of theirs.

In his youth, Darwin bagged pheasants and partridges by the score. At university, he was a member of a social dining club called The Gluttons, who specialised in eating strange meals. He became very sick after one infamous Gluttons dinner of brown (tawny) owl. During the Beagle voyage, Darwin also ate, amongst other creatures, Galápagos tortoise, puma, and rhea. Furthermore, his wife’s Recipes book (Amazon

Note: I will receive a small referral fee if you buy this book via one of the above links.

) also contains numerous meat dishes.

But the real clincher is to be found in the Sir Francis Darwin’s reminiscences about his father:

Latterly he gave up late dinner, and had a simple tea at half-past seven (while we had dinner), with an egg or a small piece of meat.

So, Darwin certainly wasn’t a vegetarian in his latter days.

12-Mar-2013

File under: Articles

Tags: faq · vegetarianism

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Comments

Luis Tovar

12/03/2013

What pro-vegetarian websites say that?

Reply
1. Richard Carter, FCD
  
  12/03/2013
  
  For a start, try here.
  
  Reply
Luis Tovar

12/03/2013

Unbelievable lack of seriousness.

Thanks for the link.

Reply
1. Richard Carter, FCD
  
  12/03/2013
  
  If you think that comment lacks seriousness, you should check in more often!
  
  Reply
John the Plumber

13/03/2013

Darwin suffered digestive problems for much of his adult life. Early 1886 found him ‘half starved to death’ on a prescribed crash diet of scanty ammounts of ‘toast & meat’. (With no complaint from him that he was vegetarian.) [See Darwin – Adrian Desmond and James Moore 1991 p 533]

Reply
1. Richard Carter, FCD
  
  15/03/2013
  
  I can confirm the Desmond/Moore quote, although, unfortunately, they give no source. The year cited is 1866, not 1886.
  
  Reply
Joun the Plumber

17/03/2013

Dyslexic typing.

Reply
John van Wyhe

25/07/2013

http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F1984&viewtype=text&pageseq=1

Reply
1. Richard Carter, FCD
  
  25/07/2013
  
  Very interesting, thanks, John.
  
  Reply
Chris

12/03/2018

I’m rather late to this party but interesting (to me at least) question for you: I once knew a mammalian biologist (a biologist of mammals rather than a biologist who was a mammal, although I seem to remember that the latter also applied) in Oxford who mentioned to me that Darwin had “discovered” a considerable number of species of mammals “by eating them”. This was in the context of a conversation on the edibility of mammals in general. I assume that he meant CD had eaten them after examining them etc.

It’s easy to imagine that on a long voyage, especially without modern methods of preservation, one might elect to eat even a new discovery rather than have it decompose. I just wondered whether you are aware of any evidence of this or whether it was just speculation.

Reply
1. Richard Carter, FCD
  
  13/03/2018
  
  I don’t know about mammals in particular, but the most famous story of Darwin ‘discovering’ a species as he was eating it was his discovery of the bird that became known as Darwin’s rhea. Darwin was aware that there were two different species of these flightless birds in South America, and had unsuccessfully tried to collect a sample of the rarer, smaller species (which he believed to be a new species to science, although it later turned out somebody else had already collected it). Then, in January 1844, Darwin was happily tucking into a bird shot for lunch by HMS Beagle‘s artist Conrad Martens, when he realised it was the very species he’d been trying to collect. He managed to preserve a few of the pieces that hadn’t been eaten.
  
  Reply

Was Darwin a vegetarian?

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