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History Of Vegetarianism

Daniel talks with Colin Spencer, author of "The Heretic's Feast, a History of Vegetarianism". Spencer says one of the first great vegetarians on record was Pythagoras, who about 25 hundred years ago, headed a sect which believed in part that human souls can reincarnate into animal forms and therefore animals shouldn't be eaten. Pythagoras was considered to be a very holy man at the time, but in later years European Christians viewed vegetarians as heretics and poked fun at them - a habit which Spencer says persists today.

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