Famous Vegetarians Featured on U.S. Postage

It is commonly heard that being vegetarian is getting trendy these days. People adopt a vegetarian regime out of curiosity, for health benefits, on embracing of a new religious belief or out of mere kindness towards animals. Historical truths show that being vegetarian has always been a lifestyle for some communities around the world. Some recognized communities that have always had a vegetarian way of life hail from India. There have also been some inspirational and famous die-hard vegetarians all over the world who have always sworn by their natural green intake. Here is a collection of names of popular persons across the world that prefers a green diet.

In fact, important figures in history have thrived on a plant-based menu for hundreds of years. What is to be learnt from famed vegetarians in history?

This Greek scholar, known for his math theorem lived over 2500 years ago and ate a meatless diet, called the “Pythagorean diet” until the word vegetarian became popular in the late 1800s. He said “as long as men kill animals, they will kill each other. He who propagates the seed of murder and pain can never reap joy and love.”

Born in 1452, this Renaissance man was famous for his study of mathematics, aerospace, engineering, art, etc. His vegetarianism has been credited to reading about the life of Pythagoras. He said, “My body will not be a tomb for other creatures.” So intense was his love for animals

that he would liberate animals from meat markets.

Gandhi turned to civil disobedience to lead a forceful movement for India’s independence. One of his powerful teachers was a Jain philosopher who stressed non-violence (ahimsa) to living things. Gandhi wrote that “to my mind the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I should not take the life of a lamb for the sake of the human body.”