Market Highstalls
Seattle is one of the most vegetarian-friendly cities in the United States. Part of what makes this possible is the abundance and quality of produce throughout much of the city, including the highstalls of Pike Place Market.
Vegetarians are people who have chosen to refrain from consuming animals and animal products such as meat, poultry, and fish. Ovo-lacto vegetarians may eat eggs, cheese, yogurt, and other dairy projects, but total vegetarians, or vegans, avoid all animal products, including honey.[1]
Vegetarianism in the United States dates at least to 1817, when vegetarianism as a communal movement made its way to the country from England, but other, earlier, European migrants to North America also followed meatless diets in the eighteenth century and members of American Indian tribes such as the Osage have described their ancestors as peaceful farmers who did not eat flesh.[2]
Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, advocates of vegetarianism linked it to an array of social reforms, including the emancipation of slaves and women’s suffrage. Vegetarian reform during this period called for radical changes in American culture and society. Today, the vegetarian movement is connected more closely to individualism and environmental and animal rights’ causes. Proponents of vegetarianism and veganism cite health benefits, the environmental damage of raising livestock, the conditions of commercial animal farms, and worldwide food shortages as reasons to adopt a vegetarian diet.[3]
Seattle has the second-highest number of vegetarian restaurants of any city in the nation after Portland, Oregon.[4]
[1] Environmental Encyclopedia, ed. Marci Bortman (Detroit: Gale, 2003), s.v. "Vegetarianism," by Lewis G. Regenstein.
[2] Adam Shprintzen, The Vegetarian Crusade: The Rise of an American Reform Movement, 1817-1921 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2013), 2-3.
[3] Shprintzen, Vegetarian Crusade, 4-5; Environmental Encyclopedia, s.v. "Vegetarianism."
[4] "Vegetarian Statistics," Statistic Brain, last modified June 18, 2013, accessed August 16, 2016, http://www.statisticbrain.com/vegetarian-statistics/.
Credits and Sources:
Description by Madison Heslop on behalf of the American Society for Environmental History.
Regenstein, Lewis G. "Vegetarianism." In Environmental Encyclopedia, edited by Marci Bortman. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 2003.
Shprintzen, Adam D. The Vegetarian Crusade: The Rise of an American Reform Movement, 1817-1921. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2013.
Statistic Brain Research Institute. "Vegetarian Statistics." Statistic Brain. Last modified June 18, 2013. Accessed August 16, 2016. http://www.statisticbrain.com/vegetarian-statistics/.
