The Dark Origins of Veganism: How a Religious Agenda Hijacked Nutrition and Health
I was curious about the origins of veganism—not the modern influencers or trendy meat substitutes, but where it really began. What I found was more bizarre and unsettling than expected. It turns out that today’s push for plant-based eating didn't start with science or health. It started as a tool to suppress human desires—literally.
Let’s go back to the mid-1800s. The Seventh-day Adventist Church was founded in part by Ellen G. White, a religious figure who believed that meat stimulated the “lower passions” of man—particularly masturbation and sexual excitement. Yes, seriously. Her solution? A bland, plant-based diet that would help people remain morally pure by dulling their physical urges. She claimed this type of diet was divinely inspired—one that avoided meat, spices, caffeine, and even mustard.
White’s teachings heavily influenced a man named John Harvey Kellogg, a devout Adventist and the director of the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan. Kellogg took this idea and ran with it. Not only was he fanatically opposed to sexual expression (he even believed in circumcising boys without anesthesia and using carbolic acid on girls to curb urges), but he also believed that food could and should be used to control behavior.
So, he invented breakfast cereal.
Corn flakes were born as a bland, meatless, stimulation-free food to keep people calm and “pure.” It wasn’t about health—it was about compliance.
Fast forward to today, and the influence of this ideology is still everywhere. Loma Linda University, the epicenter of Adventist nutrition research, continues to conduct and publish studies promoting vegetarian and vegan diets. These studies are funded by Adventist institutions and often cited in national dietary guidelines. The reach is deep—into medical schools, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and public policy. It's no coincidence that so many "official" health recommendations push plant-based eating and vilify meat.
But let’s talk about the actual science for a moment.
A vegan diet, while morally driven for some, is deeply misguided. Not only is it inherently high in carbohydrates—especially when built around grains, legumes, and processed meat alternatives—but it’s also lacking in essential nutrients like B12, heme iron, retinol (active vitamin A), DHA, creatine, and even complete protein unless carefully planned (and often supplemented). Many of these nutrients are only found in meaningful amounts in animal products.
And here’s something rarely acknowledged: countless small animals and insects are slaughtered during planting and harvesting. Rodents, rabbits, birds, and soil-dwelling creatures are poisoned, crushed, or displaced to make way for industrial-scale monocrops. So, the idea that a vegan diet is free from harm is simply not true—it just shifts the suffering out of sight.
Worse yet, plants contain natural defense chemicals known as anti-nutrients—oxalates, lectins, phytates, and others—that can impair mineral absorption, irritate the gut, and trigger inflammation in sensitive individuals. These aren’t minor details; they’re serious roadblocks to optimal health that are rarely discussed in mainstream nutrition circles.
So here we are, 150+ years later, still echoing the dietary doctrines of a religious movement whose main goal wasn’t wellness, but obedience.
Once you start seeing the historical roots of the plant-based agenda, you can’t unsee them. It’s not a conspiracy—it’s documented history. The cereal aisle isn’t just full of breakfast options; it’s a shelf of propaganda born out of an effort to quiet the flesh.
The real tragedy? The metabolic fallout of high-carb, nutrient-poor diets is visible everywhere: obesity, diabetes, anxiety, chronic fatigue. And yet, the narrative remains tightly controlled.
Maybe it’s time to ask ourselves: who’s really benefiting from this narrative—and who’s paying the price?
This content is never meant to serve as medical advice.
In crafting this blog post, I aimed to encapsulate the essence of research findings while presenting the information in a reader-friendly format that promotes critical thinking and informed decision-making.
