Defense and Clarifications of "Are Jews to Blame for Vegetarianism?"

So my post last week Are Jews to Blame for Vegetarianism? got quite a bit of attention. Let me first clarify a few commonly raised points. First, I use "vegetarianism" as an admittedly confusing term for the current nutritional paradigm that stigmatizes saturated fat and glorifies plant food. I use "vegetarianism" because, ultimately, this way of thinking leads to vegetarianism as the most healthy diet. But in general, when I say "vegetarianism" I do not mean a diet strictly devoid of animal products such as fish, butter, milk, or even chicken and turkey; I merely mean a view of nutrition that specifically blames red meat and saturated fat for our modern ailments. Second, some commenters reflexively dismissed my post as banal Jewish conspiracy theory, with eminent HBD blogger Half Sigma exclaiming:

I really getting sick and tired of HBD bloggers blaming everything on the Jews.

But my argument did not rest on anything particularly controversial, as I (perhaps tacitly) made no appeal to the "ethnocentric" theory of Jewish collusion. This theory, most prominently espoused by Cal State professor Kevin MacDonald, holds that Jewish antagonism towards the majority culture results from a unique biological imperative in which Jews, like parasites, are deterministically spurred to action. I don't subscribe to that objectionable theory; instead, my argument was based on undeniably common Jewish attitudes and how those attitudes manifest in a scientific field rife with social bias.

I ask then is it so outlandish to suggest that some aspects of white Christian culture alienate Jews and that such exclusion would spur some Jews to do something about it. Take the now ubiquitous "Happy Holidays" greeting and the laughably inclusive "holiday" displays, a gross cultural shift that was undoubtedly led by all "those lonely Jews on Christmas". Half Sigma wrote a post describing "how Jews feel on Christmas":

I feel so left out during Christmas times :( Everyone is so excited to see all their family and put up the tree and all the rituals. Ever since a young kid I've always been jealous. I've always wanted to celebrate Christmas but my family doesn't...we are Jewish so we celebrate Hanukah...why aren't their any snowmen in blue and white?! Am I the only one this left out?!

Some Jews feel left out from mainstream America, a fact evinced by just about every single Jewish-themed movie or TV show, from A Serious Man to Northern Exposure. Is it outrageous to believe that if the above person had the power to affect change, to moderate her "other-ness", that she would do so?

In looking at this issue, we should consider two social phenomena: motive and influence. Did mid-century Jews have the motive to stigmatize red meat and saturated fat and did they have the influence to do so?

Present at the Scene: Jews are very smart, so they inevitably rise to the top of intellectual endeavors. But the American ruling class didn't much want them around prior to the 1950's. That began to change around mid-century and they don't call it The Jewish Century for nothing. Going back to Taubes' description of the American nutritional field, he contends that a new generation of researchers came along after WWII:

The European physicians and researchers who hadn't died in the Second World War or fled the continent had far more pressing issues to deal with than obesity. In the United States, a new generation of physicians and nutritionists came along after the war and they were enamored with Newburgh's "perverted appetite" logic.

On rather solid ground, we can presume many of these "new generation" researchers were either Jewish immigrants fleeing Europe or Jewish intellectuals making headway into the WASP elite. So was there an increasing amount of Jews "at the scene of the crime"? It appears so; the modern nutritional paradigm came along simultaneous to the growth of Jewish influence in nutritional science (latter from Taubes).

What was the motive? Admittedly, this argument rests on somewhat circumstantial evidence. We need to put Jews at the "scene of the crime" and give them ample motive, distinct from that of their leftist WASP peers, for fashioning a false nutritional narrative. Taubes' description and the incontrovertible prominence of American Jews in academia puts them "at the scene." So here's the motive.

A non-exhaustive list of meat currently stigmatized by the nutritional establishment reads like a traditional white Christian dinner: pork, ham, bacon, lard, and gelatin. Butter and oil, staples of down-home Southern cooking, are out too. And ever hear Dean Ornish or Andrew Weil encourage people to start eating hunting game like deer, rabbit, bird, and wild boars?

Now note the lack of overlap between Jewish cuisine and foods currently disparaged by health experts. With all due respect to Half Sigma, his claim that Jews hunt because one hunter-blogger has a sort-of-maybe-Jewish last name is worse than anything I've read on race liberal sites. Audacious Epigone crunched the numbers and concludes that Jews, being cosmopolitan and middle-class, are by far the lowest demographic in terms of hunting. Only 2.5% of Jews hunt, compared to about 20% of other religions, with that number assuredly way higher amongst white Christians, both working class and upper class. As for vegetarianism, AE finds that Jews "often" or "always" avoid meat at twice the rate of other groups, implying their cultural background does not dissuade them from adopting an anti-meat diet.

As for Jewish cuisine, you won't find Paula Deen-style steaks next to the gefilte fish. According to the Wikipedia article, Jews have historically avoided meat eating due to kosher dietary laws, which would apply to hunting meat as well:

The Jewish love of fish goes back to ancient times. With kosher meat not always available, fish became an important staple of the Jewish diet. As fish is not considered meat, it can also be eaten with dairy products (although some Sefardim do not mix fish and dairy).

The most popular Jewish meat is chicken, perhaps the only "acceptable" meat according to our nutritional establishment. (I'm aware that barely any Jews still follow kosher laws, but prior to the 60s, most Jews would either adhere to these laws themselves or view kosher food as a sacred cultural idea corresponding with respect for elder family members.)

So can food really motivate behavior and class or ethnic snobbery? Writing at Fox News, James Richardson gives a fantastic description of this bias in the context of the "northern perspective" against Paula Deen:

But the Bronx cheer for apparent chef-turned-rebel terrorist Deen, a prototypical Southern mother with a lifetime's recipes of irredeemably deep-fried dishes, is less a reflection of the culinary elitism that runs through Bourdain's vice-ridden travelogues than the regionalist snobbery that fuels its appeal.

Yet the northern perspective of the South amounts to little more than a crude distillation of the most specious of stereotypes, the uncouth yang to their cultured yin. Reserving unparalleled contempt for the region's myths and manners, fundamental to northern exceptionalism is the notion of southern inadequacy.

[I]t takes only one church potluck to find the South's mothers incensed by the elitists volleys that have been coming at a kindred, indeed a legitimate icon, whose opus serves as the mortar for family gatherings both large and small.

The impulse for Bourdain to shepherd Deen and her flock, ignorant and fat the whole bunch, is driven by the presumption that inherent in the southern experience is something so harmful to the social accretion of our great union that it must be contained at all costs. God! Guns! Grease!

Food is an undoubtedly important part of culture. It separates us and, in the context of this post, it signals those that belong to our group and those that do not. Quite simply, the mid-century Jewish food customs and restrictions cast many Jews as apparent outsiders, unable to engage in perhaps the most imperative group socializing activity - eating. As the Jewish commenter above, many Jews likely "felt left out" as their gentile peers munched on bacon, pork, and the exotic (at least to both Jewish and non-Jewish urbanites) meats like deer from their last hunt. And note that I haven't even broached the primary subject of my last post - postwar anti-German bias noted by Taubes, especially harmful since Germans pioneered the correct explanation for obesity and nutrition.

We know science suffers from rather astounding levels of bias, researchers seemingly content to fabricate global warming and HBD data in order to pursue social ends. So why must we repudiate the mere possibility that mid-century Jews tipped the scales for their own personal social gain? We know the nutritional establishment has been lying for sixty years now; perhaps there's a discernible reason for their doing so. (And it goes without saying that, yes, many gentiles were responsible as well, like Christian fundamentalist Kellogg and granola-eating types out West. But in this post, I'm concerned with the most substantial subgroup.)