An interesting factoid I picked up today: in the middle part of last century, there was a political party called the Vegetarian Party. A man named John Maxwell was the Vegetarian Party candidate in 1948, but was ineligible to serve as president because he was of English descent. His Vice Presidential candidate was Daniel J. Murphy.

In 1952, Murphy was the presidential candidate and Symon Gould was the Vice Presidential candidate.

In 1956, the party nominated Herbert M. Shelton, who is also known for introducing the Raw Food diet. Symon Gould was again the party’s vice presidential candidate.

Unfortunately, there’s not much more information out there on the Vegetarian Party, but it’s interesting to know that even 50 years ago, vegetarianism was enough of a movement to claim its own political candidates.