Judge — June 15, 1929 — page 12: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "The Vegetarian Who Couldn't Eat Ants" This cartoon satirizes vegetarians through dark humor. The scene shows men dining outdoors in a forest setting, with one figure appearing distressed or recoiling. The title's joke—that a vegetarian "couldn't eat ants"—plays on the logical absurdity of strict vegetarianism: if one won't eat meat, why refuse insects, which are also living creatures? The cartoon mocks vegetarian principles as hypocritical or impractical, suggesting vegetarians draw arbitrary lines about which animals to consume. The figures' reactions suggest the vegetarian protagonist faces an awkward social or moral predicament at the meal. This reflects early 20th-century satirical attitudes toward dietary reform movements, which Judge magazine frequently ridiculed as pretentious or philosophically inconsistent.