"The feces are laden with all our bloodguilt"

Elias Canetti (1905–1994) is not known to have suffered from loss of appetite. Nothing is known about vegetarianism, veganism or fruitarianism in the 1981 Nobel Prize for Literature, yes, in his famous “Notes” he once said somewhat contritely: “This ceaseless self-abasement before Kafka: because I eat indiscriminately? (I've never really thought about what I eat).”

While such a sentence in today's time, which adheres to all possible nutritional religions, sounds completely yesterday's, almost like the confession of a mortal sin, Canetti has dealt with food and eating in his work almost obsessively - and in a radical way, the current moral and puts health apostles far in the shade.

"How is it possible that one puts a torn piece in one's mouth, tears it for a long time, and then words come out of the same mouth?" writes Canetti in a 1947 note from The Province of Man. For the moralist Canetti, eating as a vital necessity and human condition is an absurdity that is incompatible with the spiritual heights of the species. Eating always presupposes killing - be it of animals or plants - and is thus for Canetti an essential driving force in the violent history of mankind, which culminates in the mass murders of the 20th century.

The Jew Canetti, who emigrated from Vienna to London, had a similarly outraged view of factory farming and slaughterhouses as today's animal welfare activists: his ethnologically trained view saw the slaughtering and consumption of animals as a precursor to murder and manslaughter.

Even someone who eats cooked food is already a bit bruised, which is why the ideal is the complete renunciation not only of meat but of any form of food intake: "The deepest meaning of asceticism is that it receives mercy. The eater has less and less mercy and finally none. A man who does not need to eat and yet thrives, who behaves like a man mentally and emotionally, although he never eats—that would be the highest moral experiment imaginable; and only if it were happily resolved could one seriously think of overcoming death,” says The Province of Man. Radicality not for religious or health reasons, but as a moral requirement: fasting for the salvation of the soul.

In his main work "Mass und Macht", Canetti, who understood his work as a tireless struggle against the scandal of death, even suspected digestion: "The excrement that is left of everything is laden with all our bloodguilt. From him you can see what we have murdered,” it says.

How can man escape from his nature? Not at all. In 1948 Canetti wrote: "Perhaps guilt is ... the most barren thing there is. We're going to keep eating. Breathing alone, on which there are no debts, is still unspoiled and pure.” It's good that Canetti hadn't heard about the CO2 footprint.