Ernest Bonnejoy

Ernest Bonnejoy (1833-1896) was a French physician and vegetarianism activist.

Bonnejoy aimed to rationalize vegetarianism. He favoured health over moral arguments. He argued meat was harmful for health and that vegetarianism could reverse the degeneration of the French population. Historians have described Bonnejoy as the most influential French vegetarian in the 1880s and 1890s.

His book Vegetarianism and the Rational Vegetarian Regime (1891) was influenced by the discoveries of Louis Pasteur and the then new germ theory of disease. Bonnejoy promoted "muscular vegetarianism" to boost the immune system and improve public health.

Bonnejoy was a member of the Sociéte Végétarienne de France (Vegetarian Society of France). He contributed to the Society's journal, La Reforme Alimentaire.

• Principes d'alimentation rationnelle hygienique et economique avec des recettes de cuisine vegetarienne (1884)
• Le Végétarisme et le Régime Végétarien Rationnel (1891)
• Principes d'alimentation rationnelle et de cuisine végétarienne (1896)