[4] Author and activist Charles Walter Forward writes that throughout Phillips lifetime, he "undoubtedly did much to spread a knowledge of Vegetarian principles.

"[1] His notorious abstinence led a writer of the Quarterly Review to jest, while in reference to Phillips' "Reasons [...]," that although he would not eat meat, he was addicted to "gravy over his potatoes.

This list was then submitted to the Medical and Physical Journal, which printed it in the October 26, 1811 edition, entitled "The Writer's Reasons for not Eating Animal Food.

"[6] Its publication was noted in Fifty Years of Food Reform: A History of the Vegetarian Movement in England, and was described as arising from "the faith that was in him with regard to humanitarian dietetics.

[9] It is noted by English writer and preacher Joseph Nightingale with Phillips' work, that "this benevolent species of abstinence has numerous observers.

Reasons for not eating animal food would later appear in Phillips' 1826 work Golden Rules for Social Philosophy; or a new system of practical ethics.

To make it more suitable for his humanitarian readers, the colonialist points were removed, which the online vegan service HappyCow claims as an "early example of 'political correctness'.

Phillips writes that nature has made a "superabundant provision [...] of numerous Vegetables [...] which serve to render his own Health, Strength, and Spirits."