Nikola Tesla is often hailed as one of the brightest minds of the past two century , best known for hisvisionary engineering ideasand the excogitation of the modernistic alternating current electrical energy supply system of rules .

Like many aspects of hiseccentric lifespan , it ’s evident the prophetic inventor was obsessional about his dieting . Through much of his adulthood – when his brain was most fruitful – Tesla was not so puritanical about his wellness , drinking gallons of deep brown , heavily smoking , and eating centre .

However , as the years went by , he become more restricted with his diet , pitch towards a pescatarian diet and eventually survive to the full vegetarian .

A 1944 biography titled“Prodigal genius ; the life-time of Nikola Tesla”by John J. O’Neill , reads : “ With the passing decades , Tesla shifted away from a meat dieting . He substituted Pisces the Fishes , always boiled , and in the end eliminated the meat entirely . He later almost completely eliminated the fish and live on a vegetarian diet . ”

It seems this choice to go vegetarian was found on health and well - being , but also concern about agriculture and the environs .

“ On the general rationale the fostering of cattle as a way of providing food is objectionable , because , in the sense interpreted above , it must doubtless run to the add-on of mass of a " smaller velocity . " It is certainly preferable to bring up vegetables , and I think , therefore , that vegetarianism is a praiseworthy departure from the found barbarious wont , ” Teslawrotein the June 1900 edition of The Century Illustrated Magazine .

“ That we can subsist on works food for thought and execute our workplace even to advantage is not a theory , but a well - demonstrated fact . Many races living almost exclusively on vegetables are of superior physique and strength , ” he added .

He also did by with smoke after his sister fell sick and shunned his much - loved stimulants , including his favourite caffeinated drink , coffee .

“ As a youth , he drank a expectant spate of coffee , and , while he gradually became aware that he suffered unfavourable influence from it , he found it a difficult use to break . When he finally made the decision to drink no more of it , he adhered to his good intention but was forced to recognize the fact that the desire for it remained . He combated this by order with each meal a pot of his favorite deep brown , and having a cupful of it poured so that he would get the perfume , ” O’Neill wrote in the Tesla biography .

It ’s not clear why Tesla was so ardently against caffein in his late sprightliness , but he was so opposed to the stimulant that he write in 1935 that people would lose the taste for it within a C . Likesome of his other predictions , it looks like he might have got that one wrongfulness , unless the next decade has some big surprises .

" More hoi polloi drop dead or grow sick from contaminated water than from chocolate , Camellia sinensis , tobacco , and other stimulants . I myself eschew all stimulant . I also practically abstain from substance . I am convinced that within a one C coffee , tea , and tobacco plant will be no longer in vogue . Alcohol , however , will still be used . It is not a stimulant but a veritable philosopher’s stone of life history . The abolition of stimulation will not come about forcibly . It will but be no longer stylish to poison the system with harmful factor , ” Tesla wrote in a Liberty magazine article entitled"A Machine to End War"written in 1935 .

Tesla is not the only famed champion of this era to opt for a vegetarian diet . Albert Einstein was an omnivore for much of his life , but driftedtowards vegetarianisma year or so before his dying in 1955 .