July 1, 1905 Diet and Health
Mrs. E. G. White
Our bodies are built up from the food we eat. There is a constant breaking down of the tissues of the body; every movement of every organ involves waste, and this waste is repaired from our food. Each organ of the body requires its share of nutrition. The brain must be supplied with its portion; the bones, muscles, and nerves demand theirs. It is a wonderful process that transforms the food into blood, and uses this blood to build up the varied parts of the body; but this process is going on continually, supplying with life and strength each nerve, muscle, and tissue. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 1}
Selection of Food
Those foods should be chosen that best supply the elements needed for building up the body. In this choice, appetite is not a safe guide. Through wrong habits of eating, the appetite has become perverted. Often it demands food that impairs health, and causes weakness instead of strength. We can not be safely guided by the customs of society. The disease and suffering that everywhere prevail are largely due to popular errors in regard to diet. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 2}
In order to know what are the best foods, we must study God's original plan for man's diet. He who created us, and who understands our needs, appointed Adam his food. "Behold," he said, "I have given you every herb yielding seed, . . . and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food." Gen. 1:29, A. R. V. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 3}
Upon leaving
Grains, fruits, nuts, and vegetables constitute the diet chosen for us by our Creator. These foods, prepared in as simple and natural a manner as possible, are the most healthful and nourishing. They impart a strength, a power of endurance, and a vigor of intellect, that are not afforded by a more complex and stimulating diet. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 5}
But not all foods, wholesome in themselves, are equally suited to our needs under all circumstances. Care should be taken in the selection of food. Our diet should be suited to the season, to the climate in which we live, and to the occupation we follow. Some foods that are adapted for use at one season or in one climate are not suited to another. So there are different foods best suited for persons in different occupations. Often food that can be used with benefit by those engaged in hard physical labor is unsuitable for persons who follow sedentary pursuits. God has given us an ample variety of healthful foods, and each person should choose from it the things that experience and sound judgment prove to be best suited to his own necessities. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 6}
Care should be taken to have all food in as good condition as possible. In the end, good food is the cheapest. Vegetables that are stale or of poor quality are likely to be unpalatable and unwholesome. So with fruits. Ripe and fresh, they are as wholesome as they are delicious; but green, partly decayed, or overripe fruit should never be eaten raw. When cooked, unripe fruit is less objectionable. So far as possible, however, we should use fruit in its natural state. The more we accustom ourselves to use it fresh from the tree, the greater will be our enjoyment of fruit, and the more benefit we shall receive from its use. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 7}
For use in winter a liberal supply should be prepared by canning or drying. For canning, glass rather than tin cans should be used whenever possible. It is especially necessary that the fruit for canning should be in good condition. Use little sugar, and cook the fruit only long enough to insure its preservation. Thus prepared, it is an excellent substitute for fresh fruit. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 8}
Nuts and nut foods are coming largely into use to take the place of flesh-meats. With nuts may be combined grains, fruits, and some roots, to make foods that are healthful and nourishing. Care should be taken, however, not to use too large a proportion of nuts. Those who realize ill effects from the use of nut foods may find the difficulty removed by attending to this precaution. It should be remembered, too, that some nuts are not so wholesome as others. Almonds are preferable to peanuts, but peanuts in limited quantities, used in connection with grains, are nourishing and digestible. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 9}
When properly prepared, olives, like nuts, supply the place of butter and flesh-meats. The oil, as eaten in the olive, is far preferable to animal oil or fat. It serves as a laxative. Its use will be found beneficial to consumptives, and it is healing to an inflamed, irritated stomach. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 10}
Persons who have accustomed themselves to a rich, highly stimulating diet, have an unnatural taste, and they can not at once relish food that is plain and simple. It will take time for the taste to become natural, and for the stomach to recover from the abuse it has suffered. But those who persevere in the use of wholesome food will, after a time, find it palatable. Its delicate and delicious flavors will be appreciated, and it will be eaten with greater enjoyment than can be derived from unwholesome dainties. And the stomach, in a healthy condition, neither fevered nor overtaxed, can readily perform its task. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 11}
Variety
In order to maintain health, a sufficient supply of good nourishing food is needed. But there should not be a great variety at any one meal; for this encourages overeating, and causes indigestion. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 12}
It is not well to eat fruit and vegetables at the same meal. If the digestion is feeble, the use of both will often cause distress, and inability to put forth mental effort. It is better to have the fruit at one meal, and the vegetables at another. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 13}
The meals should be varied. The same dishes, prepared in the same way, should not appear on the table meal after meal and day after day. The meals are eaten with greater relish, and the system is better nourished, when the food is varied. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 14}
Preparation of Food
It is wrong to eat merely to gratify the appetite, but no indifference should be manifested regarding the quality of the food, or the manner of its preparation. If the food eaten is not relished, the body will not be so well nourished. The food should be carefully chosen, and prepared with intelligence and skill. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 15}
For use in bread-making, the superfine white flour is not the best. Its use is neither healthful nor economical. Fine-flour bread is lacking in nutritive elements to be found in bread made From the whole wheat. It is a frequent cause of constipation and other unhealthful conditions. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 16}
The use of soda or baking-powder in bread-making is harmful and unnecessary. Soda causes inflammation of the stomach, and often poisons the entire system. Many housewives think that they can not make good bread without soda, but this is an error. If they would take the trouble to learn better methods, their bread would be more wholesome, and, to a natural taste, more palatable. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 17}
In the making of raised or yeast bread, milk should not be used in place of water. The use of milk is an additional expense, and it makes the bread much less wholesome. Milk bread does not keep sweet so long after baking as does that made with water, and it ferments more readily in the stomach. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 18}
Bread should be light and sweet. Not the least taint of sourness should be tolerated. The loaves should be small, and so thoroughly baked that, so far as possible, the yeast germs shall be destroyed. When hot or new, raised bread of any kind is difficult of digestion. It should never appear on the table. This rule does not, however, apply to unleavened bread. Fresh rolls made of wheaten meal without yeast or leaven, and baked in a well-heated oven, are both wholesome and palatable. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 19}
Grains used for porridge or "mush" should have several hours' cooking. But soft or liquid foods are less wholesome than dry foods, which require thorough mastication. Zwieback, or twice-baked bread, is one of the most easily digested and most palatable of foods. Let ordinary raised bread be cut in slices, and dried in a warm oven till the last trace of moisture disappears Then let it be browned slightly all the way through. In a dry place this bread can be kept much longer than ordinary bread, and if reheated before using, it will be as fresh as when new. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 20}
Far too much sugar is ordinarily used in food. Cakes, sweet puddings, pastries, jellies, jams, are active causes of indigestion. Especially harmful are the custards and puddings in which milk, eggs, and sugar are the chief ingredients. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 21}
The free use of milk and sugar taken together should be avoided. If milk is used, it should be thoroughly sterilized; with this precaution there is less danger of contracting disease from its use. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 22}
Butter is less harmful when eaten on cold bread than when used in cooking; but, as a rule, it is better to dispense with it altogether. Cheese is still more objectionable; it is wholly unfit for food. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 23}
Scanty, ill-cooked food depraves the blood by weakening the blood-making organs. It deranges the system, and brings on disease, with its accompaniment of irritable nerves and bad tempers. The victims of poor cookery are numbered by thousands and tens of thousands. Over many graves might be written: "Died because of poor cooking." "Died of an abused stomach." {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 24}
It is a religious duty for those who cook to learn how to prepare healthful food. Many souls are lost as the result of poor cookery. It takes thought and care to make good bread; but there is more religion in a loaf of good bread than many think. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 25}
There are few really good cooks. Young women think that it is menial to cook and do other kinds of housework; and for this reason, many girls who marry and have the care of families have little idea of the duties devolving upon a wife and mother. They can read novels and play the piano, but they can not cook. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 26}
Cooking is no mean science, and it is one of the most essential in practical life. It is a science that all women should learn, and it should be taught in a way to benefit the poorer classes. To make food appetizing and at the same time simple and nourishing, requires skill; but it can be done. Cooks should know how to prepare food in a simple and healthful manner, and so that it will be found more palatable, as well as more wholesome, because of its simplicity. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 27}
Every women who is at the head of a family, and yet does not understand the art of healthful cooker, should determine to learn that which is so essential to the well-being of her household. In many places hygienic cooking schools afford opportunity for instruction in this line. She who has not the help of such facilities should put herself under the instruction of some good cook, and persevere in her efforts for improvement until she is mistress of the culinary art. {PHJ, July 1, 1905 par. 28}
September 1, 1905 Flesh as Food
Mrs. E. G. White
Those who eat flesh are but eating grains and vegetables at second hand; for the animal receives from these things the nutrition that produces growth. The life that was in the grains and vegetables passes into the eater. We receive it by eating the flesh of the animal. How much better to get it direct, by eating the food that God provided for our use. {PHJ, September 1, 1905 par. 1}
Flesh was never the best food; but its use is now doubly objectionable, since disease in animals is rapidly increasing. Those who use flesh foods little know what they are eating. Often if they could see the animals when living, and know the quality of the meat they eat, they would turn from it with loathing. People are continually eating flesh that is filled with tuberculosis and cancerous germs. Tuberculosis, cancer, and other fatal diseases are thus communicated. {PHJ, September 1, 1905 par. 2}
The tissues of the swine swarm with parasites. Swine are scavengers, and this is the only use they were intended to serve. Never under any circumstances was their flesh to be eaten by human beings. It is impossible for the flesh of any living creature to be wholesome when filth is its natural element, and when it feeds upon every detestable thing. {PHJ, September 1, 1905 par. 3}
Often animals are taken to market, and sold for food, when they are so diseased that their owners fear to keep them longer. The very process of fattening them for market produces disease. Shut away from the light and pure air, breathing the atmosphere of filthy stables, perhaps fattening on decaying food, the entire body soon becomes contaminated with foul matter. {PHJ, September 1, 1905 par. 4}
Animals are often transported long distances and subjected to great suffering in reaching market. Taken from the green pastures, and traveling for weary miles over the hot, dusty roads, crowded into filthy cars, often for days deprived of food or water, feverish and exhausted, the poor creatures are driven to their death, that human beings may feast on the carcasses. {PHJ, September 1, 1905 par. 5}
When brought to the place of slaughter, some animals seem to realize what is to take place. They become maddened and furious. In this state they are killed, and their flesh is prepared for market. Such flesh is poisonous. {PHJ, September 1, 1905 par. 6}
In many places fish become so contaminated by the filth on which they feed as to be a cause of disease. This is especially the case where the fish come in contact with the sewage of large cities. The fish that are fed on the contents of the drains may pass into distant waters, and may be caught where the water is pure and fresh. Thus when used as food, they bring disease and death on those who do not suspect the danger. {PHJ, September 1, 1905 par. 7}
The effects of a flesh diet may not be immediately realized; but this is no evidence that it is not harmful. Few can be made to believe that it is the meat they have eaten which has poisoned their blood and caused their suffering. Many die of diseases wholly due to meat eating, while the real cause is not suspected by themselves or by others. {PHJ, September 1, 1905 par. 8}
The moral evils of a flesh diet are not less marked than the physical ills. Flesh food is injurious to health, and whatever affects the body has a corresponding effect on the mind and the soul. {PHJ, September 1, 1905 par. 9}
Think of the cruelty to animals that meat eating involves, and its effect on those who inflict and those who behold it -- how it destroys the tenderness with which we should regard these creatures of God. {PHJ, September 1, 1905 par. 10}
The intelligence displayed by many dumb animals approaches so closely to human intelligence that it is a mystery. The animals see and hear and love and fear and suffer. They use their organs far more faithfully than many human beings use theirs. They manifest sympathy and tenderness toward their companions in suffering. Many animals show an affection for those who have charge of them, far superior to the affection shown by some of the human race. They form attachments for man which are not broken without great suffering to them. {PHJ, September 1, 1905 par. 11}
What man with a human heart, who has ever cared for domestic animals, could look into their eyes, so full of confidence and affection, and willingly give them over to the butcher's knife? How could he devour their flesh as a sweet morsel? {PHJ, September 1, 1905 par. 12}
Changing the Diet
It is a mistake to suppose that muscular strength depends on the use of animal food. The needs of the system can be better supplied, and more vigorous health can be enjoyed, without its use. The grains, with fruits, nuts, and vegetables, contain all the nutritive properties necessary to make good blood. These elements are not so well or so fully supplied by a flesh diet. Had the use of flesh been essential to health and strength, animal food would have been included in the diet appointed man in the beginning. {PHJ, September 1, 1905 par. 13}
Yet it might not be best to discard flesh food under all circumstances. In certain cases of illness and exhaustion -- as when persons are dying of tuberculosis, or when incurable tumors are wasting the life forces -- it may be thought best to use flesh food in small quantities. But great care should be taken to secure the flesh of healthy animals. The danger of contracting disease by eating flesh is increasing. It is a very serious question whether there is safety in using animal food at all. It would be better to discard it under all circumstances than to use that which is diseased. {PHJ, September 1, 1905 par. 14}
When the use of flesh food is discontinued, there is often a sense of weakness, a lack of vigor. Many urge this as evidence that flesh food is essential: but it is because foods of this class are stimulating, because they fever the blood and excite the nerves, that they are so missed. Some will find it as difficult to leave off flesh eating as it is for the drunkard to give up his dram; but they will be the better for the change. {PHJ, September 1, 1905 par. 15}
When flesh food is discarded, its place should be supplied with a variety of grains, nuts, vegetables, and fruits, that will be both nourishing and appetizing. This is especially necessary in the case of those who are weak, or who are taxed with continuous labor. In some countries, where poverty abounds, flesh is the cheapest food. Under these circumstances the change will be made with greater difficulty; but it can be effected. We should, however, consider the situation of the people and the power of lifelong habit, and should be careful not to urge even right ideas unduly. None should be urged to make the change abruptly. The place of meat should be supplied with wholesome foods that are inexpensive. In this matter very much depends on the cook. With care and skill, dishes may be prepared that will be both nutritious and appetizing, and will to a great degree, take the place of flesh food. But if the cooking is done by one whose main dependence is meat, she can encourage its use to an almost unlimited extent. {PHJ, September 1, 1905 par. 16}
Educate the conscience, enlist the will, supply good, wholesome food, and the change will be readily made, and the demand for flesh will soon cease. {PHJ, September 1, 1905 par. 17}
It is not time that all should aim to dispense with flesh foods? How can those who are seeking to become pure, refined, and holy, that they may have the companionship of heavenly angels, continue to use as food anything that has so harmful an effect on soul and body? How can they take the life of God's creatures that they may consume the flesh as a luxury? Let them, rather, return to the wholesome and delicious food given to man in the beginning, and practise themselves, and teach children to practise, mercy toward the dumb creatures that God has placed under our dominion. {PHJ, September 1, 1905 par. 18}
Pacific Health Journal., 2002
"A meat diet changes the disposition and strengthens animalism. We are composed of what we eat, and eating much flesh will diminish intellectual activity. Students would accomplish much more in their studies if they never tasted meat. When the animal part of the human agent is strengthened by meat eating, the intellectual powers diminish proportionately."
Counsels for the Church, 230
"God demands that the appetite be cleansed, and that self-denial be practiced in regard to those things which are not good. This is a work that will have to be done before His people can stand before Him a perfected people." Counsels on Diet and Foods, 381
"The intellectual, the moral, and the physical powers are depreciated by the habitual use of flesh meats. Meat eating deranges the system, beclouds the intellect, and blunts the moral sensibilities." Testimonies, Vol. 2, 64
"As a general thing, the Lord did not provide His people with flesh meat in the desert because He knew that the use of this diet would create disease and insubordination. In order to modify the disposition and bring the higher powers of the mind into active exercise, He removed from them the flesh of dead animals." MS 38, 1898
"Those who indulge in meat eating, tea drinking, and gluttony are sowing seeds for a harvest of pain and death. The unhealthful food placed in the stomach strengthens the appetites that war against the soul, developing the lower propensities. A diet of flesh meat tends to develop animalism. A development of animalism lessens spirituality, rendering the mind incapable of understanding truth." Review and Herald, May 27, 1902
"We are not to make the use of flesh-meat a test, but we may and should consider the influence that professed believers who use flesh-meat have over other churches. Those who use flesh-meat disregard all the warnings that God has given concerning this question. They have no evidence that they are walking in safe paths. They have not the slightest excuse for eating the flesh of dead animals. God's curse is resting upon the animal creation. Many times when meat is eaten, it decays in the stomach, and creates disease. Cancers, tumors, and pulmonary diseases are largely caused by meat eating." Testimony Studies on Diet and Foods (1926), page 79