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Counsels on Diet and Foods
Across the page in another paragraph written in 1905, “Grains, nuts,
vegetables, and fruits” are listed as taking the place of meat. In this
statement milk is not mentioned. Yet milk is included in her 1909
statement that appears on page 355: “Vegetables should be made
palatable with a little milk or cream, or something equivalent.... Some,
in abstaining from milk, eggs, and butter, have failed to supply the sys-
tem with proper nourishment, and as a consequence have become weak
and unable to work. Thus health reform is brought into disrepute.”
There are a number of other instances similar to those cited above
where Ellen White does not in a given statement enumerate all the ele-
ments of an adequate diet. Care must be exercised to get her complete
thought on each subject. An isolated statement should not be used by
itself, lest the part be taken for the whole.
A Call for Everyone to Study
Ellen White did not intend that her writings along nutritional lines
should exclude the need for earnest study to find the best and most
agreeable diet, taking advantage of a growing knowledge, and the
experience and investigation of others. She wrote:
“To keep the body in a healthy condition, in order that all parts of
the living machinery may act harmoniously, should be the study of our
life.”—Page 18.
“It is plainly our duty to give these [nature’s] laws careful study.
We should study their requirements in regard to our own bodies, and
conform to them. Ignorance in these things is sin.”—Ibid.
Clearly Mrs. White felt that each person should become well
informed, taking advantage of the advancements of science
[6]
in nutritional investigations, so long as the conclusions harmonize
with the counsels given through inspiration.
The Hazards of Extremes
Ellen White was not slow to point out the hazards of extremes, or
inattention, or laxity in providing an adequate diet for the family. This
fact is illustrated by the statement that the mother “by ill-prepared,
unwholesome food” might actually “hinder and even ruin both the
adult’s usefulness and the child’s development” (p. 476). In the same