Extremes in Diet
155
with simplicity, yet with a nicety which will invite the appetite. You
should keep grease out of your food. It defiles any preparation of food
you may make. Eat largely of fruits and vegetables.—
Testimonies for
the Church 2:63, 1868
321. Many have misinterpreted health reform, and have received
perverted ideas of what constitutes right living. Some honestly think
that a proper dietary consists chiefly of porridge. To eat largely of
porridge would not ensure health to the digestive organs, for it is too
much like liquid.—
The Youth’s Instructor, May 31, 1894
Consideration for Individual Needs
322. You have erred, and thought it was pride which led your wife
to desire to have things more comfortable around her. She has been
stinted, and dealt closely with by you. She needs a more generous
diet, a more plentiful supply of food upon her table; and in her house
she needs things as comfortable and convenient as you can make
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them, things to make her work as easy as possible. But you have
viewed matters from a wrong standpoint. You have thought that almost
anything which could be eaten was good enough if you could live upon
it and retain strength. You have pleaded the necessity of spare diet to
your feeble wife. But she cannot make good blood or flesh upon the
diet to which you could confine yourself and flourish. Some persons
cannot subsist upon the same food upon which others can do well,
even though it be prepared in the same manner.
You are in danger of becoming an extremist. Your system could not
convert a very coarse, poor diet into good blood. Your blood-making
organs are in good condition. But your wife requires a more select diet.
Let her eat the same food which your system could convert into good
blood, and her system could not appropriate it. She lacks vitality, and
needs a generous, strengthening diet. She should have a good supply
of fruit, and not be confined to the same things from day to day. She
has a slender hold of life. She is diseased, and the wants of her system
are far different from those of a healthy person.—
Testimonies for the
Church 2:254, 1869