Sanitarium Dietary
217
Seek the Comfort and Good Will of the Patients
424. The patients are to be provided with an abundance of whole-
some, palatable food, prepared and served in so appetizing a way that
they will have no temptation to desire flesh meat. The meals may be
made the means of an education in health reform. Care is to be shown
in regard to the combinations of food given to the patients. Knowledge
in regard to proper food combinations is of great worth, and is to be
received as wisdom from God.
The hours for meals should be so arranged that the patients will
feel that those in charge of the institution are working for their comfort
and health. Then, when they leave the institution, they will not carry
away with them the leaven of prejudice. In no case is a course to be
followed that will give the patients the impression that the time of
meals has been fixed by unalterable laws.
If, after dispensing with the third meal in the sanitarium, you see
by the results that this is keeping people away from the institution,
your duty is plain. We must remember that while there are some who
are better for eating only two meals, there are others who eat lightly at
each meal, and who feel that they need something in the evening. Food
enough is to be eaten to give strength to sinew and muscle. And we are
to remember that it is from the food eaten that the mind gains strength.
Part of the medical missionary work that our sanitarium workers are
to do is to show the value of wholesome food.
[283]
It is right that no tea, coffee, or flesh meat be served in our sani-
tariums. To many, this is a great change and a severe deprivation. To
enforce other changes, such as a change in the number of meals a day,
is likely, in the cases of some, to do more harm than good.—
Letter
213, 1902
[
See number of meals in Section IX, regularity in eating
]
Require Only Necessary Changes in Habits and Customs
425. Those connected with this institution are to remember that
God wants them to meet the patients where they are. We are to be the
helping hand of God in presenting the great problems of the truth for
this time; and we must not attempt to interfere unnecessarily with the
habits and customs of those who are in the sanitarium as patients or
guests. Many of these people come to this retired place to remain a few