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Counsels on Diet and Foods
I have been calling to mind the light God has given me, and through
me to you, on health reform. Have you carefully and prayerfully sought
to understand the will of God in these matters? The excuse has been,
that the outsiders would have a meat diet, but even if they had some
meat, I know that with care and skill, dishes could be prepared to take
the place of meat in a large degree, and in a short time they could be
educated to let the flesh of dead animals alone. But if one performs the
cooking whose main dependence is meat, she can and will encourage
meat eating, and the depraved appetite will frame every excuse for this
kind of diet.
When I saw how matters were going,—that if _____ had not meat
to cook, she knew not what to provide as a substitute, and that meat
was the principal article of diet,—I felt that there must be a change
at once. There may be consumptives who demand meat, but let them
have it in their own rooms, and do not tempt the already-perverted
appetite of those who should not eat it.... You may think you cannot
work without meat. I thought so once, but I know that in His original
plan, God did not provide for the flesh of dead animals to compose the
diet for man. It is a gross, perverted taste that will accept such food....
Then the fact that meat is largely diseased, should lead us to make
strenuous efforts to discontinue its use entirely. My position now is to
let meat altogether alone. It will be hard for some to do this, as hard
as for the rum drinker to forsake his dram; but they will be better for
the change.—
Letter 2, 1884
Meeting the Issue Squarely
722. The sanitarium is doing good work. We have just come to
the point of the vexed meat question. Should not those who come to
the sanitarium have meat on their tables, and be instructed to leave it
off gradually? ... Years ago the light was given me that the position
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should not be taken positively to discard all meat, because in some
cases it was better than the desserts, and dishes composed of sweets.
These are sure to create disturbances. It is the variety and mixture of
meat, vegetables, fruit, wines, tea, coffee, sweet cakes, and rich pies
that ruin the stomach, and place human beings in a position where
they become invalids with all the disagreeable effects of sickness upon
the disposition....