Testimony Studies on Diet and Foods

God gave our first parents the food He designed that the race should eat. And He permitted that long-lived race to eat animal food to shorten their sinful lives. {TSDF 62.3}

 
Meat is not essential for health or strength, else the Lord made a mistake when He provided food for Adam and Eve before their fall. All the elements of nutrition are contained in the fruits, vegetables and grains. {TSDF 62.4}
 
But the Hebrews were not satisfied. They despised the food given them from heaven, and wished themselves back in Egypt, where they could sit by the flesh-pots. They preferred slavery, and even death, rather than to be deprived of meat. God, in His anger, gave them flesh to gratify their lustful appetites, and great numbers of them died while eating the meat for which they had lusted. {TSDF 62.9}
 
He provided them with the food best adapted for this purpose, not flesh, but manna, “the bread of heaven.” It was only because of their discontent and their murmuring for the flesh-pots of Egypt that animal food was granted them, and this only for a short time. Its use brought disease and death to thousands. Yet the restriction to a non-flesh diet was never heartily accepted. It continued to be the cause of discontent and murmuring, open or secret, and it was not made permanent. {TSDF 63.2}
 
If they had submitted to have the Lord select their food for them, and had been thankful, and satisfied for food which they could eat freely of without injury, they would not have lost the favor of God, and then been punished for their rebellious murmurings by great numbers of them being slain. {TSDF 64.2}
 
The perverted appetite was to be brought into a more healthy state, that they might enjoy the food originally provided for man,—the fruits of the earth, which God gave to Adam and Eve in Eden. {TSDF 64.3}
 
Again and again I have been shown that God is trying to lead us back, step by step, to His original design,—that man should subsist upon the natural products of the earth. Among those who are waiting for the coming of the Lord, meat-eating will eventually be done away; flesh will cease to form a part of their diet. We should ever keep this end in view, and endeavor to work steadily toward it. I can not think that in the practice of flesh-eating we are in harmony with the light which God has been pleased to give us. {TSDF 64.5}
 
Our habits of eating and drinking show whether we are of the world or among the number whom the Lord by His mighty cleaver of truth has separated from the world. These are His peculiar people, zealous of good works. {TSDF 64.6}
 
Nearly forty years ago the Lord opened up before us the principles of health reform. At that time I was very weak physically. Sometimes I would faint away two or three times a day, and I thought, as many today think, that flesh-meat was the only food that would keep up my strength. But in mercy the Lord showed me that flesh-meat is not necessary to maintain strength, and that it is not the best food. {TSDF 65.3}
 
Since that time increased light upon health reform has been given. In grains, fruits, and vegetables, and nuts, are to be found all the food elements that we need. If we will come to the Lord in simplicity of mind, He will teach us how to prepare wholesome food free from the taint of flesh-meat. {TSDF 65.4}
 
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. {TSDF 65.6}
 
Remember that when you eat flesh-meat, you are but eating grains and vegetables second-hand; for the animal receives from these things the nutrition that makes it grow and prepares it for market. The life that was in the grains and vegetables passes into the animal, and becomes part of its life, and then human beings eat the animal. Why are they so willing to eat their food second-hand? {TSDF 65.8}
 
If things were as they should be in the households that make up our churches, we might do double service for the Lord. The light given me is that a most decided message must be borne in regard to health reform. Those who use flesh-meat strengthen the lower propensities and prepare the way for disease to fasten upon them. There are those among Seventh-day Adventists who will not heed the light given them in regard to this matter. They make flesh-meat a part of their diet. Disease comes upon them. Sick and suffering as a result of their own wrong course, they ask for the prayers of the servants of God. But how can the Lord work in their behalf when they are not willing to do His will, when they refuse to heed His instruction in regard to health reform? {TSDF 66.6}
 
For thirty years the light on health reform has been coming to the people of God, but many have made it a subject of jest. They have continued to use tea, coffee, spices, and flesh-meat. Their bodies are full of disease. How can we, I ask, present such ones to the Lord for healing? {TSDF 66.7}
 
You may think you can not 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 of man. It is a grossly perverted taste that will accept such food. To think of dead flesh rotting in the stomach is revolting. Then the fact that meat is largely diseased should lead us to make strenuous efforts to discontinue its use entirely. {TSDF 67.2}
 
The weakness you experience without the use of meat is one of the strongest arguments I could present to you as a reason why you should discontinue its use. Those who eat meat feel stimulated after eating this food, and they suppose they are made stronger. After one discontinues the use of meat, he may for a time feel a weakness, but when his system is cleansed from the effect of this diet, he no longer feels the weakness, and will cease to wish for that which he has pleaded for as essential to his strength. {TSDF 67.5}
 
Nov 5, 1891 [1896].—The Lord intends to bring His people back to live upon simple fruits, vegetables, and grains. {TSDF 68.1}
 
One of the great errors that many insist upon is, that muscular strength is dependent upon animal food. But the simple grains, fruits of the trees and vegetables have all the nutritive properties necessary to make good blood. This a flesh diet can not do. {TSDF 68.4}
 
Cancers, tumors, and all inflammatory diseases are largely caused by meat-eating. {TSDF 68.10}
 
Feeding on flesh, the juices and fluids of what you eat pass into the circulation of your blood, and, as we are composed of what we eat, we become animalized; thus a feverish condition is created, because the animals are diseased, and by partaking of their flesh, we plant the seeds of disease in our own tissue and blood. {TSDF 68.11}
 
The mortality caused by meat-eating is not discerned; if it were, we would hear no more arguments and excuses in favor of the indulgence of the appetite for dead flesh. We have plenty of good things to satisfy hunger without bringing corpses upon our table to compose our bill of fare. {TSDF 68.12}
 
Again and again I have been shown that God is bringing His people back to His original design, that is not to subsist upon the flesh of dead animals. He would have us teach people a better way. {TSDF 69.1}
 
Use less and less meat, until it is not used at all. If meat is discarded, if the taste is not educated in that direction, if a liking for fruits and grains is encouraged, it will soon be as God in the beginning designed it should be. No meat will be used by His people. {TSDF 69.2}
 
We have been going back to Egypt rather than on to Canaan. Shall we not reverse the order of things? Shall we not have plain, wholesome food on our tables? {TSDF 69.4}
 
Those who elevate the standard as nearly as they can to the order of God, according to the light God has given them through His word and the testimonies of His Spirit, will not change their course of action to meet the wishes of their friends or relatives, be they one or two or a host, who are living contrary to God’s wise arrangement. If we move from principle in these things, if we observe strict rules of diet, if as Christians, we educate our tastes after God’s plan, we shall exert an influence which will meet the mind of God. The question is, “Are we willing to be true health reformers?” {TSDF 69.4}
 
It is not the chief end of man to gratify his appetite. There are physical wants to be supplied; but because of this is it necessary that man shall be controlled by appetite? Will the people who are seeking to become holy, pure, refined, that they may be introduced into the society of heavenly angels, continue to take the life of God’s creatures, and enjoy their flesh as a luxury? From what the Lord has shown me, this order of things will be changed, and God’s peculiar people will exercise temperance in all things. {TSDF 70.3}
 
The Lord would bring His people into a position where they will not touch or taste the flesh of dead animals. Then let not these things be prescribed by any physicians who have a knowledge of the truth for this time. There is no safety in the eating of the flesh of dead animals, and in a short time the milk of the cows will also be excluded from the diet of God’s commandment-keeping people. In a short time it will not be safe to use anything that comes from the animal creation. Those who take God at His word, and obey His commandments with the whole heart, will be blessed. He will be their shield of protection. But the Lord will not be trifled with. Distrust, disobedience, alienation from God’s will and way will place the sinner in a position where the Lord can not give him His divine favor.... {TSDF 71.3}
 
You have this lesson to learn: “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” {TSDF 71.5}
 
Often animals are taken to market and sold for food, when they are so diseased that their owners fear to keep them longer. And some of the processes of fattening them for market produce 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. {TSDF 72.7}
 
Animals are often transported long distances and subjected to great suffering in reaching a market. Taken from the green pastures and traveling for weary miles over the hot, dusty roads, or crowded into filthy cars, feverish and exhausted, often for many hours deprived of food and water, the poor creatures are driven to their death, that human beings may feast on the carcasses. {TSDF 72.8}
 
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. {TSDF 72.9}
 
The effect 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. {TSDF 72.10}
 
The moral evils of a flesh diet are not less marked than are the physical ills. Flesh food is injurious to health, and whatever affects the body has a corresponding effect on the mind and the soul. 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 the creatures of God! {TSDF 73.1}
 
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. {TSDF 73.3}
 
Those who cherish these idols can not rightly value the salvation which Christ has wrought out for them by a life of self-denial, continual suffering and reproach, and by finally yielding His own sinless life to save perishing man from death. {TSDF 74.4}
 
Those who have not been converted to health reform, and have never fully adopted it, are not judges of its benefits. Those who digress occasionally to gratify the taste in eating a fattened turkey or other flesh-meats, pervert their appetites, and are not the ones to judge of the benefits of the system of health reform. They are controlled by taste, not by principle. {TSDF 76.2}
 
God wants the perceptive faculties of His people to be clear and capable of hard work. But if you are living on a flesh diet, you need not expect that your mind will be fruitful. The thoughts must be cleansed; then the blessing of God will rest upon His people. We want the pervading truth of God’s word to get hold of every one of our people before this conference is over. We want them to understand that the flesh of animals is not the proper food for them to eat. Such a diet cultivates the animal passions in them and in their children. God wants us to educate our children in right habits of eating, dressing, and working. He wants us to do what we can to repair the broken-down machinery. {TSDF 76.7}
 
Will the people who are preparing to become holy, pure, and refined, that they may be introduced into the society of heavenly angels, continue to take the life of God’s creatures and subsist on their flesh and enjoy it as a luxury? ………The process of fitting animals for market produces in them disease; and fitted in as healthful a manner as they can be, they become heated and diseased by driving before they reach the market. The fluids and flesh of these diseased animals are received directly into the blood, and pass into the circulation of the human body, becoming fluids and flesh of the same. Thus humors are introduced into the system. And if the person already has impure blood it is greatly aggravated by the eating of the flesh of these animals. The liability to take disease is increased tenfold by meat-eating. 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. We say to you, dear brother and sister, your safest course is to let meat alone. {TSDF 77.5}
 
Vegetables, fruits and grains should compose our diet. Not an ounce of flesh-meat should enter our stomachs. The eating of flesh is unnatural. We are to return to God’s original purpose in the creation of man. {TSDF 78.3}
 
Will Seventh-day Adventists continue to follow unhealthful practices? Will they not heed the injunction, “Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God”? {TSDF 79.3}
 
The meat diet is the serious question. Shall human beings live on the flesh of dead animals? The answer, from the light that God has given, is, No, decidedly No. {TSDF 79.4}
 
O, if every one could discern these matters as they have been presented to me, those who are now so careless, so indifferent in regard to their character building; those who plead for indulgence in a flesh-meat diet, would never open their lips in justification of an appetite for the flesh of dead animals. Such a diet contaminates the blood in their veins, and stimulates the lower animal passions. It enfeebles keen perception and vigor of thought to the understanding of God and the truth, and a knowledge of themselves. {TSDF 79.6}
 
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. {TSDF 79.7}
 
God has provided an abundance of fruits and grains, which may be healthfully prepared and used in proper quantities. Why, then, do men continue to choose flesh-meats? Can we possibly have confidence in ministers who at tables where flesh is served join with others in eating it? {TSDF 79.8}
 
Seventh-day Adventists are handling momentous truths. More than forty years ago the Lord gave us special light on health reform, but how are we walking in that light? How many have refused to live in harmony with the counsels of God! As a people we should make advancement proportionate to the light received. It is our duty to understand and respect the principles of health reform. On the subject of temperance we should be in advance of all other people; and yet there are among us well-instructed members of the church, and even ministers of the gospel, who have little respect for the light that God has given upon this subject. They eat as they please, and work as they please {TSDF 80.7}
 
In countries where there are fruits, grains, and nuts in abundance, flesh food is not the right food for God’s people. I have been instructed that flesh food has a tendency to animalize the nature, to rob men and women of that love and sympathy which they should feel for every one, and to give the lower passions control over the higher powers of the being. If meat-eating were ever healthful, it is not safe now. Cancers, tumors, and pulmonary diseases are largely caused by meat-eating. {TSDF 80.8}

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