Nutrition
Do’s
“Grains, fruits, nuts, and vegetables constitute the diet chosen for us by our Creator. These foods, prepared in as simple and natural a manner as possible, are the most healthful and nourishing.” —CD 81. (See Gen. 1:29; 3:18)
“All the elements of nutrition are contained in fruits, vegetables, and grains.” —CD 395. (CD 310 adds nuts.)
“With nuts may be combined grains, fruits, and some roots, to make foods that are healthful and nourishing. Care should be taken, however, not to use too large a proportion of nuts…” —MH 298.
“Almonds are preferable to peanuts; but peanuts, in limited quantities, may be used in connection with grains to make nourishing and digestible food.” —MH 298.
Eat Olives
“Olives may be so prepared as to be eaten with good results at every meal…The oil in the olives relieves constipation, and for consumptives, and for those who have inflamed, irritated stomachs, it is better than any drug. —CD 349.
“When properly prepared, olives, like nuts, supply the place of butter and flesh meats. The oil, as eaten in the olive, is far preferable to animal oil or fat.” —MH 298.
Don’ts
A Avoid Meat
“Cancers, tumors, and all inflammatory diseases are largely caused by meat eating... “We have plenty of good things to satisfy hunger without bringing corpses upon our table.”
“People are continually eating flesh that is filled with tuberculosis and cancerous germs. Tuberculosis, cancer, and other fatal diseases are thus communicated.” —MH 313.
“Meat is the greatest disease breeder that can be introduced into the human system.” —MM 266,267.
“Cancerous humor, which would lie dormant in the system their lifetime, is inflamed and commences its eating, destructive work.” —TSB 122 E.G. White pamphlet “An Appeal to Mothers” 73 (1864).
“The liability to take disease is increased tenfold by meat eating…cancer and other fatal diseases are thus communicated.” —CD 386,388.
“We are composed of what we eat, and eating much flesh will diminish intellectual activity. Students would accomplish more in their studies if they never tasted meat. When the animal part of the human agent is strengthened by meat eating, the intellectual powers diminish proportionately.” —CD 389.
“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.” —CD 385.
“Animals are becoming more and more diseased, and it will not be long until animal food will be discarded by many besides Seventh-day Adventists.” —CD 267.
“Among those who are waiting for the coming of the Lord, meat eating will eventually be done away.” —CD 380-381.
“Not an ounce of flesh meat should enter our stomachs.” —CD 380.
“Think of the cruelty to animals that meat eating involves, and its affect on those who inflict and those who behold it. How it destroys the tenderness with which we should regard these creatures of God!” —CD 383.
“In all cases educate the conscience, enlist the will, supply good, wholesome food, and the change will be readily made, and the demand for flesh will soon cease.” —MH 317.
“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.” —CD 397.
“Those who digress occasionally to gratify the taste in eating a fattened turkey or other flesh meats, pervert their appetites…” —CD 399.
“God’s people are to take a firm stand against meat eating.” —MM 278.
“When sitting at a table where meat is provided, we are not to make a raid upon those who use it, but we should let it alone ourselves, and when asked our reasons for doing this, we should in kindly manner explain why we do not use it.” —CD 462.
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B Avoid Too Much Sugar
“No one can have good digestive powers and a clear brain who will eat largely of sweet cookies and cream cake and all kinds of pies.” —CD 334.
“From the light given me, sugar, when largely used, is more injurious than meat.” —CD 328.
“ Large quantities of milk and sugar eaten together are injurious... “Great amounts of milk and sugar...clog the system, irritate the digestive organs and affect the brain.” —CD 330,331.
“If for dessert sweet cake is eaten with milk or cream, fermentation will be created in the stomach.” —CD 335.
“Plain, simple pie may serve as dessert, but when one eats two or three pieces merely to gratify an inordinate appetite, he unfits himself for the service of God.” —CD 333.
C Avoid Alchohol
“The Bible nowhere teaches the use of intoxicating wine, either as a beverage or as a symbol of the blood of Christ. We appeal to the natural reason whether the blood of Christ is better represented by the pure juice of the grape in its natural state, or after it has been converted into a fermented and intoxicating wine.” —Te 97.
“It has been declared by some that Christ favored the moderate use of fermented wine, in witness whereof they refer to His miracle of changing water into wine. But we protest that Christ never made intoxicating wine; such an act would have been contrary to all the teachings and example of His life.” —ST Aug. 29, 1878.
“The Bible nowhere sanctions the use of intoxicating wine. The wine that Christ made from water at the marriage feast of Cana was the pure juice of the grape. This is the ‘new wine…found in the cluster,’ of which the Scripture says, ‘Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it.’ (Isaiah 65:8) “It was Christ who, in the Old Testament, gave the warning to Israel, ‘Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.’ (Proverbs 20:1)…Satan tempts men to indulgence that will becloud reason and benumb the spiritual perceptions, but Christ teaches us to bring the lower nature into subjection.” —MH 333.
D Less Reliance on Dairy Products
Let the diet reform be progressive. Let the people be taught how to prepare food without the use of milk or butter. Tell them that the time will soon come when there will be no safety in using eggs, milk, cream, or butter, because disease in animals is increasing in proportion to the increase of wickedness among men. The time is near when, because of the iniquity of the fallen race, the whole animal creation will groan under the diseases that curse our earth.
God will give His people ability and tact to prepare wholesome food without these things. Let our people discard all unwholesome recipes. Let them learn how to live healthfully, teaching to others what they have learned. Let them impart this knowledge as they would Bible instruction. Let them teach the people to preserve the health and increase the strength by avoiding the large amount of cooking that has filled the world with chronic invalids. By precept and example make it plain that the food which God gave Adam in his sinless state is the best for man's use as he seeks to regain that sinless state. . CD 460.4-CD 460.5
Butter is less harmful when eaten on cold bread than when used in cooking; but, as a rule, it is better to dispense with it altogether.—The Ministry of Healing, 302, 1905 . CD 349.3
Far too much sugar is ordinarily used in food. Cakes, sweet puddings, pastries, jellies, jams, are active causes of indigestion. Especially harmful are the custards and puddings in which milk, eggs, and sugar are the chief ingredients. The free use of milk and sugar taken together should be avoided.The Ministry of Healing, 302 . CCh 223.2
“The time will soon come when there will be no safety in using eggs, milk, cream, or butter, because disease in animals is increasing in proportion to the increase of wickedness among men.” —CD 349.
“In a short time the milk of cows will also be excluded from the diet of God’s commandment-keeping people.” —CD 411.
E Avoid Tea, Coffee and Caffeine Laden Drinks
“Tea and coffee drinking is a sin, an injurious indulgence, which like other evils, injures the soul. These darling idols create an excitement, a morbid action of the nervous system; and after the immediate influence of the stimulants is gone, it lets down below par just to that degree that its stimulating properties elevated above par.” —CD 425.
“And all should bear a clear testimony against tea and coffee, never using them. They are narcotics, injurious alike to the brain and to the other organs of the body.” —MM 274.
“Prepare healthful drinks from grains suitably prepared to take the place of tea.” —SpM 135.
F Avoid Condiments
“Condiments are injurious in their nature. Mustard, pepper, spices, pickles, and other things of a like character, irritate the stomach and make the blood feverish and impure.” —CD 339.
G Avoid Vinegar
“The salads are prepared with oil and vinegar, fermentation takes place in the stomach, and the food does not digest, but decays or putrefies; as a consequence, the blood is not nourished, but becomes filled with impurities, and liver and kidney difficulties appear.” —CD 345
H Do not eat between meals
“I am astonished to learn that...many of you eat between meals! You should never let a morsel pass your lips between your regular meals!” —CD 180.
“Eat...nothing between meals, not even an apple, a nut, or any kind of fruit…” —MM
