Counsels on Diet and Foods (4th ed. 1976)

AUTHOR: White, Ellen Gould Harmon

KEYWORDS: education, food, health reform, morality, religion, Temperance

---. Shall We Slay to Eat?
Lane, Charles and A. Bronson Alcott. “The Consociate Family Life”
Metcalfe, William. Bible Testimony, on Abstinence from the Flesh of Animals as Food
Moore, J. Howard. “Meat Not Needed as Food”
---. The New Ethics
---. “Stop Eating Meat and Help Stop the Killing”
---. “The Vegetarian Eating Club”
Mussey, Reuben Dimond. Health: Its Friends and Its Foes
Newbrough, John Ballou. Oahspe
Rumford, Isaac B. The Edenic Diet
Trall, Russell Thacher. The Hygeian Home Cook-Book
---. The New Hydropathic Cook-Book
Trine, Ralph Waldo. Every Living Creature
Tryon, Thomas. Healths Grand Preservative
---. Tryon's Letters
---. Tryon's Letters upon several occasions
White, Ellen Gould Harmon. Counsels on Health and Instruction to Medical Missionary Workers
---. Life Sketches
---. The Ministry of Healing
---. Spiritual Gifts
---. Testimonies for the Church
---. Testimony Studies on Diet and Foods

SUMMARY (Ridvan Askin, edited Deborah Madsen):

This is a very useful compilation of many of White's writings on vegetable food and diet. For White, “the establishment and preservation of physical and mental health” is a “duty toward God and our fellow beings” (12). Conversely, “Satan is working with great power to lead men to indulge appetite, gratify inclination, and spend their days in heedless folly. He presents attractions in a life of selfish enjoyment and of sensual indulgence. Intemperance saps the energies of both mind and body” (19) and results in “slavery to the animal passions” (54). It is clear that “[a] close sympathy exists between the physical and the moral nature” (36). All of her advice with regard to veganism, and health reform in general, has to be understood in this context. Hence her assertion that “[t]here is more religion in good cooking than you have any idea of” (205).

White advocates “temperance in all things,” particularly “temperance in labor, temperance in eating and drinking” (19). She repeatedly draws on the Bible to support her advocacy of a plain diet and the prohibition against flesh-meats (e.g., 24-27). “Grains, fruits, nuts, and vegetables,” she writes, “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. They impart a strength, a power of endurance, and a vigor of intellect, that are not afforded by a more complex and stimulating diet” (67). In contrast, meat breeds disease and immorality:

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 these creatures of God! (304).

White's specific recommendations, which are repeated throughout these writings, include:

• “A plain diet, free from spices, and flesh meats, and grease of all kinds” (69);
• “Grains and fruits prepared free from grease, and in as natural a condition as possible, should be the food for the tables of all who claim to be preparing for translation to heaven” (55).
• Abstention from “the use of such stimulants and narcotics as tea, coffee, tobacco, alcohol, and morphine” (54): “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” (270).
• “Discard rich pastries, cakes, desserts, and the other dishes prepared to tempt the appetite” (72). “Especially harmful are the custards and puddings in which milk, eggs, and sugar are the chief ingredients” (94).
• “Food should be prepared with simplicity, yet with a nicety which will invite the appetite” (91).
• “Cheese should never be introduced into the stomach” (293).
• Vegetable oil, particularly olive oil, should be used instead of butter or lard as it “is far preferable to animal oil or fat” (287).
• While overeating and gluttony are outright sins, one should also be careful not to “adopt an impoverished diet” (159).

The book contains specific dietary recommendations for pregnancy and childhood (174-199) and White warns against improper use of medicines and drugs: “Pure air, sunlight, abstemiousness, rest, exercise, proper diet, the use of water, trust in divine power, – these are the true remedies” (240). She is convinced that both women and men should learn how to cook. The final chapter of the book concerns the importance of teaching health. White stresses emphatically that health education is the driving force behind the Seventh-Day Adventists' health institutions, such as the Battle Creek Sanitarium: "All who shall visit our health institutions are to be educated. The plan of redemption should be brought before all, high and low, rich and poor. Carefully prepared instruction is to be given, that indulgence in fashionable intemperance in eating and drinking may be seen as the cause of disease and suffering and of evil practices that follow as a result" (358).