Counsels on Health and Instruction to Medical Missionary Workers

AUTHOR: White, Ellen Gould Harmon

White argues that the physical, mental, spiritual, and moral strength of humanity relies on practicing veganism. Flesh-food slows the mind, and causes disease in the body, preventing one from enacting all that God has ordained. Furthermore, the body is the possession of and gift from God, so to slow it or abuse it in any way is a sin. Also, it is a sin to abuse or be cruel towards God’s non-human creatures. This text is unusual in the degree of attention that White gives to the working class, repeatedly arguing that the poor should not be advised to give up meat and animal foods until they are in a position to do so easily and healthily, because enforcing strict reform when they cannot afford healthy foods would do more harm than good (478).

Most relevant are sections are: 2. on "Essentials in Health,” 3. on "Diet and Health,” and 10. on "Health Food Work.”

“Section 2. Essentials in Health”
“Many have inquired of me, ‘What course shall I take to best preserve my health?’ My answer is, Cease to transgress the laws of your being; cease to gratify a depraved appetite; eat simple food; dress healthfully, which will require modest simplicity; work healthfully; and you will not be sick” (37). “The indulgence of animal appetites has degraded and enslaved many. Self-denial, and a restraint upon the animal appetites, is necessary to elevate, and establish an improved condition of health and morals, and purify corrupted society” (38). One must “govern the body”: “Life is a gift of God. Our bodies have been given us to use in God’s service, and He desires that we shall care for and appreciate them. We are possessed of physical as well as mental faculties. Our impulses and passions have their seat in the body, and therefore we must do nothing that would defile this intrusted possession. Our bodies must be kept in the best possible condition physically, and under the most spiritual influences, in order that we may make the best use of our talents (Read 1 Cor. 6:13)” (41). “Meat should not be placed before our children. Its influence is to excite and strengthen the lower passions, and has a tendency to deaden the moral powers” (42). “We are not our own. We have been purchased with a dear price, even the sufferings and death of the Son of God” (43). “The bad eating of many generations, the gluttonous and self-indulgent habits of the people, are filling our poorhouses, our prisons, and our insane asylums. Intemperance, in drinking tea and coffee, wine, beer, rum, and brandy, and the use of tobacco, opium, and other narcotics, has resulted in great mental and physical degeneracy, and this degeneracy is constantly increasing” (49). “Those who serve God in sincerity and truth will be a peculiar people, unlike the world, separate from the world. Their food will be prepared, not to encourage gluttony or gratify a perverted taste, but to secure to themselves the greatest physical strength, and consequently the best mental conditions“ (50). “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 creature and subsist on their flesh and enjoy it as a luxury?” (70). “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. ... Your safest course is to let meat alone” (70). “None who have a sense of their accountability to God will allow the animal propensities to control reason” (71).

“Section 3. Diet and Health”
“Our first duty toward God and our fellow beings is that of self-development. Every faculty with which the Creator has endowed us, should be cultivated to the highest degree of perfection, that we may be able to do the greatest amount of good of which we are capable” (107). “Since the first surrender to appetite, mankind have been growing more and more self-indulgent, until health has been sacrificed on the altar of appetite. The inhabitants of the antediluvian world were intemperate in eating and drinking. They would have flesh-meats, although God had at that time given man no permission to eat animal food” (109). “To parents is committed the sacred trust of guarding the physical and moral constitution of their children. Those who indulge a child’s appetite, and do not teach him to control his passions, may afterward see, in the tobacco-loving, liquor-drinking slave, whose sense are benumbed, and whose lips utter falsehood and profanity, the terrible mistake they have made” (114). “Many a mother sets a table that is a snare to her family. Flesh-meats, butter, cheese, rich pastry, spiced foods, and condiments are freely partaken of by both old and young. … The blood becomes fevered, the animal propensities are weakened, and become servants to the baser passions” (114). In contrast, "Of these our benevolent heavenly Father says we may freely eat. Fruits, grains, and vegetables, prepared in a simple way, free from spice and grease of all kinds, make, with milk or cream, the most healthful diet. They impart nourishment to the body, and give a power of endurance and a vigor of intellect that are not produced by a stimulating diet” (114-15). “Flesh-foods are injurious to the physical wellbeing, and we should learn to do without them. Those who are in a position where is it possible to secure a vegetarian diet, but who choose to follow their own preferences in this matter, eating and drinking as they please, will gradually grow careless of the instruction the Lord has given regarding other phases of the present truth, and will lose their perception of what is truth; they will surely reap as they have sown” (130). White does not advocate for a strict, temperate diet in poorer countries: “Should health reform in its most extreme form be taught to those whose circumstances forbid its adoption, more harm than good would be done” (137). For “overworked mothers,” “A reform in eating would be a saving of expense and labor. The wants of a family can be easily supplied that is satisfied with plain, wholesome diet” (159).

“Section 10. Health Food Work”
On learning how to prepare and preparing healthful, meat-free foods, White argues that the foods should be provided by each country, as it would be too expensive to transport: “It will never pay to depend upon America for the supply of health foods for other countries. Great difficulty will be found in handling the imported goods without financial loss” (472). “It would be well for us to do less cooking and to eat more fruit in its natural state. … Concerning flesh-meat, we should educate the people to let it alone. Its use is contrary to the best development of the physical, mental, and moral powers” (477-448).