Spiritual Gifts (1864)

AUTHOR: White, Ellen Gould Harmon

SUMMARY (Ridvan Askin, edited Deborah Madsen)

The first part of Volume Four of Spiritual Gifts contains twenty short chapters on religious matters plus ten testimonies. It is to the chapter focused on the question of health that the passages on diet cited below refer. White promotes veganism primarily for religious reasons. Originally, she writes, God did not allow animal food: “God gave our first parents the food he designed that the race should eat. It was contrary to his plan to have the life of any creature taken. There was to be no death in Eden. The fruit of the trees in the garden, was the food man's wants required. God gave man no permission to eat animal food until after the flood” (120-121). According to White, the flood was partly due to the immorality of eating animal food: “The people who lived before the flood ate animal food, and gratified their lusts until their cup of iniquity was full, and God cleansed the earth of its moral pollution by a flood” (121). After the flood, “the ways of man were corrupt,” so God “permitted that long-lived race to eat animal food to shorten their sinful lives. Soon after the flood the race began to rapidly decrease in size, and in length of years” (121). Similarly, White writes of the Israelites:

Their depraved appetites controlled them, and God gave them flesh meats, as they desired, and he let them suffer the results of gratifying their lustful appetites. Burning fevers cut down very large numbers of the people. Those who had been most guilty in their murmurings were slain as soon as they tasted the meat for which they had lusted. 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 (18).

This is a point that White repeats in the chapter on “Health”: God "gave them flesh to gratify their lustful appetite, and great numbers of them died in the act of eating the meat for which they had lusted. While it was yet between their teeth the curse of God came upon them. God here teaches his people that he is displeased with their permitting their appetite to control them. The Israelites at times would prefer slavery, and even death, rather than to be deprived of meat" (122).

The human condition has since become worse as “[i]ntemperance in eating and in drinking, and the indulgence of base passions have benumbed the fine sensibilities, so that sacred things have been placed upon a level with common things” (124). White also points out that “God prohibited the Hebrews the use of swine's flesh because it was hurtful. It would fill the system with humors, and in that warm climate often produced leprosy” (124). Indeed, according to White, “[w]ith many, their first error is in making a god of their appetite, subsisting mostly on highly-seasoned animal food which produces a feverish state of the system, especially if pork is used freely” (126). 

She remarks that most animals to be slaughtered are diseased (146-147). They also often “seem to realize by instinct what is to take place, and they become furious, and literally mad. They are killed while in that state, and their flesh prepared for market. Their meat is poison, and has produced, in those who have eaten it, cramp, convulsions, apoplexy, and sudden death” (147). The history of humanity shows how “[a]ppetite has been indulged to the injury of health” (124). “Stimulating drinks” in particular “have been used freely, which have confused the brain and brought down man to the level of the brute creation” (125). Tobacco, tea, coffee, and other stimulants are condemned for similar reasons. Meat belongs in this category of stimulating and injurious substances (126-129).

White describes humans as “slaves to a gluttonous appetite” (131). There is only one remedy, namely “to eat less frequently and less liberally, and be satisfied with plain, simple food, eating twice, or, at most, three times a day” (129).  White concedes, however, that “[p]ersons who have indulged their appetite to eat freely of meat, highly-seasoned gravies, and various kinds of rich cakes and preserves, cannot immediately relish a plain, wholesome, and nutritious diet. Their taste is so perverted they have no appetite for a wholesome diet of fruits, plain bread and vegetables” (130). But she insists that “perseverance in a self-denying course of eating and drinking will ... make plain, wholesome food palatable” (131).

Unfortunately, parents tend to “tempt their children to indulge their appetite by placing upon their tables flesh meats and other food prepared with spices, which have a tendency to excite the animal passions” (132). As a result, when the health of their children deteriorates, parents call for the physician, who then prescribes drugs to rectify the evil wrought by intemperate behavior. But “[d]rugs never cure disease” (134) White maintains; to the contrary many continue “living in violation of the laws of health, and are ignorant of the relation their habits of eating, drinking, and working sustain to their health” (134). Only “the use of water and proper diet” can rectify this dismal situation (135). “God requires ... all filthiness of the flesh and spirit” to be purged (148).

Of herself and her family, White writes that “since the Lord presented before me, in June, 1863, the subject of meat-eating in relation to health, I have left the use of meat. ... For about six months most of the bread upon our table has been unleavened cakes, made of unbolted wheat-meal and water, and a very little salt. We use fruits and vegetables liberally” (153).