Loading...
Larger font
Smaller font
Copy
Print
Contents
Understanding Ellen White - Contents
  • Results
  • Related
  • Featured
No results found for: "".
  • Weighted Relevancy
  • Content Sequence
  • Relevancy
  • Earliest First
  • Latest First
    Larger font
    Smaller font
    Copy
    Print
    Contents

    Statement 4: Dangers of eating cheese

    “Cheese should never be introduced into the stomach,” wrote Ellen White in 1868 to a couple with specific health conditions aggravated by their “too rich” diet. 20EGW, Testimonies for the Church (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press®, 1948), 2:68. In 1881, however, she distinguished between the group of “tea, coffee, tobacco, and alcohol,” which were to be “discarded” as “sinful indulgences,” and the less objectionable “meat, eggs, butter, [and] cheese,” which were not to be entirely prohibited or treated as a “test” of character. 21EGW, Selected Messages (Washington, DC: Review and Herald®, 1980), 3:287. Her last published reference to cheese, in 1905, maintained that “it is wholly unfit for food.” 22EGW, The Ministry of Healing, 302. Presumably these references to “cheese” referred to common yellow cheese, because a family who ate at Elmshaven after 1900 reported that she often served cottage or cream cheese at her table, but never yellow cheese, 23Grace Jacques with Patricia B. Mutch, “Dinner at Elmshaven,” ed. Sylvia Fagal (Berrien Springs, MI: Center for Adventist Research, 2002), 3, 13, 14, 17, 19. although White admitted eating yellow cheese occasionally in earlier years. 24EGW, Manuscript Releases, 15:246, originally written in 1873; ibid., 11:136, originally written in 1876; ibid., 5:406, originally written in 1888.UEGW 183.3

    Ellen White’s characterization of sharp or aged yellow cheese as “unfit for food” was true in the nineteenth century. Legitimate concerns, including unhygienic dairy conditions, lack of pasteurization, and hazardous methods of aging cheese, have been largely alleviated in developed countries. If she were living today, with improved processing, sanitation, and preservation, she might be more moderate in her condemnation. However, other issues may have continuing relevance. Cheese is often high in saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium. Tyramine compounds that accumulate in cheese during aging can trigger hypertension and possibly other effects. 25The impact of tyramine on blood pressure is widely recognized; particularly when it interacts with certain antidepressant drugs causing a hypertensive crisis commonly known as the “cheese effect” E.g., see Giris Jacob et al., “Tyramine-Induced Vasodilation Mediated by Dopamine Contamination: A Paradox Resolved,” Hypertension 46, no. 2 (August 2005): 355-359; Chad M. Vandenberg, Lawrence F. Blob, Eva M. Kemper, and Albert J. Azzaro, “Tyramine Pharmacokinetics and Reduced Bioavailability With Food,” Journal of Clinical Pharmacology 43 (2003): 604-609. In view of widespread heart disease, obesity, hypertension, and continuing decline in bovine health, the healthfulness of cheese in the quantities often used remains open to question.UEGW 183.4

    Larger font
    Smaller font
    Copy
    Print
    Contents