Meat Eating

Sunnyside, Cooranbong,

Nov. 5, 1896.

Dear Brother and Sister Maxson,

I have had the letter of August 12, written to you for a long time, but I decided to send that which I have already sent you, withholding that which I now send. You cannot understand how much more effectual your services in the religious interest would be, and how much more satisfactory to yourself, if you would follow the light which has been given you. But it is a phase of your character to strenuously hold to your own ideas, and if possible, carry them out. Every soul of us is in danger, and if we refuse the light, darkness will come upon all. We never proposed to establish sanitariums to have them run in nearly the same grooves as other institutions. If we do not have a sanitarium which is in many things decidedly contrary to other institutions, we can see nothing gained. Shall our appetites, habits, and practices be of that order that you will educate those who are connected with you to make excuses similar to those you have made for the indulgence of eating the flesh of animals?SpM 45.2

The Lord intends to bring His people back to live upon simple fruits, vegetables, and grains. He led the children of Israel into the wilderness where they could not get a flesh diet; and He gave them bread from heaven. Man did eat angel's food. But they craved the flesh pots of Egypt, and mourned and cried for flesh, notwithstanding that the Lord had proposed that if they would submit to His will, He would carry them into the land of Canaan, and establish them there, a pure, holy, happy people, and there would not be a feeble one in all their habitations, for He would take away all sickness from among them. But although they had a plain “thus saith the Lord,” they mourned, and wept, and murmured, and complained, until the Lord was wroth with them. Because they were so determined to have the flesh of dead animals, He gave them the very diet He had withheld from them. “And when the people complained, it displeased the Lord; and the Lord heard it; and his anger was kindled; and the fire of the Lord burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp, and the people cried unto Moses; and when Moses prayed unto the Lord, the fire was quenched. And he called the name of the place Taberah, because the fire of the Lord burnt among them. And the mixed multitude that was among them fell a lusting and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish we did eat in Egypt so freely; and the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic. But now our soul is dried away; and there is nothing at all besides this manna before our eyes.”SpM 45.3

The Lord would have given them flesh had it been essential for their health, but He who created and redeemed them led them the long journey in the wilderness to educate, discipline, and train them in correct habits. The Lord understood what influence flesh-eating would have upon the human system. He would have a people that would, in their physical appearance, bear the divine credentials, notwithstanding their long journey.SpM 46.1

When I read your letter, I was forcibly reminded of the complaining of the children of Israel because they were not favored with a meat diet. The diet of the animals is vegetables and grains. Must the vegetables be animalized, must they be incorporated in the systems of animals before we get them? Must we obtain our vegetable diet by eating the flesh of dead creatures? God provided fruit in its natural state for our first parents. He gave to Adam charge of the garden, to dress it and to care for it, saying, “To you it shall be for meat.” One animal was not to destroy another animal for food. After the fall, the eating of flesh was suffered, in order to shorten the period of the existence of the long-lived race. It was allowed because of the hardness of the hearts of men. One of the great errors that many insist upon is that muscular strength is dependent upon animal food. But the simple grains, fruits of trees, and vegetables have all the nutrition necessary to make good blood. This a flesh diet can not do.SpM 46.2

When a limb is broken, physicians recommend their patients not to eat meat, as there would be danger of inflammation setting in. Condiments and spices used in the preparation of food for the table, and in the digestion (cause indigestion?) in the same way that tea, coffee, and liquor are supposed to help a laboring man to prepare his tasks. After the immediate effects are gone, they drop as low correspondingly below par as they were elevated above par by those stimulating influences. The system is weakened, the blood is contaminated, and inflammation is the sure result.SpM 46.3

The less condiments and desserts are placed on our tables the better it will be for all who partake of the food. All mixed and complicated foods are injurious to the health of human beings. Dumb animals would never eat such a mixture as is placed in the human stomach. Hot bread and biscuit, fresh from the oven, is not healthful. The heated gases need to be evaporated. Hot soda biscuits are often spread with butter and eaten as a choice diet. But the enfeebled digestion can not but feel the abuse placed upon it. Unhealthful habits of eating are killing their thousands and ten thousands. Food should be thoroughly cooked, nicely prepared, and appetizing. My brother, after all the light that has been given on the diet question, your lamentations because you can not exercise freedom in meat-eating is apparently similar to the complaining lamentations and weeping children of Israel in the ears of the Lord. I tell you that from the light the Lord has been pleased to give me there is a continual taxing of the human stomach with a wrong quality of food, also with too large a quantity. The stomach is overloaded and worn out when it should be capable of performing good work. The amount of cooking done is not at all necessary, neither should there be any poverty-stricken diet, either in quality or quantity, but the richness of the food and complicated mixtures are destroying. Highly seasoned meats, followed by rich pastry, is wearing out the vital organs of digestion of children. Were they accustomed to plain, wholesome food, their appetites would not crave unnatural luxuries and mixed preparations. Education, habit, and custom make it difficult to reconstruct the family arrangements. Meat given to children is not the best thing to insure success. Make fruit the article of diet to be placed upon your table which shall constitute the bill of fare. The pieces of fruit mingled with the bread will be highly enjoyed. Good, ripe, undecayed fruit is the thing we should thank God for because it is beneficial to the health. Try it. To educate your children to subsist upon a meat diet would be hurtful to them. It is much easier to create an unnatural appetite than to correct and reform the taste after it has become second nature.SpM 46.4

Our sanitariums should never be conducted after the fashion of a hotel, I am very sorry that it is such a difficult matter for you to deny your appetite and reform your habits of eating and drinking. A meat diet changes the disposition, and strengthens the animalism. We are composed of what we eat, and eating much flesh will diminish intellectual activity. Students would accomplish much more in their studies if they never tasted meat. When the animal part of the human agent is strengthened by meat-eating, the intellectual diminish proportionately. A religious life can be more successfully gained and maintained if meat is discarded; for this diet stimulates into intense activity lustful propensities and enfeebles the moral and spiritual nature. The flesh warreth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. We need to greatly encourage and cultivate pure, chaste thoughts and to strengthen the moral powers, rather than the lower and carnal powers. God help us to wake from our self-indulgent appetites.SpM 47.1

The idea of eating dead flesh is abhorrent to me. One living animal eating the flesh of another animal is shocking. There is no call for it. All your excuses made in regard to faintness is an argument why you should eat no more meat. Cancer, tumors, and all inflammatory diseases are largely caused by meat-eating. From the light which God has given me, the prevalence of cancers, and tumors is due to gross living on dead flesh. I sincerely and prayerfully hope that as a physician you will not forever be blind upon this subject. For blindness mingled with a want of moral courage to deny your appetite, to lift the cross, which means to take up the very duties that cut across the natural appetite and passion. Feeding on flesh the juices and fluids of what we eat passes into the circulation of our blood, and as we are composed of what we eat, we become animalized. Thus a feverish condition is created because the animals are diseased and by partaking of their flesh we plant the seeds of disease in our own tissue and blood. Then when exposed to the changes in a malarious atmosphere, these are more sensibly felt. Also when we are exposed to prevailing epidemics and contagious diseases, the system is not in a condition to resist the disease. I have the subject presented to me in different aspects. The mortality caused by meat-eating is not discerned. If it were, we should hear no more arguments and excuses in favor of the indulgence of the appetite for dead flesh. We have plenty of good things to satisfy hunger without bringing corpses upon our tables to compose our bill of fare. I might go on to any length upon this subject, but I will forbear.SpM 47.2

I do hope that you, as a physician, will come to your senses, and will not, by precept and example, counterwork that which the Lord has given to enlighten minds and bring in thorough reforms. I am working earnestly on these lines and shall never cease to work against the practice of meat-eating. I have had opened before me the stumbling blocks which this diet question has been to your spiritual advancement, and what a stumbling block you have placed in the way of others and all because your own sensibilities were blunted through selfish gratification of appetite. For Christ's sake look deeper; study deeper, and act in accordance with the light God has been pleased to give you and others on this subject. I forbear writing more. I love your souls, and I want you both to accept every ray of light that the Lord has been pleased to give, and then cooperate with the Great Teacher by giving that light to others.SpM 48.1

In love,

E. G. White