Ellen White's Battle with Appetite

The Health Retreat was founded when vegetarianism among Adventists was in its infancy. Often there were compromises in the homes of believers striving to improve their diets, and also in the two medical institutions operated by the church, at Battle Creek and St. Helena. Dr. John Kellogg had not yet begun manufacturing the health foods that in time were to become helpful. At the time of Ellen White's three-week visit at the Retreat in January, neither the physician, the manager, nor the cook favored a nonmeat diet. Ellen White describes her experience:3BIO 244.5

Meat seldom appears on my table; for weeks at a time I would not taste it, and after my appetite had been trained, I grew stronger, and could do better work.3BIO 245.1

When I came to the Retreat, I determined not to taste meat, but I could get scarcely anything else to eat, and therefore ate a little meat. It caused unnatural action of the heart. I knew it was not the right kind of food. I wanted to keep house by myself, but this was overruled. If I could have done as I wished, I should have remained at the institution several weeks longer.3BIO 245.2

The use of meat while at the Retreat awakened the old appetite, and after I returned home, it clamored for indulgence. Then I resolved to change entirely, and not under any circumstances eat meat, and thus encourage this appetite. Not a morsel of meat or butter has been on my table since I returned. We have milk, fruit, grains, and vegetables.3BIO 245.3

For a time I lost all desire for food. Like the children of Israel, I hankered after flesh meats. But I firmly refused to have meat bought or cooked. I was weak and trembling, as everyone who subsists on meat will be when deprived of the stimulus. But now my appetite has returned, I enjoy bread and fruit, my head is generally clear, and my strength firmer. I have none of the goneness so common with meat eaters. I have had my lesson, and, I hope, learned it well.—Letter 2, 1884.3BIO 245.4

She told Smith that she was pleased to read in the Review of February 12 an article on diet. “It came in just the right time for me, for I am laboring on this point and needed just what is there published.” The article, written by a Dr. T. R. Allison, of England, and originally published in the London Times, recounted the successful experience of a physician who had experimented with a strictly vegetarian diet. It provided documentation Ellen White could use with the manager and the cook at the Retreat. Her messages of counsel to them were firm and kind. The main portions of these testimonies may be found in Counsels on Diet and Foods, 405-410. She called for marked changes in the dietary program at the institution, and a few months later helped to arrange for Mrs. Jennie Ings, who had been assisting her, to serve as matron with the purpose of bringing about changes that would help the institution to operate on “hygienic principles” in properly fulfilling its mission (CDF, p. 406).3BIO 245.5