Treatment Rooms, Food Work and Industries

Beginning with the years 1898 and 1899, Ellen White began to write of the important place of health food factories. You will recall that Dr. Kellogg led out in the development of healthful foods at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, produced at first on a very small scale. But in the mid-nineties, efforts were put forth to establish manufacturing concerns where healthful food might be made. Ellen White pointed out that animal foods were becoming increasingly unsafe (Counsels on Health, 495). Health reform principles were to be taught wherever an interest in the truth was awakened. Health food manufacture was a good industry for our schools. The products of these factories would supply wholesome foods which would make the vegetarian program more easily adopted. Such foods placed on the market would make Seventh-day Adventists better known. Employment would be furnished to Seventh-day Adventists who were facing a Sabbath problem.SPCSSW 4.4

Then came the call for vegetarian restaurants.SPCSSW 5.1

“Wherever medical missionary work is carried on in our large cities, cooking schools should be held; and wherever a strong educational missionary work is in progress, a hygienic restaurant of some sort should be established, which shall give a practical illustration of the proper selection and the healthful preparation of foods.” Testimonies for the Church 7:55.SPCSSW 5.2

Closely linked with this line of endeavor was that of treatment rooms. Wrote Ellen White in this same article on page 60 of volume 7:SPCSSW 5.3

“I have been given light that in many cities it is advisable for a restaurant to be connected with treatment rooms. The two can co-operate in upholding right principles.”

Like other branches of the work, this line of endeavor was not to be confined to North America. Ellen White envisioned as a part of the work in overseas lands, many enterprises for the advancement of the message including treatment rooms and sanitariums.SPCSSW 5.4

There was also a place for industrial enterprises. In addition to the lines of work aimed primarily at propagating the message, Seventh-day Adventists of ability and means, and in some cases established institutions, were encouraged to operate industrial enterprises where new Sabbath keepers might find gainful employment. Writing in 1902, Ellen White penned these words:SPCSSW 5.5

“Believers who are now living in the cities will have to move to the country, that they may save their children from ruin. Attention must be given to the establishment of industries in which these families can find employment. Those who have charge of the school work at _____ and _____should see what can be done by these institutions to establish such industries, so that our people desiring to leave the cities, can obtain modest homes without a large outlay of means, and can also find employment. In both_____and _____ there are favorable and encouraging features for the development of this plan. Study what these features are.

“All that needs to be done cannot be specified until a beginning is made. Pray over this matter, and remember that God stands at the helm, that He is guiding in the work of the various enterprises. A place in which the work is conducted on right lines is an object lesson to other places. There must be no narrowness, no selfishness, in the work done. The work is to be placed on a simple, sensible basis. All are to be taught not only to claim to believe the truth, as the truth, but to exemplify the truth in the daily life.”—Country Living, 20.

Every line of such work was to be of a character to build and strengthen the participants and to promulgate the message. The highest standards must be held and a sound, solid work was to be done. During the work at Avondale in Australia, Sister White wrote:SPCSSW 6.1

“The health-food business should be established here. It should be one of the industries connected with the school. God has instructed me that parents can find work in this industry and send their children to school. But everything that is done should be done with the greatest simplicity. There is to be no extravagance in anything. Solid work is to be done, because unless the work is done solidly, a slip-shod experience is the result.”—Australasian Union Record, July 28, 1899; Counsels on Health, 495-6.