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Healthful Living
438. The diet of animals is vegetables and grains. Must the veg-
etables be animalized, must they be incorporated into the system of an
animal, before we get them? Must we obtain our vegetable diet by eat-
ing the flesh of dead creatures? God provided food in its natural state
for our first parents. He gave 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.—
Unpublished Testimonies,
November 5, 1896
.
439. Those who have lived upon a meat diet all their lives do
not see the evil of continuing the practise, and they must be treated
tenderly.—
Unpublished Testimonies, June 19, 1895
.
Substitutes for Meat
440. Something must be prepared to take the place of meat, and
these foods must be well prepared, so that meat will not be desired.—
Unpublished Testimonies, December 20, 1896
.
441. I know that with care and skill, dishes could be prepared to
take the place of meat. But if the main dependence of the cook is
meat, she will encourage meat eating, and the depraved appetite will
[98]
frame every excuse for this kind of diet.—
Unpublished Testimonies,
February 14, 1884
.
442. Meat is the most expensive diet that can be had.—
Unpublished Testimonies, February 17, 1884
.
Effects of Meat Eating
Physical Effects
443. We do not hesitate to say that flesh meat is not necessary for
health or strength.—
Testimonies for the Church 2:63
.
444. One of the great errors that many insist upon is that muscular
strength is dependent upon animal food. But the simple grains, fruits
of the trees, and vegetables have all the nutritive properties neces-
sary to make good blood. This a flesh diet cannot do.—
Unpublished
Testimonies, November 5, 1896
.
445. Speaking in support of this diet, they said that without it
they were weak in physical strength. But the words of our Teacher
to us were, “As a man thinketh, so is he.” The flesh of dead animals