292
Child Guidance
sensitiveness. Simple, healthful food seems to them insipid. The
abused stomach will not perform the work given it, unless urged to it
by the most stimulating substances. If these children had been trained
from their infancy to take only healthful food, prepared in the most
simple manner, preserving its natural properties as much as possible,
and avoiding flesh meats, grease, and all spices, the taste and appetite
[382]
would be unimpaired. In its natural state, it might indicate, in a great
degree, the food best adapted to the wants of the system.
What About Flesh Foods?—We do not mark out any precise line
to be followed in diet; but we do say that in countries where there are
fruits, grains, and nuts in abundance, flesh food is not the right food for
God’s people. I have been instructed that flesh food has a tendency to
animalize the nature, to rob men and women of that love and sympathy
which they should feel for everyone, and to give the lower passions
control over the higher powers of the being. If meat eating was ever
healthful, it is not safe now
Reasons for Discarding Flesh Foods—Those who eat flesh are
but eating grains and vegetables at second hand, for the animal receives
from these things the nutrition that produces growth. The life that was
in the grains and vegetables passes into the eater. We receive it by
eating the flesh of the animal. How much better to get it direct, by
eating the food that God provided for our use!
Flesh was never the best food; but its use is now doubly objection-
able, since disease in animals is so rapidly increasing. Those who use
flesh foods little know what they are eating. Often if they could see
the animals when living and know the quality of the meat they eat,
they would turn from it with loathing. People are continually eating
flesh that is filled with tuberculous and cancerous germs. Tuberculosis,
cancer, and other fatal diseases are thus communicated
Effects Not Immediately Realized—The effects of a flesh diet
may not be immediately realized, but this is no evidence that it is not
[383]
harmful. Few can be made to believe that it is the meat they have
eaten which has poisoned their blood and caused their suffering. Many
10
Counsels on Diet and Foods, 239
.
11
Testimonies For The Church 9:159
.
12
The Ministry of Healing, 313
.