Changing the Diet
Persons who have indulged their appetite to eat freely of meat,
highly seasoned gravies, and various kinds of rich cakes and preserves
cannot immediately relish a plain, wholesome, and nutritious diet.
Their taste is so perverted they have no appetite for a wholesome diet
of fruits, plain bread, and vegetables. They need not expect to relish
at first food so different from that which they have been indulging
themselves to eat. If they cannot at first enjoy plain food, they should
fast until they can. That fast will prove to them of greater benefit than
medicine, for the abused stomach will find that rest which it has long
needed, and real hunger can be satisfied with a plain diet.
It will take time for the taste to recover from the abuses which it has
received and to gain its natural tone. But perseverance in a self-denying
course of eating and drinking will soon make plain, wholesome food
palatable, and it will soon be eaten with greater satisfaction than the
epicure enjoys over his rich dainties. The stomach is not fevered with
meats and overtaxed, but is in a healthy condition and can readily
perform its task. There should be no delay in reform. Efforts should be
made to preserve carefully the remaining strength of the vital forces,
by lifting off every overtaxing burden. The stomach may never recover
health, but a proper course of diet will save further debility, and many
will recover more or less, unless they have gone very far in gluttonous
self-murder.—
Spiritual Gifts 4a:130, 131
(1864).
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