Extremes in Diet
103
Testimonies for the Church 9:112
Cooking schools are to be held. The people are to be taught how to
prepare wholesome food. They are to be shown the need of discarding
unhealthful foods. But we should never advocate a starvation diet. It
is possible to have a wholesome, nutritious diet without the use of tea,
coffee, and flesh food. The work of teaching the people how to prepare
a dietary that is at once wholesome and appetizing, is of the utmost
importance.
Letter K 37, 1901
I have something to say in reference to extreme views of health re-
form. Health reform becomes health deform, a health destroyer, when
it is carried to extremes. You will not be successful in sanitariums,
where the sick are treated, if you prescribe for the patients the same
diet you have prescribed for yourself and your wife. I assure you that
your ideas in regard to diet for the sick are not advisable. The change
is too great. While I would discard flesh-meat as injurious, something
less objectionable may be used, and this is found in eggs. Do not
remove milk from the table or forbid it being used in the cooking
of food. The milk used should be procured from healthy cows, and
should be sterilized.
Those who take an extreme view of health reform are in danger of
preparing tasteless dishes. This has been done over and over again.
The food has become so insipid as to be refused by the stomach. The
food given the sick should be varied. They should not be given the
same dishes over and over again.
I have told you what I have because I have received light that you
are injuring your body by a poverty-stricken diet. I must say to you
that it will not be best for you to instruct the students as you have
done in regard to the diet question, because your ideas in regard to
discarding certain things will not be for the help of those who need
help.
Brother and Sister-----, I have all confidence in you, and I greatly
desire that you may have physical health, in order that you may have
perfect soundness spiritually. It is the lack of suitable food that has
caused you to suffer so keenly. You have not taken the food essential