114
Testimony Studies on Diet and Foods
How to Live, 2:39-40
The period in which the infant receives its nourishment from the
mother, is critical . Many mothers, while nursing their infants, have
been permitted to over-labor, and to heat their blood in cooking, and the
nursling has been seriously affected, not only with fevered nourishment
from the mother’s breast, but its blood has been poisoned by the
unhealthy diet of the mother, which has fevered her whole system,
thereby affecting the food of the infant. The infant will also be affected
by the condition of the mother’s mind, if she is unhappy, easily agitated,
irritable, giving vent to outbursts of passion, the nourishment the
infant receives from its mother will be inflamed, often producing colic,
spasms, and, in some instances, causing convulsions and fits.
The character also of the child is more or less affected by the nature
of the nourishment received from the mother. How important then that
the mother, while nursing her infant, should preserve a happy state of
mind, having the perfect control of her own spirit. By thus doing, the
food of the child is not injured, and the calm, self-possessed course the
mother pursues in the treatment of her child has very much to do in
molding the mind of the infant. If it is nervous, and easily agitated, the
mother’s careful, unhurried manner will have a soothing and correcting
influence, and the health of the infant can be very much improved.
Infants have been greatly abused by improper treatment. If it were
fretful, it has generally been fed to keep it quiet, when, in most cases,
the very reason of its fretfulness was because of its having received
too much food, made injurious by the wrong habits of the mother.
More food only made the matter worse, for its stomach was already
overloaded.
How to Live, 2:47
The first education that children should receive from the mother in
infancy should be in regard to their physical health. They should be
allowed only plain food, of that quality that would preserve to them
the best condition of health, and that should be partaken of only at
[53]
regular periods, not oftener than three times a day, and two meals
would be better than three. If children are disciplined aright, they will
soon learn they can receive nothing by crying and fretting. A judicious
mother will act in training her children, not merely in regard to her