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Testimony Studies on Diet and Foods
Testimonies for the Church 3:564
Many parents, to avoid the task of patiently educating their children
to habits of self-denial, and teaching them how to make a right use of
all the blessings of God, indulge them in eating and drinking whenever
they please. Appetite and selfish indulgence, unless positively re-
strained, grow with the growth and strengthen with the strength. When
these children commence life for themselves, and take their place in
society, they are powerless to resist temptation. Moral impurity and
gross iniquity abound everywhere. The temptation to indulge taste and
to gratify inclination has not lessened with the increase of years, and
youth in general are governed by impulse, and are slaves to appetite.
In the glutton, the tobacco-devotee, the wine-bibber, and the inebriate,
we see the evil results of defective education.
Testimonies for the Church 2:94
By increasing your family so rapidly, you have been kept in a state
of poverty, and the mother, engaged in rearing the young members
of the family, has not had a fair chance for her life. She has nursed
her children under the most unfavorable circumstances, when heated
over the cook-stove. She could not instruct them as she should, nor
regulate their habits of eating and working. The result of eating food
not the most healthful, and otherwise violating the laws which God
has established in our being, has brought disease and premature death
upon your elder children.
Testimonies for the Church 2:365
But even health reformers can err in the quantity of food. They can
eat immoderately of a healthy quality of food. Some in this house err
in the quality. They have never taken their position upon health reform.
They have chosen to eat and drink what they pleased and when they
pleased. They are injuring their systems in this way. Not only this, but
they are injuring their families by placing upon their tables a feverish
diet, which will increase the animal passions of their children, and
lead them to care but little for heavenly things. The parents are thus
strengthening the animal, and lessening the spiritual powers of their
children. What a heavy penalty will they have to pay in the end! And
then they wonder that their children are so weak morally!