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Testimony Studies on Diet and Foods
File 48, 1902
Those who claim to believe the truth are to guard carefully the
powers of body and mind, so that God and His cause will not be in any
way dishonored by their words or actions. The habits and practices
are to be brought into subjection to the will of God. We are to give
careful attention to our diet. It has been clearly presented to me that
God’s people are to take a firm stand against meat-eating. Would God
for thirty years give His people the message that if they desire to have
pure blood and clear minds, they must give up the use of flesh-meat if
He did not want them to heed this message? By the use of flesh-meats
the animal nature is strengthened and the spiritual nature weakened.
Such men as you, who are engaged in the most solemn and important
work ever entrusted to human beings, need to give special heed what
they eat.
Remember that when you eat flesh-meat, you are but eating grains
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and vegetables second-hand; for the animal receives from these things
the nutrition that makes it grow and prepares it for market. The life that
was in the grains and vegetables passes into the animal, and becomes
part of its life, and then human beings eat the animal. Why are they so
willing to eat their food second-hand?
In the beginning, fruit was pronounced by God as “good for food.”
The permission to eat flesh-meat was a consequence of the fall. Not
till after the flood was man given permission to eat the flesh of animals.
Why then need we eat flesh-meat? Few who eat this know how full it
is of disease. Flesh-meat never was the best food, and now it is cursed
by disease.
The thought of killing animals to be eaten is in itself revolting.
If man’s natural sense had not been perverted by the indulgence of
appetite, human beings would not think of eating the flesh of animals.
We have been given the work of advancing health reform. The
Lord desires His people to be in harmony with one another. As you
must know, we shall not leave the position in which, for the last thirty-
five years, the Lord has been bidding us stand. Beware how you place
yourself in opposition to the work of health reform. It will go forward;
for it is the Lord’s means of lessening the suffering in our world, and
of purifying His people.