152
Testimony Studies on Diet and Foods
encouraged, it will soon be as God in the beginning designed it should
be. No meat will be used by His people.
When meat is not used as it has been, you will learn a more correct
way of cooking, and will be able to supply the place of meat with
something else. Many healthful dishes can be prepared which are free
from grease and from the flesh of dead animals. A variety of simple
dishes, perfectly healthful and nourishing, may be provided, aside
from meat. Hearty men must have plenty of vegetables, fruits, and
grains. Occasionally some meat may have to be given to outsiders
who have so educated their taste that they think that unless they have
meat, they can not keep up their strength. But they will have greater
powers of endurance if they abstain from meat than if they subsist
largely upon it.
The principal objection with physicians and helpers at the Health
Retreat to discarding a meat diet is that they want meat, and then plead
they must have meat. Therefore, they encourage its use. But God
does not want those who come to the Health Retreat educated to live
on a flesh diet. By parlor talks and by example, educate in the other
direction. This will call for great skill in the preparation of wholesome
food. More labor will be required, but nevertheless, it must gradually
be done. Use less meat. Let those who do the cooking and those who
bear the responsibility educate their own tastes and habits of eating
in accordance with the laws of health. We have been going back to
Egypt rather than on to Canaan. Shall we not reverse the order of
things? Shall we not have plain, wholesome food on our tables? Shall
we not dispense with hot biscuits, which only cause dyspepsia. Those
who elevate the standard as nearly as they can to the order of God,
according to the light God has given them through His word and the
testimonies of His spirit, will not change their course of action to
meet the wishes of their friends or relatives, be they one or two or a
host, who are living contrary to God’s wise arrangement. If we move
from principle in these things, if we observe strict rules of diet, if as
Christians, we educate our tastes after God’s plan, we shall exert an
influence which will meet the mind of God. The question is, “Are we
willing to be true health reformers?”