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Testimony Studies on Diet and Foods
evidence that it does not hurt them. It may be doing its work surely
upon the system, yet for the time being the victim may realize nothing
of it.
Pork, although one of the most common articles of diet, is one
of the most injurious. God did not prohibit the Hebrews from eating
swine’s flesh merely to show His authority, but because it is not a
proper article of food for man. God never created the swine to be eaten
under any circumstances. It is impossible for the flesh of any living
creature to be healthful when filth is its natural element, and when it
feeds upon every detestable thing.
It is not the chief end of man to gratify his appetite. There are
physical wants to be supplied; but because of this is it necessary that
man shall be controlled by appetite? Will the people who are seeking
to become holy, pure, refined, that they may be introduced into the
society of heavenly angels, continue to take the life of God’s creatures,
and enjoy their flesh as a luxury? From what the Lord has shown me,
this order of things will be changed, and God’s peculiar people will
exercise temperance in all things.
How to Live, 1:58-59
The first great evil was intemperance in eating and drinking. Men
and women have made themselves slaves to appetite.
Pork, although one of the most common articles of diet, is one
of the most injurious. God did not prohibit the Hebrews from eating
swine’s flesh merely to show His authority, but because it was not a
proper article of food for man. It would fill the system with scrofula,
and especially in that warm climate produced leprosy, and disease of
various kinds. Its influence upon the system in that climate was far
more injurious than in a colder climate. But God never designed the
swine to be eaten under any circumstances. The heathen used pork
as an article of food, and American people have used pork freely as
an important article of diet. Swine’s flesh would not be palatable to
the taste in its natural state. It is made agreeable to the appetite by
highly seasoning, which makes a very bad thing worse. Swine’s flesh,
above all other flesh-meats, produces a bad state of the blood. Those
who eat freely of pork can but be diseased. Those who have much
out-door exercise do not realize the bad effects of pork eating, as those