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Testimony Studies on Diet and Foods
is too great. While I would discard flesh-meat as injurious, something
less objectionable may be used, and this is found in eggs. Do not
remove milk from the table or forbid it being used in the cooking
of food. The milk used should be procured from healthy cows, and
should be sterilized....
The poor say, when health reform is presented to them, “What
shall we eat? We can not afford to buy the nut foods.” As I preach the
gospel to the poor, I am instructed to tell them to eat that food which
is most nourishing. I can not say to them, “You must not eat eggs or
milk or cream. You must use no butter in the preparation of food.” The
gospel must be preached to the poor, and the time has not yet come to
prescribe the strictest diet.
The time will come when we may have to discard some of the
articles of diet we now use, such as milk and cream and eggs; but
my message is that you must not bring yourself to a time of trouble
beforehand, and thus afflict yourself with death. Wait until the Lord
prepares the way before you.
Testimonies for the Church 7:135
Milk, eggs, and butter should not be classed with flesh-meat. In
some cases the use of eggs is beneficial. The time has not come to say
that the use of milk and eggs should be wholly discarded. There are
poor families whose diet consists largely of bread and milk. They have
little fruit, and can not afford to purchase the nut foods. In teaching
health reform, as in all other gospel work, we are to meet the people
where they are. Until we can teach them how to prepare health-reform
foods that are palatable, nourishing, and yet inexpensive, we are not
at liberty to present the most advanced propositions regarding health-
reform diet.
Let the diet reform be progressive. Let the people be taught how
to prepare food without the use of milk or butter. Tell them that the
time will soon come when there will be no safety in using eggs, milk,
cream or butter, because disease in animals is increasing in proportion
to the increase of wickedness among men. The time is near when,
because of the iniquity of the fallen race, the whole animal creation
will groan under the diseases that curse our earth.