Understanding Ellen White

Becoming a strict vegetarian: 1894-1915

In January 1894, Ellen White came to a major transition in her dietary life-style as she made a decision to become a strict vegetarian. According to her own recollection, while she was attending the Brighton camp meeting, near Melbourne, Australia, she was approached by a Catholic woman who prompted her to think about the cruelty toward animals killed for meat. Ellen White described the event later: “But when the selfishness of taking the lives of animals to gratify a perverted taste was presented to me by a Catholic woman, kneeling at my feet, I felt ashamed and distressed. I saw it in a new light, and I said, I will no longer patronize the butchers. I will not have the flesh of corpses on my table” ³⁹ UEGW 205.4

Interestingly, while Ellen White spoke mostly of the health benefits of vegetarianism, she made a personal decision to become a strict vegetarian because of ethical concerns—the cruelty against animals. It was not the first time that Ellen White spoke of animal cruelty in relation to vegetarianism. In 1864, for example, when she wrote out the health principles of her first major vision on health, she noted that “some animals are inhumanly treated while being brought to the slaughter. They are literally tortured, and after they have endured many hours of extreme suffering, are butchered.” ⁴⁰ Later in 1905, in her classic work on health, The Ministry of Healing, Ellen White combined the two arguments together. ⁴¹ Nevertheless, it seems that most of the time her emphasis was on the healthy benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle rather than on ethical concerns. UEGW 205.5

It seems that Ellen White kept her pledge not to use meat after the Brighton camp meeting in 1894. A year later, she wrote that “since the camp-meeting at Brighton [January, 1894] I have absolutely banished meat from my table. It is an understood thing that whether I am at home or abroad, nothing of this kind is to be used in my family, or come upon my table” ⁴² In 1896, she noted again that while before she had permitted meat to be served at her house occasionally, after the Brighton camp meeting, she did not allow that to happen. “All who come to my table are welcome,” she wrote, “but I place before them no meat. Grains, vegetables, and fresh and canned fruit constitute our table fare.” ⁴³ In 1908, she affirmed again that it had been “many years since I have had meat on my table at home.” ⁴⁴ UEGW 206.1

Intriguingly, while Ellen White seemed to have given up meat eating, she continued to occasionally consume fish (at least for a time) after her 1894 experience. In a letter to A. O. Tait, written in 1895, for instance, she noted that while her family did not eat any meat, they had some fish from time to time. ⁴⁵ On another occasion, she asked her son to get some fish for the workmen on their orchard in Australia. ⁴⁶ In 1896, in a letter to her niece, Mrs. Mary Watson, she again wrote: “Two years ago I came to the conclusion that there was danger in using the flesh of dead animals, and since then I have not used meat at all. It is never placed on my table. I use fish when I can get it. We can get beautiful fish from the salt water lake near here.” ⁴⁷ Thus while Ellen White did not eat meat, she continued to use fish as part of her vegetarian diet. Even today, some people don’t consider fish “meat.” UEGW 206.2

By the beginning of the twentieth century, however, Ellen White would become more and more “afraid” of eating even fish because of pollution and contamination of the waters. Eventually she stopped consuming fish as well. ⁴⁸ UEGW 206.3

As Ellen White practiced vegetarianism and saw the health benefits of it, she became more and more forceful in her call to church members for being more faithful in health reform and vegetarian diet. In a letter to the Maxon family, for example, in 1896, Ellen White wrote: “You have told me what advantage a meat diet is to you I must tell you what a non-flesh diet has done for me.” She then described in some detail her health challenges during her earlier years. Then she concluded: “I have written this to give you some idea of how we live. I never enjoyed better health than I do at the present time, and never did more writing.” ⁴⁹ In The Ministry of Healing, she wrote again that “flesh [food] was never the best food In all cases educate the conscience, enlist the will, supply good, wholesome food, and the change will be readily made, and the demand for flesh will soon cease. Is it not time that all should aim to dispense with flesh foods?” ⁵⁰ UEGW 206.4

Ellen White’s excitement over the benefits of vegetarianism seemed to culminate in 1908, when she suggested in a private letter to A. G. Daniells, the General Conference president, for Adventists to sign an “anti-meat” pledge. ⁵¹ After a followup discussion, however, it was agreed that a broad education among members on the importance of health reform and diet would be more profitable instead of signing “anti-meat” pledges. ⁵² Ellen White’s testimony, entitled “Faithfulness in Health Reform,” that was read to the delegates at the General Conference in Washington, D.C., on May 31, 1909, was a result of that decision. Part of the testimony described the benefits of vegetarian diet over flesh foods. ⁵³ Thus Ellen White became more forceful in her appeals for a stricter vegetarian lifestyle after she herself became a stricter vegetarian and experienced its benefits. UEGW 207.1