The Ministry of Health and Healing

The Need for Reform

Where wrong habits of diet have been indulged, there should be no delay in reform. When chronic indigestion has resulted from abuse of the stomach, efforts should be made carefully to preserve one’s remaining strength by removing every overtaxing burden. The stomach may never entirely recover health after long abuse, but a proper course of diet will save further debility, and many will recover more or less fully. It is not easy to prescribe rules that will meet every case, but with attention to right principles in eating, great reforms may be made, and the cook need not be continually trying to tempt the appetite. MHH 172.3

Moderation in diet is rewarded with mental and moral vigor. It also aids in the control of the passions. Overeating is especially harmful to those who are sluggish in temperament. These should eat sparingly and take plenty of physical exercise. There are men and women of excellent natural ability who do not accomplish half what they might if they would exercise self-control in the denial of appetite. MHH 172.4

Many writers and speakers fail here. After eating heartily, they give themselves to sedentary occupations, reading, studying, or writing, allowing no time for physical exercise. As a consequence, the free flow of thought and words is checked. They cannot write or speak with the force and intensity necessary in order to reach the heart. Their efforts are tame and fruitless. MHH 172.5

Those upon whom rest important responsibilities, those, above all, who are guardians of spiritual interests, should be persons of keen feeling and quick perception. More than others, they need to be temperate in eating. Rich and luxurious food should have no place on their tables. MHH 172.6

Every day people in positions of trust have decisions to make upon which depend results of great importance. Often they have to think rapidly, and they can do this successfully only if they practice strict temperance. The mind strengthens under the correct treatment of the physical and mental powers. If the strain is not too great, new vigor comes with every taxation. But often the work of those who have important plans to consider and important decisions to make is affected for evil by the results of improper diet. A disordered stomach produces a disordered, uncertain state of mind. Often it causes irritability, harshness, or injustice. Many a plan that would have been a blessing to the world has been discarded, many unjust, oppressive, even cruel measures have been enacted as the result of diseased conditions due to wrong habits of eating. MHH 173.1

Let all whose work is sedentary or chiefly mental and who have sufficient moral courage and self-control try the following suggestion: At each meal take only two or three kinds of simple food, and eat no more than is required to satisfy hunger. Take active exercise every day, and see if you do not receive benefit. MHH 173.2

Strong men who are engaged in active physical labor are not compelled to be as careful as to the quantity or quality of their food as are persons of sedentary habits, but even these would have better health if they would practice self-control in eating and drinking. MHH 173.3

Some wish that an exact rule could be prescribed for their diet. They overeat, and then regret it, and so they keep thinking about what they eat and drink. This is not as it should be. One person cannot lay down an exact rule for another. Everyone should exercise reason and self-control, and should act from principle. MHH 173.4

Our bodies are Christ’s purchased possession, and we are not at liberty to do with them as we please. All who understand the laws of health should realize their obligation to obey these laws that God has established in their being. Obedience to the laws of health is to be made a matter of personal duty. We ourselves must suffer the results of violated law. We must individually answer to God for our habits and practices. Therefore the question with us is not, “What is the world’s practice?” but, “How shall I as an individual treat the body that God has given me?” MHH 173.5