Messenger of the Lord

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Ellen White’s Dietary Practice After 1900

What was her dietary practice at Elmshaven after her return to America in 1900? A number of letters reveal the daily routine of that busy home with many workers and members of the family eating together. Among the dietary features of the White home were: 33 MOL 313.3

Breakfast at 7:30 A.M. and dinner at 1:00 P.M., the most convenient time decided by the extended family; MOL 313.4

No meat, no butter, no cheese, no “greasy mixtures of food“: “all are satisfied” with the cream from their two cows; MOL 313.5

Ellen White preferred vermicelli and canned tomatoes cooked together, which she ate with zwieback; stewed fruit of various kinds augmented her main meal. Other items used occasionally included dried corn cooked with milk, and lemon pie; MOL 313.6

All members of the extended family ate items that best served their needs. (Ellen White said that she did not hold herself up as a criterion for them); MOL 313.7

Anyone desiring to eat in the evening was free to do so; MOL 313.8

A variety of food—simple, wholesome, and palatable—was always provided. MOL 313.9

What shall we make of this “step-by-step” journey? MOL 313.10

Ellen White’s major health visions of 1863 and 1865 encompassed all features of the health reform message that she emphasized until her death. Changes in certain emphases through the years only refined those principles, they did not add or subtract from them. As time passes, even prophets must take time to assimilate revealed principles—time for theory to become practice in their own lives. She constantly advocated the principle, in practice as well as in teaching, that everyone who is committed to truth will move from the bad to the good, from the good to the better, from the better to the best. Such was her experience. MOL 313.11

Ellen White saw the difference between patently injurious substances (alcoholic beverages, pork, tobacco, tea, and coffee) and those items of diet that were not healthful in immoderate amounts (clean meat, milk, eggs, salt, and sugar). Some of this divine insight, especially regarding pork, came as a surprise to her. Other items were being discussed in the nineteenth century, but nowhere else were all the principles she advanced integrated into a practical program. Nowhere else were these principles put in terms of preparing a people for the coming of the Lord. MOL 313.12

What may appear to be lapses in her journey from the good to the best (in incorporating into her life-practice divinely-revealed health principles), can well be understood by those who remember their own journey from the good to the best. Circumstances beyond one’s control and the absence of the best often dictate selections that are not always one’s preferred choice. Those who understand the gospel, those who realize that God asks only for our best under the circumstances that prevail, those who realize that obedience to known duty is not done to impress God (legalism) but to honor Him—such people will understand why on rare occasions and unusual circumstances Ellen White ate some meat. MOL 314.1

Ellen White followed the principle of the Great Controversy Theme that was reflected in Christ’s example—truth should never be coerced. She conveyed to others, whenever she had an appropriate opportunity, the principles of health reform as she had received them—an integrated, coordinated system of principles that promises health of mind and body and soul. She was clear and forceful regarding the relationship of health to one’s spiritual growth and eternal destiny. But she did not compel, threaten, or coerce others to do what she knew they should do—she would not be conscience or criterion for others. That fact, in itself, reveals the truth about God and our responsibility for each other. 34 MOL 314.2

We are now better able to understand what Ellen White meant when she said at the General Conference session of 1909: “It is reported by some that I have not followed the principles of health reform as I have advocated them with my pen; but I can say that I have been a faithful health reformer. Those who have been members of my family know that this is true.” 35 MOL 314.3

In modern attempts to understand history, too frequently we judge the past by the present, most often unknowingly. Individuals of the past must be judged in the context of their circumstances, not ours. In a day without refrigeration, when obtaining fresh fruit and vegetables depended on where one lived and the time of the year, when meat substitutes were rarely obtainable before the introduction of peanut butter and dry-cereals (mid-1890s), 36 on some occasions one either ate meat or nothing at all. In our day, at least in developed countries, meat eating is rarely a necessity. MOL 314.4