Ellen G. White: The Progressive Years: 1862-1876 (vol. 2)

Problems in Adopting the Vegetarian Diet

James White was trying to help those interested in reforming their dietetic program, encouraging them to raise small fruits to fill out a diet from which flesh had been discarded. It may be well to pause for a moment to consider what was involved in 1870 and earlier, in changes in diet. There were no prepared cereal foods, such as corn flakes and shredded wheat, except perhaps oatmeal, which was bought at a drugstore by the ounce for those who were ill. There were no skillfully prepared vegetable-protein foods (today called meat substitutes), not even peanut butter. There were no frozen foods. The selection of what to eat was limited to meat, legumes, grains, and vegetables and fruits in season. Some kinds of nuts could be had, but they were seldom mentioned. 2BIO 298.1

In 1899 J. N. Loughborough recalled the diet on which he grew up as an orphan on his grandfather's farm in New York State. Every autumn four large, fat hogs and one cow were slaughtered as winter provisions for the family. Nearly all parts of the hogs were eaten “except the bristles and the hoofs.” He wrote: 2BIO 298.2

I was a great lover of animal flesh as food. I wanted fat pork fried for breakfast, boiled meat for dinner, cold slices of ham or beef for supper. One of my sweetest morsels was bread well soaked in pork gravy.—The Gospel of Health, October, 1899 (see also The Story of Our Health Message, 24). 2BIO 298.3

If in the spring of the year we felt languor (really the result of consuming so much fat and flesh meats during the winter), we resorted to sharp pickles, horseradish, mustard, pepper, and the like, to “sharpen the appetite” and tone up the system. We naturally expected a “poor spell” in the spring before we could get newly grown vegetables.—The Medical Missionary, December, 1899 (see also The Story of Our Health Message, 24). 2BIO 298.4

Without the abundant supply of a great variety of foods known so well today, the shift in diet for those pursuing health reform in the 1860s and 1870s was not simple or easy. How to Live, No. 1, with its twenty pages entitled “Cookery,” was helpful, furnishing thirteen recipes on unleavened bread, wheat, and corn; four breads made with yeast; eleven mushes and porridges; twenty pies and puddings, many of them with an apple content; twenty-five fruit recipes (counting tomatoes as a fruit); and thirty-four recipes for vegetables. That was all. 2BIO 298.5