Manuscript Releases, vol. 14 [Nos. 1081-1135]

MR No. 1129—Ellen White's Attitude Toward the Use of Flesh Foods

(Written June 6, 1895, from Norfolk Villa, Prospect Street, Granville, N.S.W., to A. O. Tait.)

In answer to your questions I will respond briefly now but more fully soon. 14MR 324.1

I have never felt that it was my duty to say that no one should taste of meat under any circumstances. To say this when the people have been educated to live on flesh to so great an extent, would be carrying matters to extremes. I have never felt that it was my duty to make sweeping assertions. What I have said I have said under a sense of duty, but I have been guarded in my statements, because I did not want to give occasion for anyone to be a conscience for another. 14MR 324.2

Sister Davis has just called my attention to an article printed in the Youth's Instructor of May 31, 1894. The question asked is, Did I design to have this sentence just as it appeared in the Instructor? I am surprised to see it just as it appears—“A meat diet is not the most wholesome of diets, and yet I would take the position that meat should not be discarded by everyone.” I cannot explain why this appears just as it does. 14MR 324.3

Since the camp meeting at Brighton 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. I have had such representations before my mind in the night season on this subject that I feel that I have done right in banishing meat from my table. I would desire that the sentence should be modified by changing the not—“yet I would not take the position that meat be wholly discarded by everyone,” for instance, by those dying of consumption. 14MR 324.4

I have been passing through an experience in this country that is similar to the experience I had in new fields in America. I have seen families whose circumstances would not permit them to furnish their table with healthful food. Unbelieving neighbors have sent them in portions of meat from animals recently killed. They have made soup of the meat, and supplied their large families of children with meals of bread and soup. It was not my duty, nor did I think it was the duty of anyone else, to lecture them upon the evils of meat eating. I feel sincere pity for families who have newly come to the faith, and who are so pressed with poverty that they know not from whence their next meal is coming. 14MR 325.1

It is not my duty to discourse to them on healthful eating. There is a time to speak, and a time to keep silent. The opportunity furnished by circumstances of this order is an opportunity to speak words that will encourage and bless, rather than condemn and reprove. Those who have lived upon a meat diet all their life do not see the evil of continuing the practice, and they must be treated tenderly. 14MR 325.2

But in the very month in which this article was published, one of my family asked me whether we should not kill some of the fowls of which we had a large number, and prepare them for our table. I said decidedly, “No.” I have signed the pledge to my heavenly Father, and have discarded meat as an article of diet. I will not eat flesh myself, nor set it before any of my household. I gave orders that the fowls should be sold, and that the money which they brought in should be expended in buying fruit for the table. 14MR 325.3

Since coming to this country, I have made inquiries concerning the condition of animals that are killed for the market, and I have learned that whole herds were slaughtered when not more than one in twenty were without disease. Pulmonary diseases, cancers, and tumors, are startlingly common among animals. It is true that the inspectors rejected many of the cattle that were thus diseased, but many were passed on to the market that ought to have been refused. Inspectors and herdsmen, I am told, have entered into confederacy in this matter. Some inspectors say, “This herd or this flock will pass. Leave me this or that sheep, or this or that steer.” Thus unwholesome flesh has gone on to the markets for human consumption. 14MR 326.1

In many localities even fish is unwholesome, and ought not to be used. This is especially so where fish come in contact with the sewerage of large cities. We seldom have any fish upon our table. The fish that partake of the filthy sewerage of the drains may pass into waters far distant from the sewerage, and be caught in localities where the water is pure and fresh, but because of the unwholesome drainage in which they have been feeding, they are not safe to eat. 14MR 326.2

We have a large family, and besides have many guests, but neither meat nor butter is placed upon our table. We use the cream from the milk of the cows which we feed ourselves. We purchase butter for cooking purposes from dairies where the cows are in healthful condition and have good pasture.—Letter 76, 1895, pp. 7-9. 14MR 326.3

Ellen G. White Estate

Washington, D. C.,

April 11, 1985.