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Ellen G. White and Her Critics

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Quotations 1 to 6 Examined

Let us look at quotations Numbers 1 to 6, under the heading, “Butter and Eggs Classed With Meat and Forbidden.” The fact that butter and eggs are mentioned in the same list with meat does not necessitate the conclusion that Mrs. White considered them of equally unwholesome quality, equally bad as possible carriers of disease, or even comparable from a humanitarian standpoint. For example, to secure meat there must be a slaughterhouse, but to secure butter and eggs there need only be a dairy and a hennery. The whole argument the critic is trying to build here is based on the fallacy that simply because different foods are listed together as not the best for human consumption, therefore the person listing them must have considered them all of equal badness, and that furthermore the badness is of an intrinsic quality, so that under no condition could there possibly be any change in the nature of any of the items. Hence, if once bad, always bad. But there is nothing in Mrs. White’s writings that permits such assumptions. EGWC 379.4

Mrs. White did speak, at the outset, against butter, and in emphatic terms. In fact, she made a number of statements about dairy products, in general, being questionable, And well she might, There was no pasteurized milk, and thus no pasteurized butter. With a few possible exceptions, there was no government dairy inspection to determine health of animals or cleanliness of premises or sanitary procedures in handling the dairy products. Read this description of dairy cows written about the time Mrs. White began to make her statements on foods: EGWC 379.5

“The cows of the Sixteenth Street distillery stables were found, on examination by the Health Officer of New York, in horrible conditions: their ears were full of sores, their eyes ran rheum, their tongues were thickened and the edges raw, their nostrils were glanderous, their udders had externally large corroding ulcers, and inside the glands were stopped by the garget; while on their bodies, in various places, were large sores of different sizes—all betokening highly inflammatory conditions. So affected were the strength and health of some of the animals, that when lying down they had to be lifted up, and when up, had to be held up by straps passing under the body just behind the fore legs. Yet their milk, on subjection to chemical analysis, showed no morbid or poisonous constituents, and differed only in a slight degree from the milk of healthy cows. So the milk was declared good, and the stables were ‘white-washed.’ But who among thoughtful people believes the milk to be healthy? Chemistry is not omnipotent. What the laboratory fails to find, the stomach of a child can find; and so swill milk, used as a beverage or as food by children, has its poison distilled into their blood till health is lost.”—J. C. JACKSON, M.D., quoted in How to Live, no. 1, pp. 21, 22. * (Italics his.) EGWC 380.1

Needless to say, the products of such a dairy would not be allowed on the market today. In fact, such cows would not be allowed in a dairy in any highly civilized land. What the chemists’ eye could not discover in 1865, when this description was written, would be easily discoverable today. EGWC 380.2

Despite the danger of infected milk, Mrs. White did not go the whole way and condemn milk altogether and in all instances, as some at that time did. She uttered cautions regarding it, and warned that it should be boiled. But against butter she spoke out emphatically. Obviously, butter could not be boiled. And the length of time between production and consumption only increased the health hazard. There was little refrigeration and no pasteurization when Mrs. White first wrote regarding dairy products. EGWC 380.3

She also offered certain strictures on butter along with her general indictment of a large use of fats and greasy foods. She declared that these were not the most wholesome. EGWC 381.1