The Best Diet for Man by H. W. Miller, M. D.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 9, 1916

The Best Diet for Man

By H. W. Miller, M. D.

H. W. MILLER, M. D.

Man was not created with an appetite for flesh foods. Eden was harmonious and peaceful. There were no carnivorous beasts in the beginning. God did not purpose that man or beast should prey upon his fellows, taking life to sustain life. In Eden restored, as pictured by Isaiah, “the wolf . . . shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.” We are also told that “the lion shall eat straw like the ox.” So we must conclude that a flesh diet will not be provided for those who are to inhabit the city of God. There we shall partake of the fruit from the tree of life, and an ample variety of food will be provided.

The heavenly Father created man in his own image, and assigned him work in the care of his garden home. His body was equipped with the necessary organs of digestion and respiration, of secretion and excretion; and a diet of fruits, grains, and nuts was provided for his sustenance. No one knew so well as the God who made man, the powers and resources of the human body, and just what foods were needed that man might attain the highest physical, mental, and spiritual development.

In departing from a vegetarian diet man has rendered himself physically unfit to fulfil God’s purpose for him. Sin filled the human heart with hatred, and man lost his dominion over the beasts of the field. Today he is afraid to go unarmed where animals enjoy freedom in their native state, for, though once herbivorous, they, like man, have become carnivorous.

So far as God’s plan in creation is concerned, we find no recommendation of a flesh diet, and the human race is gradually coming to recognize that the divine plan is the best. Science has come to the aid of reason in this matter, and the majority of people in the world today do not, as a rule, eat meat. They have become convinced that a meat diet is not essential to the highest physical or mental development.

People in the Orient are vegetarians, not from choice, perhaps, as much as from necessity, and their physical endurance is unequaled. The Chinese, on a diet consisting almost wholly of unsalted rice, develop wonderful muscle. Men tow a boat on the river, walking from sunrise till sunset. At night three or four of them will crawl into the bottom of the boat, lay boards across to make it practically air tight, and lie close together until morning, breathing and rebreathing the same air. This would put an ordinary man out of commission, but the Chinese are fresh for another day’s journey, and their muscles are like iron. Remember their diet is a bowl of rice several times a day, as they can obtain it. I have seen coolies push wheelbarrow loads of from three to four hundred pounds twenty or twenty-five miles in a day, and they ate only a few raw pancakes or steamed wheat biscuit.

Now these people have to do the work that we require of animals in this country, and it would be impossible for them to subsist on a flesh diet and do this work. They cannot afford to keep animals and feed them; they would be shocked at the idea of feeding an animal good wheat, and then killing it and eating its flesh, obtaining only one third of the nutrition they would get from the pure grain. What an expensive way to get nutrition! What a waste! China is economical—the most economical country in the world. Flesh foods average only from twenty to thirty per cent nutrition all told, while from good wheat we get eighty-five per cent—almost three times as much. The cereal and vegetable and fruit diet is surely the more economic plan.

Now let us note the mental power and sustaining nerve force resulting from a nonflesh diet. The Orientals are deep thinkers. You have doubtless noticed the high forehead of these races. The head, as a rule, measures more in proportion to the weight of the body than in our race. These Orientals possess the power of concentration to a finished degree. Their schools open at sunrise and continue until sunset. They memorize whole books—the hardest kind of mental effort. Their persistence is marvelous, their energy unfailing. In tests the scholar must write whole chapters, or if he wishes to obtain a high degree, whole books, without an error or the omission of a single character. Would students in our colleges and universities be able to pass such a test?

Hygiene has more or less to do with the question of deciding whether a vegetarian or a flesh diet shall be adopted. Science is today bending every effort to secure the prolongation of human life, and to this end the medical profession is doing its utmost to instruct laymen in the laws of hygiene. We have quarantine laws, segregating those suffering from certain contagious diseases. We have pure food laws more or less rigorously enforced, regulating the sale of foods. Most of us can choose the good from the bad in fruits, vegetables, and cereals. The senses of smell and taste come to our rescue. But a steak may be teeming with tuberculosis germs, cholera germs, typhoid germs, cancer germs, etc., and not one of us can tell it. A microscopic test is required to determine this, but no pure food inspector can test every piece of meat presented for sale. A large per cent of the finest appearing herds of cattle are infected with one or more of these diseases. We would not eat their flesh if we knew they had a certain disease, and the point for emphasis is we do not know. The eating of diseased meat is responsible for many of the ills of man, among the most virulent of which are tuberculosis and cancer.

A wealthy man may say: “I will have a healthy herd of cattle. I will hire a veterinary surgeon; have individual stalls, and see that the mangers are scientifically cleaned; feed pure food—clean corn, wheat, bran, and grass. Then I know I shall have pure meat.”

But this is a mistaken idea. While the animals may be disease-free, their flesh is filled with poisonous wastes from tissue breakdown, and no food containing these impurities can be considered pure.

Another point: Meat decays very rapidly, and even if that of which one partakes is perfectly fresh, after it is eaten decomposition may take place in the intestinal tract, and cause Bright’s disease or other disease of the kidneys. This is why we advise persons thus afflicted to abstain entirely from a flesh diet. Appendicitis is often caused by meat eating. Rheumatism, arthritis, and gout, and other diseases are frequently the result of a flesh diet.

Thus we see that science and experience prove that meat is not a necessity of diet. Why, then, should we risk health, and life itself, by partaking of flesh, when nature has provided us an abundance of wholesome, nourishing foods, easy of digestion, and productive of physical and mental strength?