p. 13 | The Universal Food

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 19, 1903

The Universal Food

CONSIDER how large a place in the world's history is filled by these two humble things—the fruits and seeds of plants. . . . All animals in the long run depend for food upon fruits and seeds, or upon lesser creatures that have utilized fruits and seeds. Three fourths of the population of the world at the present moment subsist upon rice. Of the other fourth, three fourths live upon grains—barley, wheat, oats, millet. What are these grains?—Seeds, stores of starch or albumen, which, in the perfect forethought of reproduction, plants bequeath to their offspring.

The foods of the world are the foods of the children of plants, the foods which unselfish activities store round the cradles of the helpless, so that when the sun wakens them to their new world, they may not want. Every plant in the world lives for others. It sets aside something, something costly, cared for, the highest expression of its nature.—Professor Drummond.