p. 10 | THE DANGEROUS DIET by C. M. S.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 10, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 15.

THE DANGEROUS DIET.

By C. M. S.

THE movement toward a reform in diet is a most commendable one, and it is a pleasure to note the fact that the movement is growing in strength and influence. Vegetarian restaurants are increasing in our large cities, and vegetarian societies are increasing in membership.

With the multiplication of diseases in all the animal kingdom, and the liability of their transmission to the human body by eating the diseased food, this growing influence in favor of the no-meat diet is positively refreshing. Like all good things, it is occasionally injured in the fold of its friends by those who do not know how to temper zeal with knowledge. The extremist is bound to get into trouble, no matter with what good movement he may associate himself.

The recent death of a college student who had practically starved himself on a very meager diet, has been made much of by certain newspapers unfriendly to the rational diet, and these have taken occasion to show the necessity for an unstinted meat diet where intellectual activity is required. As a matter of fact there is a class of literature being produced at the present time which does require a strong meat diet with liquor and tobacco adjuncts; but it is a meat-liquor-tobacco literature, as unwholesome to the mind as the diet is to the body; and the flagging imagination is whipped up to its sensational task by these health- and mind-destroying stimulants. Good, plain, wholesome food is not relished by the one who continually flavors his food with hot spices or tobacco sauce; and good, wholesome, elevating reading is insipid to the mind fed on a literature which such a diet begets. The blood of a human being loaded down with the impurities contained in the meat he has eaten, can not generate the highest, purest thoughts in the brain to which it is sent. If we saturate the system with intoxicants, the brain registers the fact at once. Inhale coal gas, and the head “swims.” The influence of the epicurean diet is not so rapid or noticeable, but it is none the less certain. Poisoned blood can not make a healthy brain; an unhealthy brain can not produce the purest and most elevating thoughts. The alcoholic stomach does not crave pure water, the tobacco, liquor, and meat-poisoned brain does not crave solid, serious, helpful literature. The food of Eden was a pure food with no suggestion of flesh of any kind; and the food of Eden restored will be as pure as that of the Eden lost. Nowhere in the Bible is there a hint that man shall live upon the flesh of other creatures when sin has been purged from the universe of God. Flesh-eating is one of the results of sin. It will not be found when sin is no more; and they who are wise, who are seeking to put away sinful tendencies, will not cling to this sin-breeding child of sin.

On the other hand, we are told something of what will be the food of man when redemption is complete. First and most important, they shall “eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.” Rev. 2:7. “They shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.” Amos 9:14. “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, saith the Lord.” Isa. 65:25. Flesh shall not feed upon flesh there, nor life be taken to sustain other life; but all will be peace and joy and satisfaction.

For the good of His people there, God will feed them upon the fruits of the earth. If such a diet is good for man when sin has run its course, it certainly is good for man when suffering from the effects of sin. There never was a time in the history of the world when we needed purer food than right now; and there never was a time when much of the food eaten by man in general was more impure than it is now. He who would have health now can not afford to load down his system thru the food he eats, with the impurities and diseases of other creatures. C. M. S.