Proper Diet for Man

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Aug 15, 1878

Proper Diet for Man.

EVIDENCES FROM EXPERIENCE.

HAVING seen that the unequivocal testimony of both anatomy and physiology is decidedly in favor of a vegetable diet, and as strongly opposed to the use of animal food, let us now notice if actual experience corroborates their testimony, and inculcates the same great truth; if we find this to be the case, we must consider it well established upon a firm, substantial basis of fact.

Without number have been the elaborately wrought and very plausible theories which have vanished into thin air, when subjected to this trying ordeal. Many times has the attempt been made to compel facts to conform to an arbitrary and unsound theory; but such an effort is preposterous, and never has resulted otherwise than disastrously. Facts are stubborn things, and must be squarely met. This is the manner in which we expect to deal with them, and here we find our great strength; for we require that our opponents shall do the same. We shall not attempt to give anything like an exhaustive treatise on this branch of the subject, but merely call attention to a few of the many facts which have a bearing upon it. But now for the facts.

THE ANTEDILUVIANS.

History, both profane and sacred, favors the idea that for many years after the creation man subsisted exclusively upon vegetable food, and by so doing attained to a remarkable age and wonderful physical development. This was in exact accordance with the divine command, "And thou shalt eat the herb of the field." And as we see with what facility the South Sea Islanders, with the inhabitants of other tropical countries, supply all their alimentary wants from such sources as the plantain, bread tree, cocoa, date, yam, etc., all of which are found wild, growing without tillage, we can readily conceive that, in the early days of man's history, when the earth was sparsely populated and the soil yet in its virgin richness and fertility, an abundance of nutritious vegetable food could be obtained with scarcely any effort. After the flood, when the first permission to eat meat was granted, the race rapidly deteriorated both in physical development and in longevity. If we admit the position held by some that meat was eaten before the flood, we have sufficient evidence of its evil effects in the state of the world immediately preceding that event. Never, before nor since, has the world witnessed a period when anarchy, violence, iniquity, and crime, were so universally prevalent as then. So many times is this fact referred to in the Bible that no further evidence is necessary.

NATIONS OF ANTIQUITY.

Among the nations of antiquity, the records of whose brave and noble deeds adorn the pages of history, we find many evidences of the superior character of vegetable food as a diet for man. All are familiar with the heroic exploits of the noble Spartans, who seldom tasted meat, their food not only consisting of the simplest kind of vegetables, but also being very moderate in quantity. And while all will readily admit their superiority in a physical point of view, their mental superiority is no less apparent. How often do we hear reference made to the famous Spartan king, Lycurgus, as being a model legislator; and when was any nation ever more happy and prosperous than were the Spartans under his wise and auspicious reign?

Then there was the renowned philosopher and teacher, Pythagoras, who from religious scruples refrained from the use, as food, of anything which had ever possessed animal life. Although he held many erroneous views, in common with the rest of mankind at that time, the depth and force of his reasoning, and the accuracy of his conclusions, together with the astonishing sharpness of his perception, which enabled him to conceive and describe the scheme of the planetary system, which only modern science has been able to satisfactorily and clearly demonstrate, have seldom been equaled by man. All of his followers, many of whom were illustrious characters, adhered strictly to the same regimen with himself.

Again, there were the Egyptians, at whose great metropolis gathered great men and master minds from all quarters of the then known world, to avail themselves of the special advantages there afforded them of acquiring a knowledge of the arts and sciences which at that time flourished there as nowhere else. Upon examination, we find that at this period of their history the Egyptians abstained almost entirely from the use of animals as food on account of their religion, being firm believers in the doctrine of metempsychosis, or transmigration.

We may also mention the first Arcadians, whose subsistence was acorns, or, as some allege, chestnuts. Likewise, the early Argives are represented as searching the woods in quest of their food, the wild pea. Hesiod, in lauding the golden age of the poets, which was that of acorn-eating, sang,

"The fields, as yet untilled, the fruits afford, And fill a sumptuous and unenvied board."

Ovid thus describes the people of those ages:—

"Content with food which nature freely bred, On wildings and on strawberries they fed; Cornels and bramble-berries gave the rest, And fallen acorns furnished out a feast."