Valid & Invalid Reasons Not to be a Vegetarian

Valid Reasons Not to be a Vegetarian

1. In certain cases of illness or exhaustion it may be thought best to use some meat, but great care should be taken to secure the flesh of healthy animals. It has come to be a very serious question whether it is safe to use flesh food at all in this age of the world. It would be better never to eat meat than to use the flesh of animals that are not healthy. {CD 394.2}
2. When I could not obtain the food I needed, I have sometimes eaten a little meat; but I am becoming more and more afraid of it.—Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 117, 118, 1890 {CD 394.2}
3. A meat diet is not the most wholesome of diets, and yet I would not take the position that meat should be discarded by every one. Those who have feeble digestive organs can often use meat, when they cannot eat vegetables, fruit, or porridge. If we would preserve the best health, we should avoid eating vegetables and fruit at the same meal. If the stomach is feeble, there will be distress, the brain will be confused, and unable to put forth mental effort. Have fruit at one meal and vegetables at the next.... {CD 394.3}
4. A Time to Keep Silent
   796. I have never felt that it was my duty to say that no one should taste of meat under any circumstances. To say this when the people have been educated to live on flesh to so great an extent, would be carrying matters to extremes. I have never felt that it was my duty to make sweeping assertions. What I have said I have said under a sense of duty, but I have been guarded in my statements, because I did not want to give occasion for any one to be conscience for another.... {CD 462.3}
   I have been passing through an experience in this country that is similar to the experience I had in new fields in America. I have seen families whose circumstances would not permit them to furnish their table with healthful food. Unbelieving neighbors have sent them in portions of meat from animals recently killed. They have made soup of the meat, and supplied their large families of children with meals of bread and soup. It was not my duty, nor did I think it was the duty of any one else, to lecture them upon the evils of meat eating. I feel sincere pity for families who have newly come to the faith, and who are so pressed with poverty that they know not from whence their next meal is coming. It is not my duty to discourse to them on healthful eating. There is a time to speak, and a time to keep silent. The opportunity furnished by circumstances of this order is an opportunity to speak words that will encourage and bless, rather than condemn and reprove. Those who have lived upon a meat diet all their life do not see the evil of continuing the practice, and they must be treated tenderly.—Letter 76, 1895 {CD 463.1}
   797. While working against gluttony and intemperance, we must recognize the condition to which the human family is subjected. God has made provision for those who live in the different countries of the world. Those who desire to be co-workers with God must consider carefully before they specify just what foods should and should not be eaten. We are to be brought into connection with the masses. Should health reform in its most extreme form be taught to those whose circumstances forbid its adoption, more harm than good would be done. As I preach the gospel to the poor, I am instructed to tell them to eat that food which is most nourishing. I cannot say to them: “You must not eat eggs, or milk or cream. You must use no butter in the preparation of food.” The gospel must be preached to the poor, but the time has not yet come to prescribe the strictest diet.—Testimonies for the Church 9:163, 1909 {CD 463.2}

Invalid Reasons

1. Those who digress occasionally to gratify the taste in eating a fattened turkey or other flesh meats, pervert their appetites, and are not the ones to judge the benefits of the system of health reform. They are controlled by taste, not by principle.—Testimonies for the Church 2:486, 487, 1870 {CD 399.1}
2. 711. Many parents act as if they were bereft of reason. They are in a state of lethargy, palsied by the indulgence of perverted appetite and debasing passion. Our ministers, who know the truth, should arouse the people from their paralyzed condition, and lead them to put away those things that create an appetite for flesh meat. If they neglect to reform, they will lose spiritual power, and become more and more debased by sinful indulgence. Habits that disgust the heavenly universe, habits that degrade human beings lower than the beasts, are practiced in many homes. Let all those who know the truth, say, “Flee fleshly lusts that war against the soul.” {CD 399.2}
3. Illogical Excuses
710. When Satan takes possession of the mind, how soon the light and instruction that the Lord has graciously given, fade away, and have no force! How many frame excuses and make necessities which have no existence, to bear them up in their course of wrong, in setting aside the light and trampling it underfoot. I speak with assurance. The greatest objection to health reform is that this people do not live it out; and yet they will gravely say they cannot live the health reform and preserve their strength. {CD 398.3}
We find in every such instance a good reason why they cannot live out the health reform. They do not live it out, and have never followed it strictly, therefore they cannot be benefited by it. Some fall into the error that because they discard meat, they have no need to supply its place with the best fruits and vegetables, prepared in their most natural state, free from grease and spices. If they would only skillfully arrange the bounties with which the Creator has surrounded them, parents and children with a clear conscience unitedly engaging in the work, they would enjoy simple food, and would then be able to speak understandingly of health reform. Those who have not been converted to health reform, and have never fully adopted it, are not judges of its benefits. .—Testimonies for the Church 2:486, 487, 1870 {CD 399.1}
4. Money / Products / Income
   "If the patronage of our restaurants lessens because we refuse to depart from right principles, then let it lessen. We must keep the way of the Lord, through evil report as well as good report." {7MR 55.3}
5. We are not to make the use of flesh food a test of fellowship, but we should consider the influence that professed believers who use flesh foods have over others. As God’s messengers, shall we not say to the people, “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God’? 1 Corinthians 10:31. Shall we not bear a decided testimony against the indulgence of perverted appetite? Will any who are ministers of the gospel, proclaiming the most solemn truth ever given to mortals, set an example in returning to the fleshpots of Egypt? Will those who are supported by the tithe from God’s storehouse permit themselves by self-indulgence to poison the life-giving current flowing through their veins? Will they disregard the light and warnings that God has given them? The health of the body is to be regarded as essential for growth in grace and the acquirement of an even temper. If the stomach is not properly cared for, the formation of an upright, moral character will be hindered. The brain and nerves are in sympathy with the stomach. Erroneous eating and drinking result in erroneous thinking and acting. {CD 404.3}
6. Jesus ate fish
   
1. Health laws progressive revelation and "most recent instruction"
1. Genesis 1:29-30 “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. 30Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is [i]life, I have given every green herb for food”
   But Gen 2:17 adds restriction, "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you[f] shall surely die"
2. Marrying sisters (Cain, Abel, Seth, Genesis 4:17; 5:4)common until Abraham's (Genesis 20:12) time but later prohibited by Moses in Leviticus 18:6-17.
3. Leviticus 11:20-45 gives basis that clean things can be come unclean / polluted / contaminated which prophetic inspiration has reiterated and science affirms more and more.
2. Sin of presumption (Deu 1:43) is ignoring present truth (most recent instruction) in preference to older instruction 
1. Deuteronomy 1:19-20,26,42,44

Solutions part 1

1. Strength to Resist Through Fasting and Prayer
   712. If our appetites clamor for the flesh of dead animals, it is a necessity to fast and pray for the Lord to give His grace to deny fleshly lusts which war against the soul.—Letter 73, 1896 {CD 400.3}

Valid Reasons to Avoid Flesh Food

1. Cancer, Tuberculosis, Tumors
   675. The meat diet is the serious question. Shall human beings live on the flesh of dead animals? The answer, from the light that God has given is, No, decidedly No. Health reform institutions should educate on this question. Physicians who claim to understand the human organism ought not to encourage their patients to subsist on the flesh of dead animals. They should point out the increase of disease in the animal kingdom. The testimony of examiners is that very few animals are free from disease, and that the practice of eating largely of meat is contracting diseases of all kinds,—cancers, tumors, scrofula, tuberculosis, and numbers of other like affections.—Manuscript 3, 1897 {CD 388.3}
   676. Those who use flesh foods little know what they are eating. Often if they could see the animals when living and know the quality of the meat they eat, they would turn from it with loathing. People are continually eating flesh that is filled with tuberculosis and cancerous germs. Tuberculosis, cancer, and other fatal diseases are thus communicated.—The Ministry of Healing, 313, 1905 {CD 388.4}
   677. The tables of many professed Christian women are daily set with a variety of dishes which irritate the stomach and produce a feverish condition of the system. Flesh meats constitute the principle article of food upon the tables of some families, until their blood is filled with cancerous and scrofulous humors. Their bodies are composed of what they eat. But when suffering and disease come upon them, it is considered an affliction of Providence.—Testimonies for the Church 3:563, 1875 {CD 388.5}
2. Decreases Mental Vigor
   678. Those who use flesh meats freely, do not always have an unclouded brain and an active intellect, because the use of the flesh of animals tends to cause a grossness of body, and to benumb the finer sensibilities of the mind.—[Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 47] Counsels on Health, 115, 1890 {CD 389.1}
   679. God wants the perceptive faculties of His people to be clear and capable of hard work. But if you are living on a flesh diet, you need not expect that your mind will be fruitful. The thoughts must be cleansed; then the blessing of God will rest upon His people.—The General Conference Bulletin, April 14, 1901 {CD 389.2}
   680. It is impossible for those who make free use of flesh meats to have an unclouded brain and an active intellect.—Testimonies for the Church 2:62, 63, 1868 {CD 389.3}
   681. There is an alarming lethargy shown on the subject of unconscious sensualism. It is customary to eat the flesh of dead animals. This stimulates the lower passions of the human organism.—Extracts from Unpublished Testimonies in Regard to Flesh Foods, 4, 1896. {CD 389.4}
   682. A meat diet changes the disposition and strengthens animalism. We are composed of what we eat, and eating much flesh will diminish intellectual activity. Students would accomplish much more in their studies if they never tasted meat. When the animal part of the human agent is strengthened by meat eating, the intellectual powers diminish proportionately. A religious life can be more successfully gained and maintained if meat is discarded, for this diet stimulates into intense activity lustful propensities, and enfeebles the moral and spiritual nature. “The flesh warreth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.”—Extracts from Unpublished Testimonies in Regard to Flesh Foods, 7, 1896. {CD 389.5}
3. Strengthens the Baser Passions
   683. If ever there was a time when the diet should be of the most simple kind, it is now. Meat should not be placed before our children. Its influence is to excite and strengthen the lower passions, and has a tendency to deaden the moral powers.—Testimonies for the Church 2:352, 1869 {CD 389.6}
   684. I was instructed that the use of flesh meat has a tendency to animalize the nature, and to rob men and women of the love and sympathy which they should feel for every one. We are built up from that which we eat, and those whose diet is largely composed of animal food are brought into a condition where they allow the lower passions to assume control of the high powers of the being .... {CD 390.1}
   We do not mark out any precise line to be followed in diet. There are many kinds of wholesome food. But we do say that flesh meat is not the right food for God’s people. It animalizes human beings. In a country such as this, where there are fruits, grains, and nuts in abundance, how can one think that he must eat the flesh of dead animals?—Manuscript 50, 1904 {CD 390.2}
   685. If things were as they should be in the households that make up our churches, we might do double service for the Lord. The light given me is that a most decided message must be borne in regard to health reform. Those who use flesh meat strengthen the lower propensities and prepare the way for disease to fasten upon them.—Letter 200, 1903 {CD 390.3}
   686. Your family have partaken largely of flesh meats, and the animal propensities have been strengthened, while the intellectual have been weakened. We are composed of what we eat, and if we subsist largely upon the flesh of dead animals, we shall partake of their nature. You have encouraged the grosser part of your organization, while the more refined has been weakened.—Testimonies for the Church 2:60, 61, 1868 {CD 390.4}
   687. We want the pervading truth of God’s word to get hold of every one of our people before this conference is over. We want them to understand that the flesh of animals is not the proper food for them to eat. Such a diet cultivates the animal passions in them and their children. God wants us to educate our children in right habits of eating, dressing, and working. He wants us to do what we can to repair the broken-down machinery.—The General Conference Bulletin, April 12, 1901 {CD 390.5}
4. Physical Results of a Flesh Diet Increase Liability to Disease and Sudden Death
   668. The liability to take disease is increased tenfold by meat eating.—Testimonies for the Church 2:64, 1868 {CD 386.4}
   669. Worldly physicians cannot account for the rapid increase of disease among the human family. But we know that much of this suffering is caused by the eating of dead flesh.—Letter 83, 1901 {CD 386.5}
   670. The animals are diseased, and by partaking of their flesh, we plant the seeds of disease in our own tissue and blood. Then when exposed to the changes in a malarious atmosphere, these are more sensibly felt; also when we are exposed to prevailing epidemics and contagious diseases, the system is not in a condition to resist the disease.—Extracts from Unpublished Testimonies in Regard to Flesh Foods, 8, 1896. {CD 386.6}
   671. You have flesh, but it is not good material. You are worse off for this amount of flesh. If you would each come down to a more spare diet, which would take from you twenty-five or thirty pounds of your gross flesh, you should be much less liable to disease. The eating of flesh meats has made a poor quality of blood and flesh. Your systems are in a state of inflammation, prepared to take on disease. You are liable to acute attacks of disease, and to sudden death, because you do not possess the strength of constitution to rally and resist disease. There will come a time when the strength and health you have flattered yourself you possessed will prove to be weakness.—Testimonies for the Church 2:61, 1868 {CD 387.1}
5. Animal Suffering and Its Effects
   666. Often animals are taken to market and sold for food, when they are so diseased that their owners fear to keep them longer. And some of the processes of fattening them for market produce disease. Shut away from the light and pure air, breathing the atmosphere of filthy stables, perhaps fattening on decaying food, the entire body soon becomes contaminated with foul matter. {CD 385.2}
   Animals are often transported long distances and subjected to great suffering in reaching a market. Taken from the green pastures and traveling for weary miles over the hot, dusty roads, or crowded into filthy cars, feverish and exhausted, often for many hours deprived of food and water, the poor creatures are driven to their death, that human beings may feast on the carcasses.—The Ministry of Healing, 314, 1905 {CD 385.3}
   667. Many die of disease caused wholly by meat eating; yet the world does not seem to be the wiser. Animals are frequently killed that have been driven quite a distance for the slaughter. Their blood has become heated. They are full of flesh, and have been deprived of healthy exercise, and when they have to travel far, they become surfeited and exhausted, and in that condition are killed for market. Their blood is highly inflamed, and those who eat of their meat, eat poison. Some are not immediately affected, while others are attacked with severe pain, and die from fever, cholera, or some unknown disease. {CD 385.4}
   Very many animals are sold for the city market known to be diseased by those who have sold them, and those who buy them are not always ignorant of the matter. Especially in larger cities this is practiced to a great extent, and meat eaters know not that they are eating diseased animals. {CD 386.1}
   Some animals that are brought to the slaughter seem to realize by instinct what is to take place, and they become furious, and literally mad. They are killed while in that state, and their flesh is prepared for market. Their meat is poison, and has produced, in those who have eaten it, cramps, convulsions, apoplexy, and sudden death. Yet the cause of all this suffering is not attributed to the meat. {CD 386.2}
   Some animals are inhumanly treated while being brought to the slaughter. They are literally tortured, and after they have endured many hours of extreme suffering, are butchered. Swine have been prepared for market even while the plague was upon them, and their poisonous flesh has spread contagious diseases, and great mortality has followed.—Spiritual Gifts 4a:147, 148, 1864 {CD 386.3}
6. Meat Eating Especially Dangerous Now
   661. Flesh was never the best food; but its use is now doubly objectionable, since disease in animals is so rapidly increasing.—The Ministry of Healing, 313, 1905 {CD 384.2}
   662. Animals are becoming more and more diseased, and it will not be long until animal food will be discarded by many besides Seventh-day Adventists. Foods that are healthful and life sustaining are to be prepared, so that men and women will not need to eat meat.—Testimonies for the Church 7:124, 1902 {CD 384.3}
   663. When will those who know the truth take their stand on the side of right principles for time and for eternity? When will they be true to the principles of health reform? When will they learn that it is dangerous to use flesh meat? I am instructed to say that if ever meat eating were safe, it is not safe now.—Manuscript 133, 1902 {CD 384.4}
   644. The light given me is that it will not be very long before we shall have to give up using any animal food. Even milk will have to be discarded. Disease is accumulating rapidly. The curse of God is upon the earth, because man has cursed it. The habits and practices of men have brought the earth into such a condition that some other food than animal food must be substituted for the human family. We do not need flesh food at all. God can give us something else.—Australasian Union Conference Record, July 28, 1899 {CD 384.5}
   665. Could you know just the nature of the meat you eat, could you see the animals when living from which the flesh is taken when dead, you would turn with loathing from your flesh meats. The very animals whose flesh you eat, are frequently so diseased that, if left alone, they would die of themselves; but while the breath of life is in them, they are killed and brought to market. You take directly into your system humors and poison of the worst kind, and yet you realize it not.—Testimonies for the Church 2:404, 405, 1870 {CD 385.1}
7. Perfecting Holiness
   655. Greater reforms should be seen among the people who claim to be looking for the soon appearing of Christ. Health reform is to do among our people a work which it has not yet done. There are those who ought to be awake to the danger of meat eating, who are still eating the flesh of animals, thus endangering the physical, mental, and spiritual health. Many who are now only half converted on the question of meat eating will go from God’s people to walk no more with them. {CD 382.1}
   In all our work we must obey the laws which God has given, that the physical and spiritual energies may work in harmony. Men may have a form of godliness, they may even preach the gospel, and yet be unpurified and unsanctified. Ministers should be strictly temperate in their eating and drinking, lest they make crooked paths for their feet, turning the lame—those weak in the faith—out of the way. If, while proclaiming the most solemn and important message God has ever given, men war against the truth by indulging wrong habits of eating and drinking, they take all the force from the message they bear. {CD 382.2}
   Those who indulge in meat eating, tea drinking, and gluttony are sowing seeds for a harvest of pain and death. The unhealthful food placed in the stomach strengthens the appetites that war against the soul, developing the lower propensities. A diet of flesh meat tends to develop animalism. A development of animalism lessens spirituality, rendering the mind incapable of understanding truth. {CD 382.3}
   The word of God plainly warns us that unless we abstain from fleshly lusts, the physical nature will be brought into conflict with the spiritual nature. Lustful eating wars against health and peace. Thus a warfare is instituted between the higher and the lower attributes of the man. The lower propensities, strong and active, oppress the soul. The highest interests of the being are imperiled by the indulgence of appetites unsanctioned by Heaven.—[The Review and Herald, May 27, 1902] Counsels on Health, 575, 576 {CD 382.4}
   656. Those who claim to believe the truth are to guard carefully the powers of body and mind, so that God and His cause will not be in any way dishonored by their words or actions. The habits and practices are to be brought into subjection to the will of God. We are to give careful attention to our diet. It has been clearly presented to me that God’s people are to take a firm stand against meat eating. Would God for thirty years give His people the message that if they desire to have pure blood and clear minds, they must give up the use of flesh meat, if He did not want them to heed this message? By the use of flesh meats the animal nature is strengthened and the spiritual nature weakened.—Letter 48, 1902 {CD 383.1}
   657. The moral evils of a flesh diet are not less marked than are the physical ills. Flesh food is injurious to health, and whatever affects the body has a corresponding effect on the mind and the soul. Think of the cruelty to animals that meat eating involves, and its effect on those who inflict and those who behold it. How it destroys the tenderness with which we should regard these creatures of God!—The Ministry of Healing, 315, 1905 {CD 383.2}
   658. The common use of the flesh of dead animals has had a deteriorating influence upon the morals, as well as the physical institution. Ill health in a variety of forms, if effect could be traced to the cause, would reveal the sure result of flesh eating.—Manuscript 22, 1887 {CD 383.3}
   659. Those who use flesh meat disregard all the warnings that God has given concerning this question. They have no evidence that they are walking in safe paths. They have not the slightest excuse for eating the flesh of dead animals. God’s curse is resting upon the animal creation. Many times when meat is eaten, it decays in the stomach, and creates disease. Cancers, tumors, and pulmonary diseases are largely caused by meat eating.—Pacific Union Recorder, October 9, 1902 {CD 383.4}
   660. Oh, if every one could discern these matters as they have been presented to me, those who are now so careless, so indifferent in regard to their character building; those who plead for indulgence in a flesh meat diet, would never open their lips in justification of an appetite for the flesh of dead animals. Such a diet contaminates the blood in their veins, and stimulates the lower animal passions. It enfeebles keen perception and vigor of thought to the understanding of God and the truth, and a knowledge of themselves.—Manuscript 3, 1897 {CD 384.1}
8. Leaders in Reform
   715. While we do not make the use of flesh meat a test, while we do not want to force any one to give up its use, yet it is our duty to request that no minister of the conference shall make light of or oppose the message of reform on this point. If, in the face of the light God has given concerning the effect of meat eating on the system, you will still continue to eat meat, you must bear the consequences. But do not take a position before the people that will permit them to think that it is not necessary to call for a reform in regard to meat eating; because the Lord is calling for a reform. The Lord has given us the work of proclaiming the message of health reform, and if you cannot step forward in the ranks of those who are giving this message you are not to make this prominent. In counterworking the efforts of your fellow laborers, who are teaching health reform, you are out of order, working on the wrong side.—Letter 48, 1902 {CD 401.2}
   [Work of Health Reform Will Go Forward; Beware of Opposing It—42]
   716. As God’s messengers, shall we not bear a decided testimony against the indulgence of perverted appetite?... God has provided an abundance of fruits and grains, which may be healthfully prepared and used in proper quantities. Why, then, do men continue to choose flesh meats? Can we possibly have confidence in ministers who at tables where flesh is served join with others in eating it? ... {CD 401.3}
   “Ye shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God.” Every one who transgresses the laws of health will surely be visited with God’s displeasure. Oh, how much of the Holy Spirit we might have day by day, if we would walk circumspectly, denying self, and practicing the virtues of Christ’s character.—Pacific Union Recorder, October 9, 1902 {CD 402.1}
   717. Let our ministers and canvassers step under the banners of strict temperance. Never be ashamed to say, “No, thank you; I do not eat meat. I have conscientious scruples against eating the flesh of dead animals.” If tea is offered, refuse it, giving your reason for so doing. Explain that it is harmful, and though stimulating for a time, the stimulus soon wears off, and a corresponding depression is felt.—Manuscript 113, 1901 {CD 402.2}
   718. Concerning flesh meat we can all say, Let it alone. And all should bear clear testimony against tea and coffee, never using them. They are narcotics, injurious alike to the brain and to the other organs of the body. The time has not yet come when I say that the use of milk and eggs should be wholly discontinued. Milk and eggs should not be classed with flesh meats. In some ailments the use of eggs is very beneficial. {CD 402.3}
   Let the members of our churches deny every selfish appetite. Every penny expended for tea, coffee, and flesh meat is worse than wasted; for these things hinder the best development of the physical, mental, and spiritual powers.—Letter 135, 1902 {CD 402.4}

Solutions part 2

• Chapter 25—Teaching Health Principles
• Part 1—Instruction to be Given on Health Topics
• The Need of Health Education
• Many Will Be Enlightened
• Pioneer Efforts in Teaching Health Reform Principles
• The Medical Tent on the Campground
• By Example as Well as Precept
• In Our Sanitariums
• Educate Patients in Home Nursing
• Temperance Instruction to Be Given
• Comprehensive Nature of Reform Required
• Leaves From the Tree of Life
• Preparation for Prayer for Healing
• The Physician's Responsibility to Enlighten His Patients
• A Solemn Charge
• Moral Courage Required by Diet Reformers
• Cooperation of Sanitariums and Schools
• In Evangelistic Work and City Missions
• Let Ministers Teach Reform Principles
• Appeal to Ministers, Conference Presidents, and Other Leaders
• Health Education in the Home
• God's Work Hindered by Selfish Indulgence
• Every Member to Impart Truth
• Establish New Centers
• Educators, Go Forward
• Part 2—How to Present the Principles of Health Reform
• Keep in View the Great Object of Reform
• Follow the Saviour's Methods
• Use Tact and Courtesy
• Diet Reform to Be Progressive
• Tracts on Health Reform
• Handle the Flesh Meat Question Wisely
• A Time to Keep Silent
• A Wrong Method of Working
• Teach by Example
• Present Temperance in Its Most Attractive Form
• Meet the People Where They Are
• Meeting Extreme Views—A Historical Statement
• Part 3—Cooking Schools
• A Work of Utmost Importance
• In Every Church, Church School, and Mission Field
• Their Rightful Place
• A Reforming Agency
• Teaching From House to House
• Teaching Diet Reform at Holiday Gatherings and Special Entertainments
• The Opportunities and Dangers of Our Restaurants
• Tact and Discretion Required in Educators
• Cooking Classes in All Our Schools
• Faithfulness in Common Duties