As uncooked food is much more nutritious than the cooked, it is urgent that all foodstuffs which can be eaten raw should not be eaten cooked, or at least not all of the time. Many articles of food are cooked only because of custom. Spinach, asparagus, okra, young green peas, turnips and carrots, to mention just a few examples, though as a rule cooked, are even more delicious when eaten raw. Persons who are not accustomed to using raw foods should start on small amounts, then gradually increase them. They should however, be very well masticated and should be taken along with cooked and bland articles of food, lest the lining of the stomach become irritated.
USING COMMON SENSE
“There is real common sense in health reform. People can not all eat the same things. Some articles of food that are wholesome and palatable to one person, may be hurtful to another. Some can not use milk, while others can subsist upon it. For some, dried beans and peas are wholesome, while others can not digest them. Some stomachs have become so sensitive that they can not make use of the coarser kind of Graham flour. So it is impossible to make an unvarying rule by which to regulate everyone’s dietetic habits.” — Counsels On Health, pp. 154, 155.
“But not all foods wholesome in themselves are equally suited to our needs under all circumstances. Care should be taken in the selection of food. Our diet should be suited to the season, to the climate in which we live, and to the occupation we follow. Some foods that are adapted for use at one season or in one climate are not suited to another. So there are different foods best suited for persons in different occupations. Often food that can be used with benefit by those engaged in hard physical labor is unsuitable for persons of sedentary pursuits or intense mental application. God has given us an ample variety of healthful foods, and each person should choose from it the things that experience and sound judgment prove to be best suited to his own necessities.” — Ministry of Healing, pp. 296, 297.
THE ENLIGHTENED, PROGRESSIVE WAY OF LIFE
“As thy days, so shall thy strength be.” Deut. 33:25.
This scripture plainly reveals that God never intended that man should be sick or weak, and pass away before his days be full, but that he should retain his strength commensurate with his age, and die, not of disease, but of ripe old age.
“And this also is a sore evil, that in all points as he [the wicked] came, so shall he go: and what profit hath he that hath laboured for the wind? All his days also he eateth in darkness, and he hath much sorrow and wrath with his sickness.” Eccles. 5:16, 17.
Naturally those who go on living independently of God, are not only committing wickedness, even though unconsciously, but are also laboring in vain. Furthermore, their eating in darkness, not having Divine light on the subject, causes them to eat food such as brings, not strength, but sorrow, wrath, and sickness.
The two Divine Guides of life, the Word and Nature, as we have already seen are the best and the only teachers that speak with authority. Anyone, therefore, who neglects their counsel is unwittingly walking in darkness and heading for trouble, and if he should finally get into it certain it is that he will be anxious to get out of it. But as he may hastily grope about, he will find himself just as helpless to get out as he was to keep out. Any theory, therefore, however plausible or logical it may seem, is definitely misleading unless it be one hundred percent in harmony with the two never-erring Guides of life — the Bible and Nature.
As these Teachers authoritatively speak that man was made out “of the dust of the ground” (Gen. 2:7), there is good reason that the body of man and the soil of the earth contain the same minerals. Naturally, then, it is because flesh cannot adequately perpetuate itself on flesh that the plant is the agency which picks up the minerals from the soil and prepares them for human and animal consumption. Obviously, grains, nuts, fruit, and vegetables, man’s original, best, and lawful diet, if used in the right proportions, will keep his mind keen, his body healthy, his morals and his integrity unquestionable.
There are number of books on the market, some advocating one thing and some another, but Nature and the Book of God both positively recommend these health-maintaining and character-building principles, and though fanatics may add to or subtract from, they are helpless to control the results. The “no-grain” diet and the “fireless kitchen” ideas, although seemingly based on true principles, are only two of the many fruits of fanaticism. We, therefore, authoritatively declare that all who stay in the middle of the straight and narrow path, all who wisely make their daily menu only from the lawful foodstuffs, will doubtless preserve their health, and grow away from a beastly to a more noble and human-like nature; reap many blessings and avoid great curses.