There are many more quotes along these lines. I will not attempt here to quote them all. But, as always, there must be a balance. While Mrs. White never tells us that the time has come to eliminate dairy and eggs from our diet, she does direct us to practice for when that time comes.



Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

True. But the conclusion was yours.
Specifically, "Therefore, according to Ellen White, one should not teach a vegan diet, and is "an extremist" if one is a strict vegan."
Which is not what you quoted from her.

When was that statement given, how long do you think it will be before that time arrives, how will you know when it arrives?

She says: "the doctrine of dispensing with them [milk and eggs] should not be taught." Tell me, kland, how can you teach a vegan diet without eliminating milk and eggs? I don't think I'm concluding anything other than the plain words of Ellen White here. Any open-minded reader here should see that my "conclusion" is really just the same as what Mrs. White herself said. As for being "an extremist," those words were in quotation marks because I had quoted them verbatim from Mrs. White. Again, those were her words, not mine.

In the end, I would hardly call my statement a "conclusion." More like an "executive summary" of the foregoing statements which I had quoted from Mrs. White.

This is a good question. A very good question, and worthy of an answer. To be honest, I think the best answer is this: trust what Mrs. White said. She said this: "when the time comes that it is no longer safe to use milk, cream, butter, and eggs, God will reveal this. No extremes in health reform are to be advocated. The question of using milk and butter and eggs will work out its own problem."

I cannot know when God will choose to reveal it. But He will. It will be God revealing it, not me deciding it on my own. If I were to decide on my own, I would prefer to abandon the animal products already. Yet, I know that I need the nutrition right now, and that no suitable substitute for the B12 exists for me. (I was getting B12 shots during my vegan year...to no avail. My body just did not assimilate it in that form.)

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

That's misleading.
You quoted her as saying:
Do you see a difference? A very big difference of what you are saying? Maybe "conclusion" was not the right word. [suggested word deleted]

Again, misleading. According to Ellen White, what is being an "extremist"? Nowhere did she equate being an extremist "if one is a strict vegan". That's why I said this also was your conclusion.

Ok, the question I'm trying to ask is how will you know when God reveals it? Is it self-evident as what you decide on your own as being self-evident? What would it take for you to know that God is revealing it? A certain threshold of people dying from various diseases, self-inflicted appetite, 500 years, or what?

Ellen White, on the same page, says that "We know that when it
does come, the Lord will provide."
Provide what?
"In all parts of the world provision will be made to supply
the place of milk and eggs....The Lord will give dietetic
art and skill to His people in all parts of the world, teaching
them how to use for the sustenance of life the products of
the earth."
What products of the earth?
"When properly prepared, olives, like nuts, supply
the place of butter and flesh meats. "
There's the replacement for butter.
pg. 363: " In grains, fruit, vegetables, and nuts are to be found
all the food elements that we need. If we will come to the
Lord in simplicity of mind, He will teach us how to prepare
wholesome food free from the taint of flesh meat."
Is that "all the food elements that we need"?
Maybe further reading is warranted?


Would I be concluding correctly that if you don't live in a new country or a poverty-stricken district and where fruits and nuts are scarce, you should be urged to exclude milk and eggs for your diet?


In your own words, what is the health message, health reform? What changes does one need to make. Or are there any changes needed? It seems to me that the lesson suggests that no one need make any changes.


How much B12 does one need? How is that determined?
What will you do if you decide God reveals you should do away with animal products?

A person who has enough bacteria in their mouth to give an adequate supply of B12 probably has few teeth in his or her mouth. Id guess youll have better luck with feeding your intestinal bacteria flora..

For some reason which I do not fully understand, I have never heard it suggested that the intestinal flora could produce and provide B12. Is it because those flora work in an anaerobic environment? Is it because they are too far along the GI tract, perhaps because there is something to be accomplished in the stomach (intrinsic factor?) and the intestinal flora are already post-stomach? I don't know. I'm not a physician, nor an expert in this field. The so-called "intrinsic factor," as I understand, is something that helps the body assimilate and utilize the B12 from any source material it receives, and yet it is not well understood yet by the researchers, as I understand.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

I struggle to see what difference you might be referring to, to be honest. You have also quoted but a portion of the fuller statement. Do you realize that in the preceding portion of the statement those words "these things" are given proper definition, and that they refer to milk and eggs? Given that "these things" is referring to milk and eggs, I see no significant difference in the two sentences which you have presented.

I think you must not have read all of the quotes I provided, for I'm nearly certain that I did quote something along this line (and I'm too lazy to go back and look, so I will just give another couple of quotes here).

From the statements above the following are clear:

1) It is not wrong to use eggs.
2) Eggs help to make good blood, and are perhaps even "necessary" for this.
3) The gentleman EGW was writing had eliminated eggs from his diet.
4) Ellen White called him "an extremist" for having done so.

Make your own conclusions.

kland,

Tell me how you can produce B12 by proper combinations of "grains, fruit, vegetables, and nuts" and then perhaps I will accept this as the only authoritative statement by Mrs. White on this topic. However, there are other statements, and they must be taken in balance with ones like this. In other statements, she indicates that eliminating milk and dairy can bring death. Further, she speaks of the very best diet as follows:


Now, kland, if I were to use the above as the single authoritative statement from Mrs. White on this topic, I would be forced to include milk in my diet and eliminate nuts, for she did not mention them. Do you see what I am getting at? Just because in the statement you found she did not mention milk and eggs it does not mean that these are not also necessary for good health. She has already said so in other statements, and it is necessary to take all of the statements collectively in order to understand properly.

The same is true with the Bible. The lesson brought out Paul's statements in 1 Timothy where he says:

If I wished, I could easily twist that one, as many do. But when taken collectively with other Biblical passages, we see that this "outlier" cannot mean quite what we might have imagined at first glance.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Green,

Ahh...I see what you were getting at now. In any case, I still think we are in that "present" time period. Do you feel otherwise?

I do think, however, that it is our positive duty to be teaching healthful cooking and eating practices which are vegan. I just don't think we should be teaching people to abstain from milk and eggs. Perhaps it is to be an individual decision, based on individual conscience, or perhaps God will yet make it clear to the church as a body. Either way, I believe the time has not come for everyone to abandon milk and eggs, although it may have come for certain individuals who have stronger constitutions which are not dependent on these foods for proper sustenance.

In other words, I would not choose to condemn anyone for either a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet or a vegan diet, but if anyone tries to forcibly teach their own preference to someone else, that is where I would draw a line. Notably in the statement by Mrs. White where she referred to the gentleman as "an extremist" for not using milk and eggs, Mrs. White brought out the fact that others were learning from his example. One's influence matters. If all he had to affect by his diet were himself, perhaps she would not have used the term "extremist" to qualify his position on diet.

Hopefully we both understand each other's viewpoint better now.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

It's our duty to teach it, but we shouldn't teach it?

My question was, In your own words, what is the health message, health reform? What changes does one need to make. Or are there any changes needed? It seems to me that the lesson suggests that no one need make any changes.


Which sounds like each deciding on their own.

What will change, what will indicate the "present" time has expired if 100 years is still "present" when she says the disease of animals was increasing in her day, how will you know? Maybe lightning falling from heaven? Or sky writing?

Do you think she had in mind 100 years for "near"? Do you think when people are taught to prepare food without the use of milk or butter, that would be the time?


But that's not true. However, reflecting on the last posts, I believe it will be tedious for me to show this to you also.


That "something" could be eggs and milk. Do you think that "something" could be something else?

Ignoring the milk and eggs for the moment, can you think of a vegan diet that isn't healthy?
A vegan diet is not the equivalent of healthy diet.

Likewise, do you think just eliminating milk and eggs from your diet gives a healthy diet? Or do you need to include some foods to substitute for those left out?

Or should we include that which is declared harmful because we just aren't ready to give them up yet?