Oysters

Fannie Bolton, a former literary assistant, wrote that Ellen White, at a rail depot, ate “big white raw oysters with vinegar, pepper and salt. . . . I was overwhelmed with this inconsistency and dumb with horror. Elder Starr hurried me out and made all sorts of excuses and justifications of Sister White’s action; yet I kept thinking in my heart, ‘What does it mean? What has God said? How does she dare eat these abominations?’”

When G. B. Starr heard of this letter he was astounded. He responded to W. C. White: “I can only say that I regard it as the most absurdly, untruthful lot of rubbish that I have ever seen or read regarding our dear Sister White.

“The event simply never occurred. I never saw your mother eat oysters or meat of any kind either in a restaurant or at her own table. Fannie Bolton’s statement . . . is a lie of the first order. I never had such an experience and it is too absurd for anyone who ever knew your mother to believe. . . .

“I think this entire letter was written by Fannie Bolton in one of her most insane moments. . . .

“When we visited Florida in 1928, Mrs. Starr and I were told that at a camp meeting, Fannie Bolton made a public statement that she had lied about Sister White, and that she repented of it.”

Though Fannie Bolton’s report was false, Ellen White did request oysters in 1882 in a letter to Mary, her daughter-in-law: “If you can get me a good box of herrings, fresh ones, please do so. These last ones that Willie got are bitter and old. If you can buy . . . half a dozen cans of good tomatoes, please do so. We shall need them. If you can get a few cans of good oysters, get them.”

What shall we make of this request for oysters? Aren’t oysters considered unclean according to Leviticus 11? The answer to that question was not clear to Seventh-day Adventists in the 1880s any more than their attitude toward pork was clear in the 1850s.

In 1883 W. H. Littlejohn, pastor of the Battle Creek Tabernacle, conducted a question/answer column in the church paper. In answering whether oysters are included among the unclean foods of Leviticus 11, Littlejohn said: “It is difficult to decide with certainty whether oysters would properly come under the prohibition of Leviticus 11:9-12. . . . It would, however, seem from the language, as if they might.”

Where no direct vision insight was given, Adventists like anybody else had to work their way through such dietary matters.

Ellen White was a hypocrite. This charge is based on the fact that Ellen White was lucid and forthright regarding the danger of meat eating but occasionally ate flesh foods.

Her son W. C., wrote to G. B. Starr in 1933 that the White family had been vegetarians but not always “teetotalers” (total abstainers from flesh foods).

In 1894, Ellen White wrote to a non-Adventist active in the temperance cause in Australia who had asked about the Adventist position on being “total abstainers”: “I am happy to assure you that as a denomination we are in the fullest sense total abstainers from the use of spirituous liquors, wine, beer, [fermented] cider, and also tobacco and all other narcotics. . . . All are vegetarians, many abstaining from the use of flesh food, while others use it in only the most moderate degree.” Many of Ellen White’s strongest statements against meat were written after she had renewed her commitment to total abstinence in 1894.

Here we note that for Ellen White a vegetarian was not necessarily a “teetotaler,” that is, a total abstainer, but one who did not eat flesh foods as a habit. Here we have a clear example of the difference between a principle and a policy. Vegetarianism was a policy based upon principle: we should eat the best food obtainable under the circumstances. Principles are clear statements, always true under all circumstances. Policies may change, due to time, place, and circumstances. Policies work out the principles by always doing the best possible under the circumstances. Only the individual’s conscience knows when those decisions of doing “one’s best” have been made.

http://www.whiteestate.org/books/mol/Chapt27.html

Gary:

quote:

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Spalding and Magan Collection, page 38, paragraph 4
I have a large family which often numbers sixteen. In it there are men who work at the plow, and who fell trees. These have most vigorous exercise, but not a particle of the flesh of animal is placed on our table. Meat has not been used by us since the Brighton Campmeeting. It was not my purpose to have it on my table at any time, but urgent pleas were made that such an one was unable to eat this or that, and that their stomach could take care of meat better than it could anything else. Then I was enticed to place it on my table. The use of cheese began to creep in, because some liked cheese; but I soon controlled that. But when the selfishness of taking lives of animals to gratify a perverted appetite was presented to me by a Catholic woman, kneeling at my feet, I felt ashamed and distressed. I saw it in a new light, and I said, I will no longer patronize the butcher; I will not have the flesh of corpses on my table. http://www.egwtext.whiteestate.org/cgi-bin/egw2html?C=165730102&K=112334012010414638&M=P

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quote:

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Many of Ellen White's strongest statements against meat were written after she had renewed her commitment to total abstinence in 1894. http://www.egwtext.whiteestate.org/issues/faq-egw.html#faq-section-a7

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Again the source of the above is directly from the White Estate!
Your apology for essentially calling me a LIAR, Gary, is hereby accepted! (wither offered or not)

[ January 20, 2004, 06:34 PM: Message edited by: J. R. Layman ]

I apologize for insinuating that you are a liar, the facts you present are true, but I think your conclusion or interpretation of these facts are flawed.

From my studies I concluded that Ellen White's Christian Walk was a learning experience just as all of our walks are. Before I became an Adventist I ate Shrimp, Pork, oyster and other unclean food and continued to do so even a little while after I became an Adventist. After studying Scripture and SOP I became convinced not to eat unclean meats, I only ate clean meats. Now after more study I conclude that it is clear we should eat now meat or fish at all because of the diseases in them.

Again and again I have been shown that God is trying to lead us back, step by step, to His original design--that man should subsist upon the natural products of the earth. Among those who are waiting for the coming of the Lord, meat eating will eventually be done away; flesh will cease to form a part of their diet. We should ever keep this end in view, and endeavor to work steadily toward it. . . . {CH 450.1}

I see the above quote from EGW as saying those that are waiting for the coming of the Lord will not be eating meat at all. I also see that Ellen White steadily worked toward giving up meat entirely.

Here's something for y'all to "munch" or "mull"on.

The Chronicle Herald- Halifax, Nova Scotia ,Canada Monday, January 19, 2004

Mad cow dangers may be understated, new tests indicate- By Chris Morris- The Canadian Press

New research suggests that the human form of mad cow disease is a lot more complicated than originally thought, and, potyentially, nuch scarier.
Scientists have long agreed that eating cattle tissue infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy- mad cow disease- can cause the human form of the disease known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
But recent animal tests indicate that eating infected beef may also cause another form of the disease, classical CJD, forcing scientists to re-examine assumptions about the nature of the deadly disease and raising fears that it may be more widespread than previously thought.
"We have to be a little bit more open-minded about this," says Dr. Laura Manuelidis, professor and head of neuroppathology at Yale University in Conneticut.
"There are certain things we don't know and we can't be absolute about. We can't make believe it's a cut-and-dried situation."
The accepted wisdom has been that classical CJD has nothing to do with mad cows. It affects older people, those over 55, and generally occurs spontaneously at the rate of about one person per million per year.
It has been confused with Alzeimer's disease and there is some concern that because of misdiagnosis, it may be more widespread than the confirmed numbers indicate.
"The fact is in the United States, the autopysy rate has gone way down from when I was a medical student, even in academic centres," says Manuelidis.
"If you don't examine the brains, how can you possibly know what you are missing?"
New variant CJD, the form that has ravaged Britain since 1995, affects younger people at a much younger age, normally in their 20's and 30's. It is widely believed that only this form can be triggered by consuming infected meat.
Both forms riddle the brain with holes, causing dementia and, ultimately, death.
Manuelidis says a recent study in Britain involving mice whose brains were genetically engineered with human genes gives weight to herlong-held theory that classical CJD may be more insidious than assumed.
The mice were injected with tissue from mad cows. One set of mice fell sick with the human form of mad cow, or variant CJD.
But, in a finding that shocked researchers, a few of the mice developed what looked like classical CJD, the form scientists have long believed had no relationship to mad cows or eating meat.
Dr. Neil Cashman, a professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, describes the findings as "striking and worrisome."
The question is, could an epidemic of classical CJD be dormant in the brains of people who have eaten infected cattle products- specifically those containing brain or spinal cord matter?
Cashman says data from Britain shows the incidence of classical CJD remained stable during the variant , which killed 146 people.


JR, you can keep eating the fish, but any I've seen on THIS East Coast, isn't fit for human consumption...hmmm , course when you pull the worms out of the cod fish (IF you can find a codfish), on second thought, I guess you could get added protein, EH?

Here is an excellent site on this topic and other related topics:

http://www.madcowboy.com/

Laurie

re:

quote:

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"course when you pull the worms out of the cod fish (IF you can find a codfish), on second thought, I guess you could get added protein,"

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Are you saying that the various WORMS, RAT and MICE parts that are found in my breakfast cereals from Kellogg’s or Sunbelt (McKee's...SDA) are OK as protein, as their from VEGAN (SDA) WORMS, RATS, & MICE?

FWIW

Here are a few of the ALLOWABLE WORM and RODANT contamination on a few VEGAN foods!


The Food Defect Action Levels Levels of natural or unavoidable defects in foods
that present no health hazards for humans

from the FDA @ http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/dalbook.html

CORNMEAL
Insects
(AOAC 981.19) Average of 1 or more whole insects (or equivalent) per 50 grams Insect filth

(AOAC 981.19) Average of 25 or more insect fragments per 25 grams Rodent filth
(AOAC 981.19) Average of 1 or more rodent hairs per 25 grams
OR
Average of 1 or more rodent excreta fragment per 50 grams

POPCORN
Rodent filth
(AOAC 950.91) 1 or more rodent excreta pellets are found in 1 or more subsamples, and 1 or more rodent hairs are found in 2 or more other subsamples
OR
2 or more rodent hairs per pound and rodent hair is found in 50% or more of the subsamples
OR
20 or more gnawed grains per pound and rodent hair is found in 50% or more of the subsamples

TOMATOES, CANNED
Drosophila fly
(AOAC 955.46) Average of 10 or more fly eggs per 500 grams
OR
5 or more fly eggs and 1 or more maggots per 500 grams
OR
2 or more maggots per 500 grams

Hmmmmm, I guess it's better to get our protein from VEGAN rodents and Worms, eh?

J.R., what's your point in that last post? That we should live in hermetically sealed biodomes, grow all our own food, or what? We live in an imperfect world, and some things must be accepted as a part of normal life. If we're going to worry about every little impurity that could possibly be present in anything that goes into these present bodies, we might as well forget about breathing air.

Except that would make living for more than a few minutes pretty difficult.

We can minimize risks, but not eliminate them entirely, in this present world.

Nothing you've posted refutes the need to lessen/remove animal products from the diet.

I am enjoying the debate on our health laws and clean and unclean foods, i.e., meats. Whether this is in the form of fish or cows, there is a certain risk that one takes when injesting these foods. What gets me is the lack of concern, by many, to follow any of the reports concering the contamination of their favorite cut of fish or cow.

God is the author of the food laws both before and after the flood, the way this was explained to me is as follows. God gave the clean meats that we could eat because the ground could not be planted, it is my futher understanding that the people were to revert back to the herb and vegetable diet He imparted to us.

Also as the Mad Cow situation continues to grow, in fact, more cattle have been discovered and are being classified as host cows and added to the original 81 known cows. The number now stands at 98 as of 01/20/2004. Here is the article that supports this:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&e=2&u=/nm/20040120/ts_nm/madcow_quarantine_dc_2

Here is a portion of the article: by Rutgers

The USDA said its newest information showed at least three herdmates of the infected cow were sent to a dairy farm in Tenino, Washington and at least six went to a farm in Connell, Washington. That means investigators have found 23 of the 81 Canadian cattle they sought, a USDA spokeswoman said.


However, the total number of Canadian animals the USDA is trying to track increased to 98 on Monday after officials said they confirmed a second group of cattle had been imported from the same Alberta farm where the infected cow was born. The second group came to the United States at a later time, but the USDA has not yet identified the specific date.


DNA tests have confirmed that the infected cow was born in Alberta, Canada, more than six years ago. The farm where the animal was born went out of business in 2001 and sold off the herd in several transactions.


Of the second group of imported cattle, three were found at a farm in Quincy, Washington, which is already under quarantine, the USDA spokeswoman said. Investigators are still trying to locate the remaining 14 cattle that were part of the second group shipped across the border


It just makes very good sense to remove yourself from the roles of meat eater extraordinaire. I think that we have only just been shown a small picture of this new disease, and we haven't a clue where this will all end.

Still I am Glad to be a vegetarian.

God Bless

BusyBob

In our newspaper tonight was a big story about how another cow was found (only an hours drive from where we live, in Oregon, that belong to a large dairy herd,) who belongs to the group of cows that came from Canada, where the Mad cow was disease was found. This cow doesn't have MadCow disease but it came from the same group.

What was interesting was the media said over and over that this was a "dairy" cow and its milk was sent to Tillamook, Oregon where the famous cheese and ice-cream is made, BUT it was very safe to consume!!

This is snow-balling and will continue to get worse and worse!!