On Diet and Health

Dietary Rules, Healthy Living, Medicine, and The Medical System.

Part Three of: A Dialogue With A Seventh-Day Adventist, On Diet, Nutrition, Health, and Medicine.

I. Diet and Nutrition

Ms. Laura Peals Writes:
Regarding your comments on Kara and Roland Jennings: Ellen White teaches that God is our master healer, and when we cooperate with the natural laws of health that he created, most all disease is reversed. I have seen true healing in a myriad of patients, who follow the health principles. The book "The Ministry of Healing" is full of spiritual and health gems.

We Respond:
I actually purchased “The Ministry of Healing” for them (at their request) and brought it as a gift with me to Dominica for them. Kara really wanted it and could not get it there and she was very happy to have it and it served as the price for our stay at their lovely homestead.

Regarding Ellen White and the dietary views of many Seventh Day Adventists, I am somewhat skeptical, and personal anecdotes are not sufficient for me, after all, I have seen excellent results from carnivore and paleo diets that are made up nearly entirely of meat (in contrast to the vegetarianism she advocates for). Thus, we must appeal to a higher standard and not merely personal testimonies and eye witness accounts on this matter.

Likewise, unlike the position of most Seventh-Day-Adventists, Scripture does absolutely permit the use of alcohol by Christians (Psalm 104:14-15, John 2:10, Genesis 43:34) even to the point where it affects the mind and even prescribes it and recommends it for such a use (Psalm 104:15):

“Give strong drink to the one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress;

let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more.

Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute.

Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy” (Proverbs 31:6-9)

Not only this, but Will Kellogg, the founder of Kellogg’s Cereals and a Seventh Day Adventist sanitarium plainly argued that he believed that eggs and meat in a man’s diet for breakfast increased his testosterone and thus his “sexual impulses” and that this could be curbed by modifying his diet to be more grain heavy. This is not much different than the satanic desire today to use grains and soy to make our men weak and effeminate resulting in record low sperm counts, sexual dysfunction, apathetic personalities, and the subsequent collapse of the family (all of which deeply concerns me).

Scripture plainly teaches that even the priests of the Temple ate of the sacrificed meats (Leviticus 6:26), and the prohibiting of meats is directly condemned by St. Paul:

“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;

Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;

Forbidding to marry, and commandingto abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.

For every creature of God isgood, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.” (1 Timothy 4:1-5)

Indeed, he likely had in mind the ascetic Judaizing Gnostics which required the observance of circumcision (Galatians 5:1-15), as well as all the feast days of the Old Testament and the dietary laws of Moses (Colossians 2:16-17), all of which were dealt with by the Apostles (Acts 15:1-35).

In fact, the vision of the great white sheet by St. Peter shows that all meats (in agreement with St. Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 4) were now made clean in Christ (Acts 10:9-15) and to be eaten and received in thanksgiving. This is because the wall dividing Jew and Gentile had been broken down with all those of faith now being Abraham’s offspring and heirs of the promise (Ephesians 2:14, Galatians 3:7). The Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 officially settled these issues for Christians and must be honored as inspired words from God, because they are.

Now, when it comes to holistic medicine, diets, and agriculture, my position is fairly plain: That we should seek to eat foods that are organic, and not genetically modified because such has been grown or raised either by us or locals who farm like us, with any meats being butchered humanely. This food should then be eaten in three square meals when not fasting and eaten (preferably) within an eight-hour period. When people eat, their daily diet should be as meat heavy as one can manage (even if it is only for the focus of supper), this diet should also be generally low in sugar, with plenty of vegetables, and perhaps a little bread or some form of root vegetable or equivalent (such as breadfruit), with fruit at (or for) breakfast and for snacks throughout the day. Desserts should probably be left for more special meals, like Sunday dinner and for holidays, and alcohol should be occasional or for specific purposes (a few nights a week for enjoyment or social lubrication, or for relieving pain, stress, and distress). Otherwise, people should work hard, drink plenty of water, avoid unnecessary mental stress, embrace physical difficultly even in recreation (like taking hikes, swimming, kayaking etc), pray to God regularly and privately, and to help others without expecting anything in return from them….and Lastly, Christians should not eat meat strangled in blood, as commanded by the council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:28-29).

These are the optimal goals and we should not be snobby about them either, for most people will enjoy the occasional night out at a restaurant or have a time where they need to eat a gas station hotdog in a pinch; likewise, others might enjoy a special deep-fried treat at a festival or would like to enjoy an occasional cigar on a cool evening. In my view expressed here, all of this is perfectly fine, and we have to be flexible with people so as not to make the perfect the enemy of the good. We can simultaneously argue for a generally optimal diet while recognizing that people are going to eat out occasionally and eat something that wasn’t very healthy, and so long as they are not negatively impacting their own health, and are actually trying to follow the optimum, they should not be judged, but praised. Christians who are into holistic approaches need to remember that though the body of man can be damaged by a life of bad diets and bad habits, neither are we fragile and pathetic, for God made man strong in His own image and He created us perfectly to live in the world He created, limited only by the conditions of the Fall.

Indeed, being patient with others who aren’t where we are at is essential, and we must NEVER refuse the hospitality of others with a turned-up nose because it “doesn’t meet our standards,” that sort of behavior is absolutely not acceptable from Christians and people should not be shamed for having to eat what they can afford, even if it is not an optimal diet for good health. Rather, they should be encouraged and shown by example the affordable and healthier alternatives over time, and not rebuked over dinner table for what they served, and I mean EVER.

II. Health and Medicine

I also believe we should avoid our medical establishment and doctors as much as possible for many of them are pagan materialists and were educated in anti-human atheistic doctrines.

Hence, when it comes the medical establishment’s institutions, we should try to avoid ever having our children there; even for birth (I obviously am pro-midwifery for this reason). For one of the greatest dangers to Christian families politically and worldwide, is the regular wellness checkup, for from there they can push vaccines and various other drugs that damage a child’s ability to learn and control their behavior as well as their future fertility and if you refuse, they are able to use warrantless government authorities, under the charge of abuse, to take away Christian children from their parents. Thus, besides being the front line of any vaccine mandates, the child wellness checkup is where they can monitor your family, including how children are disciplined, and once again, attack Christian families merely for following their millennia old traditions.

Indeed, with the medical establishment now entirely united in the belief that man is overpopulated and needs to be reduced, and that men can be women, and women can be men, the challenge facing Christians today with the medical system is no different than the challenge that faced Christians in the 1970s and 1980s regarding the public school system. Indeed, in the way we employed homeschooling and private Christian schools to counter the loss of that institution to the secularists, I expect some analogous solutions and alternatives to arise in the future to deal with the loss of the medical system to the same enemy that took the public education system. The only difference being that now the stakes are even higher, the time more urgent, and the situation more dire.

With this in mind, I also recognize that such a system cannot be abolished and only ever reformed and that there are indeed good people and useful tools within that system. How could I say otherwise? For I have seen doctors save lives and at one point they helped us with our own prematurely born infant (I without hesitation thank God for Neonatal Intensive Care); however, as time goes on, I fear that such a system will become increasingly hostile to Christians and their convictions, especially in the developed world and I don’t think any rational person would actually dispute this on the merits any more, especially after COVID. So, the truth is this, that while Christians should not feel guilty for having to go to the hospital in the event of an emergency that they cannot handle (for there are no other legal options even available), they should ALSO not actively seek to use that same system unless other options were exhausted first. This is the reasonable balance we need to maintain as sincere Christians of the Word in this present crisis.

Beyond this, I think there is something to making sure our nutrition is balanced and also that essential oils and herbs, as Scripture teaches, can and should be used. This would especially include the holy anointing oil prescribed to Moses by God in Exodus (Exodus 30:22-25) and as commanded to be used for healing by St. James (James 5:14-16). I believe an ingredient in this holy oil, and the holy incense, which is a well-known healing herb, is actually the plant we know today as cannabis and this is now confirmable not only from the Hebrew text in Exodus itself [בֹּשֶׂם קָנֶה (qâneh bôśem)] (the word that was translated, originally in the King James, as “sweet calamus” into English), but also from recent excavations in the holy land where altars were examined and the holy incense resin at the altar was found to contain cannabis and even THC). Hence, for this reason, I think Christians in the last century have been wrong to be against the moderate and therapeutic use of cannabis. I likewise also think Kratom is another miracle plant which is saving people here in my own hometown (in the rural rust-belt of Applachia) from opioid addiction (another evil deliberately caused by the medical establishment) in a natural way. In fact, Kara Jennings has actually been trying to get her own Kratom seeds to plant in Dominica after trying some of my own when she was having pain and energy loss during our visit to the island.

{Ancedote}: Another experience we had while we were in Dominica that is worth mentioning was with a Christian woman living entirely off-grid and self-sufficiently deep in the jungle with her two young children. This woman, Dawn, showed us in real time the beauty of what the locals call “bush medicine” which is really just the use of those things which God has providentially given to us by His hand. One day, while we were staying in her “eco-cabin” atop the mountain, she and her daughter were coming up the steep stairs of rock and stone through the jungle and up the mountain side to visit us. Her daughter (who I think is around 5) fell on the path and skinned her knee a bit and was crying. Dawn immediately, without missing a beat, ran not five feet from where her daughter had fallen, looked around for about 6 seconds, and picked exactly what she needed and immediately applied it to her knee and soothed her crying. After speaking with her about bush medicine and eating a breakfast of avocado and fried ripe plantain (all which she had brought fresh) she then told us to go ahead pick ourselves some tea, showing us the plants around the cabin and telling us how to bruise and steep them in hot water and about all the medicinal benefits they carried. With a flavor between hibiscus and peppermint and a color that turned from deep purple to bright green as it cooled a bit in the cup, I had the realization that the potential for self-sufficiency and healing on the island was quite immense, especially since Dawn was not a native Dominican, but a woman in her late thirties from England who had lived there around 15 years. I know recognize that with a little time, and some wise guidance from locals, the potential for self-healing on the island there is immense, and with food self-sufficiency attainable from nearly all trees and plants and animals there in just 3-5 years on a mere 2-3 acres for a large family, the sky really is the limit.

Overall, I am very open-minded regarding things like chiropractic medicine and acupuncture, and do not take a dogmatic stance on many of the other holistic techniques that are available now, for I am overall open to anything holistic that isn’t pagan or new age (Though I do have some concerns about Yoga in its more spiritual aspects). I am also a former practitioner of martial arts (Korean martial arts, America folk-style wrestling, and historic European martial arts (sword-fighting), and of some redneck firearms and archery training as well, and so I also see value in that, especially for young men as future husbands and even of the women to some degree in the event that they are without a man for any reason and find themselves in danger.

To summarize all of this regarding health, I would reiterate the position of the Catholic philosopher Ivan Illich from his masterful critique of the medical establishment in his work “Medical Nemesis: The Limits of Medicine” as to what constitutes a healthy person.

"Healthy people are those who live in healthy homes on a healthy diet; in an environment equally fit for birth, growth work, healing, and dying... Healthy people need no bureaucratic interference to mate, give birth, share the human condition and die."

That is my fundamental view and I think it is a goal to be strived-for by all Christians. It is not descriptive of our current state, nor is it an ideal in which all can equally and perfectly attain, but it is nonetheless the simplest, most obvious, and most natural of conclusions upon which we can draw regarding how man was made by God to exist in His creation. If we keep that vision, as laid down by Illich, as our goal, we strive not in vain, but for a noble and moral purpose regarding our diet, health, and treatment.