Nice try marsten but i'm not going down your road, thank you very much...
I understand the health concerns with the meat of today and the issues with the mass slaughter (thats why I buy local from small farms). I also understand the premise behind the vegetarianism being healthier (although without fortified foods, a lack of B12 in the diet would be not so healthy, also the toxins used on fruits and veggies and the chemically fertilized soil lacking any real nuitrients), if done properly. Have you noticed what passes for 'healthy vegetarian' food at most potlucks? Lots of sweets and packages and canned ingredients that are higher in sodium than an order of McDonalds french fries.
My deal is that I am told I am not supposed to do what Christ, my example in all things, did... we talk about unity of the brethren, but the condemnation from the 'cheese police' within the church is anything but unifying. Even sister white said on more than one occasion that the diet was not to be a test of fellowship. She advocated for the use of eggs in the sanitariums, gave her grandchildren milk to drink and counselled to eat meat on occasion. I think the militant health advocates within the church are doing much harm in the spreading of the gospel of the three angels message.
B12 is a byproduct of bacteria. Human body naturally produces B12. It's under your tongue every morning when you wake up. Try drinking a glass of water first or brushing your teeth after the breakfast.
Don't use the Sabbath afternoon potlucks to misrepresent the healthy vegetarian diet.
It's not the militants of the church who want something that is not required of the professed last days people. Here are some plain testimonies on the necessity of overcoming our appetite for flesh meat. It's about temperance, healthy bodies and minds and training and changing our taste for the diet in heaven.
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. {RH, May 27, 1902 par. 2}
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. {CD 383.1}
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. {CCh 230.4}
The Lord intends to bring his people back to live upon simple fruits, vegetables and grains. (U.T.Nov. 5,1896)
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.
I cannot think that in the practice of flesh eating we are in harmony with the light which God has been pleased to give us. All who are connected with our health institutions especially should be educating themselves to subsist on fruits, grains, and vegetables. If we move from principle in these things, if we as Christian reformers educate our own taste, and bring our diet to God's plan, then we may exert an influence upon others in this matter, which will be pleasing to God. {CD 380.4}
It is not the chief end of man to gratify his appetite. There are physical wants to be supplied; but because of this is it necessary that man shall be controlled by appetite?
Will the people who are seeking to become holy, pure, refined, that they may be introduced into the society of heavenly angels, continue to take the life of God's creatures, and enjoy their flesh as a luxury? From what the Lord has shown me, this order of things will be changed, and God's peculiar people will exercise temperance in all things. {CD 381.1}
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.
Grains and fruits prepared free from grease, and in as natural a condition as possible, should be the food for the tables of all who claim to be preparing for translation to heaven. The less feverish the diet, the more easily can the passions be controlled. Gratification of taste should not be consulted irrespective of physical, intellectual, or moral health. {CD 63.3}
Those who have received instruction regarding the evils of the use of flesh foods, tea and coffee, and rich and unhealthful food preparations, and who are determined to make a covenant with God by sacrifice, will not continue to indulge their appetite for food that they know to be unhealthful. God demands that the appetites be cleansed, and that self-denial be practiced in regard to those things which are not good.
This is a work that will have to be done before His people can stand before Him a perfected people. {CCh 233.5}
The remnant people of God must be a converted people. The presentation of this message is to result in the conversion and sanctification of souls. We are to feel the power of the Spirit of God in this movement. This is a wonderful, definite message; it means everything to the receiver, and it is to be proclaimed with a loud cry. We must have a true, abiding faith that this message will go forth with increasing importance till the close of time. {CCh 233.6}
There are some professed believers who accept certain portions of the Testimonies as the message of God, while they reject those portions that condemn their favorite indulgences. Such persons are working contrary to their own welfare and the welfare of the church. It is essential that we walk in the light while we have the light. Those who claim to believe in health reform, and yet work counter to its principles in the daily life practice, are hurting their own souls and are leaving wrong impressions upon the minds of believers and unbelievers. {CCh 233.7}
