Ellen White provides extensive guidance on health and diet, emphasizing simplicity, temperance, and the importance of wholesome, nourishing food. Here are some key principles: * **Simplicity in Diet:** She advocates for a simple diet for both physical and spiritual advancement. "Let us patiently study this question. We need knowledge and judgment in order to move wisely in this matter. Nature's laws are not to be resisted, but obeyed." (9T 153.3) * **Wholesome and Palatable Food:** While discarding harmful articles of diet, she stresses the need to use "wholesome, palatable food" in their place. (9T 162.4) A diet lacking proper nutrition can bring "reproach upon the cause of health reform." (9T 161.3) * **Fruits, Grains, and Vegetables:** These, "prepared in a simple way, free from spice and grease of all kinds, make, with milk and cream, the most healthful diet. They impart nourishment to the body, and give a power of endurance and vigor of intellect that are not produced by a stimulating diet." (HL 78.6, CTBH 47) * **Avoidance of Stimulants:** She advises against encouraging an appetite for stimulants and to "eat only plain, simple, wholesome food." (9T 162.4) * **Influence on Health:** Diet affects both physical and moral health. (HL 76.3, CTBH 79) Those with important responsibilities, especially spiritual, need to be temperate in eating, and "rich and luxurious food should have no place upon their tables." (GW 229) * **Errors in Diet:** "Unhealthful habits of eating are injuring thousands and tens of thousands." (HL 48) Wrong habits of eating and unhealthful food contribute to "intemperance and crime and wretchedness." (MH 146.3) * **No Unvarying Rule:** It's impossible to make an unvarying rule for everyone's habits, as "not all can eat the same things." Foods palatable to one may be harmful to another. (MH 319.2) * **Care in Preparation:** Food should be "thoroughly cooked, neatly prepared, and appetizing." (HL 48) * **Sedentary or Mental Work:** For those with sedentary or mental work, she suggests taking "only two or three kinds of simple food" at each meal, eating no more than needed to satisfy hunger, and taking active exercise daily. (MH 310.1) She also cautions against extremes in diet, recognizing that "God has made provision for those who live in the different countries of the world." When preaching the gospel to the poor, she was instructed to tell them to eat the most nourishing food, and that "the time has not yet come to prescribe the strictest diet." (9T 163.1)