Based on the writings of Ellen White, here are several key points regarding meat eating: ### Health and Disease Ellen White strongly linked the consumption of meat to various diseases. * **Increased risk of disease:** "The liability to take disease is increased tenfold by meat eating." (2T 64) * **Cancers and Tumors:** "Cancers, tumors, and various other inflammatory diseases are largely caused by meat eating. From the light which God has given me, the prevalence of cancers and tumors is largely due to gross living on dead flesh." (Unpublished Testimonies, November 5, 1896, as quoted in HL 100.7) * **Diseased Animals:** She warned that the animals being consumed were often unhealthy. "The very animals whose flesh you eat are frequently so diseased that, if left alone, they would die of themselves; but while the breath of life is in them, they are killed and brought to market. You take directly into your system humors and poison of the worst kind, and yet you realize it not." (2T 404.2) ### Spiritual and Moral Impact She taught that meat eating has a negative effect on a person's spiritual, moral, and intellectual faculties. * **Animalizing Nature:** "I have been instructed that flesh food has a tendency to animalize the nature, to rob men and women of that love and sympathy which they should feel for everyone, and to give the lower passions control over the higher powers of the being." (9T 159) * **Blunts Sensibilities:** "Meat eating deranges the system, beclouds the intellect, and blunts the moral sensibilities." (2T 64) * **Diminished Intellect:** "Eating much flesh will diminish intellectual activity. Students would accomplish much more in their studies if they never tasted meat." (Unpublished Testimonies, November 5, 1896, as quoted in HL 101.7) ### God's Original and Ideal Plan Ellen White presented a plant-based diet as God's original and ultimate plan for humanity. * **Return to the Original Diet:** "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." (CTBH 119.1) * **End-Time Practice:** "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." (CTBH 119.1) * **A Safer Course:** "We say to you, dear brother and sister, your safest course is to let meat alone." (2T 63.3)