The credentials of a prophet are seen often in the common sense of his or her message. God is not unreasonable, neither are His prophets. Ellen White provides a classic example of common sense ^{35See pp. 95-97, 306, 311, 326, 400-402, 436.} in her relation to health reform. After she had emphasized the need for health reform through her writings for a few years, after the first few years of the Battle Creek health institution, and after a few years of the Health Reformer, she recognized that some caution was needed: “In reforms, we would better come one step short of the mark than to go one step beyond it. And if there is error at all, let it be on the side next to the people.” ^{36Testimonies for the Church 3:21. But no real erring is necessary: “You need not go into the water, or into the fire, but take the middle path, avoiding all extremes.” Counsels on Diet and Foods, 211.}MOL 305.2

One of the problems that had developed in Battle Creek was the extremism fostered by Dr. Russell T. Trall and advocated by William Gage, resident editor of the Health Reformer. Dr. Trall advocated absolute discontinuance of salt, sugar, milk, butter, and eggs. This extremism caused confusion and a loss of subscriptions. When Ellen White returned from her west-coast camp meeting assignments, she saw why the Health Reformer was about dead: “The position to entirely discontinue the use of these things [salt, sugar, milk, butter, and eggs] may be right in its order; but the time had not come to take a general stand upon these points.” ^{37Testimonies for the Church 3:19. “We know that a free use of these things is positively injurious to health, and in many cases we think that if they were not used at all, a much better state of health would be enjoyed. But at present our burden is not upon these things. The people are so far behind that we see it is all they can bear to have us draw the line upon their injurious indulgences and stimulating narcotics.” Testimonies for the Church 3:21. Ellen White saw that Dr. Trall’s counsel in the Health Reformer was too extreme when he wrote: “Salt, being a poison, should not be used at all.” July, 1869. Her position is best stated in The Ministry of Healing, 305: “Do not eat largely of salt.” Recent research strongly indicates that unexplained high blood pressure is often found in persons who use too much salt. See p. 334.}MOL 305.3

Worse! The editor of the Health Reformer was ill. Why? Because he and those who were supporting these extreme positions for that time were not following a balanced program in their own homes! The confusion and subsequent despair among church members in their attempts to meet these extreme positions opened the door to much backsliding in the whole area of health reform. So Ellen White set forth several points for her fellow church members to consider:MOL 305.4

Meet people “where they are.” ^{38For many in the nineteenth century, hygienic standards, “balanced” meals, and refrigerated food were not even thought of. “The masses were forced to subsist on a crude and scanty diet of which tea and bread were staples, supplemented now and then by a soup or stew of questionable origin.... Nostalgia even for the food of most rural Americans cannot survive the light of truth. While to a degree substantial, their diet was very simple, monotonous and often far from healthful.... Harper’s Weekly complained in 1869: ‘The city people are in constant danger of buying unwholesome meat; the dealers are unscrupulous, the public uneducated.’ ... In the absence of electric refrigeration, perishable goods were subject to the whims of the weather.... One is tempted to believe that with meat and fish so unreliable the urban Victorians sustained themselves by consuming an abundance of fruit. But that was not the case. They had a lingering suspicion of fruit—and vegetables—that had its origins in a cholera epidemic of 1832 which was believed to have been caused by fruit. In fact, following the epidemic, the New York City Council had forbidden the sale of all fruits, and though the ban had been lifted some years later the mistrust was to remain.” Otto Bettmann, The Good Old Days—They Were Terrible! (New York: Random House, Inc., 1974), pp. 109, 110, 113.}MOL 305.5

Allow others “as much time as we have required” to reach our present understanding.MOL 305.6

We must not “advocate positions” that are not put to “a practical test” in our own homes.MOL 305.7

“A free use” of items such as salt, sugar, and milk is “positively injurious to health” and “if they were not used at all, a much better state of health would be enjoyed.”MOL 305.8

But, for the present, “our burden is not upon these things [salt, sugar, milk, butter].” ^{39This advice was primarily to Ellen White’s agrarian readers. For those who had to buy milk, it was a hazardous undertaking. “It was common knowledge to New Yorkers that their milk was diluted. And the dealers were neither subtle nor timid about it; all they required was a water pump to boost two quarts of milk to a gallon. Nor was that the end of the mischief: to improve the color of milk from diseased cattle they frequently added molasses, chalk, or plaster of Paris. No wonder, that in 1889 New York’s public health commissioner reported seeing in certain districts a ‘decidedly suspicious-looking fluid bearing the name of milk.’ “Bacteria-infected milk held lethal possibilities of which people were unaware. The root of this problem was in the dairy farms, invariably dirty, where the milch cows were improperly fed and housed. “It was not unusual for a city administration to sell its garbage to a farmer, who promptly fed it to his cows. Or for a distillery to keep cows and feed them distillery wastes, producing what was called ‘swill milk.’ This particular liquid, which purportedly made babies tipsy, caused a scandal in the New York of 1870 when it was revealed that some of the cows cooped up for years in filthy stables were so enfeebled from tuberculosis that they had to be raised on cranes to remain ‘milkable’ until they died. “When in 1902 the city’s Health Commission tested 3,970 milk samples, it was found that 2,095, or 52.77 percent, were adulterated.” Bettmann, The Good Old Days, pp. 114, 115.}MOL 305.9

Because so many people were so far behind on health reform, they were advised to “bear positive testimony against” the most “injurious indulgences and stimulating narcotics ... [such as] tobacco, spirituous liquors, snuff, tea, coffee, flesh meats, butter, spices, rich cakes, mince pies, a large amount of salt, and all exciting substances used as articles of food.” ^{40Testimonies for the Church 3:20, 21. The phrase “excessive use of butter” might well have been used in this statement to express her view more precisely, because a few paragraphs earlier, she indicated that part of the confusion and distress brought about by the extreme view of the Reformer editors was their position advocating the “entire disuse of milk, butter, and sugar.”}MOL 305.10

Fifth Health Vision

James Becomes Editor