Veg*n ideology

John Harvey Kellogg sought to prove that vegetarians were physically superior by fielding a Battle Creek College football team, which he personally coached. According to a former player, "Brother" Wright, whenever Kellogg's players lost, he railed at them for cheating on their diets and held them captive until one would say he had broken training rules and eaten meat. Wright stated that sometimes a player would eventually lie that he had eaten meat just to get the team released. He described Kellogg's efforts as "a crusade to prove the superiority of vegetarianism." Ellen G. White's condemnation of this approach to proving SDA superiority led to a policy restricting interscholastic sports by Adventist schools.

The 1932 Cauldron reports that after a single win in 1926, “football was found to be unsuccessful at Battle Creek College and was discontinued the next year.” https://www.lostcolleges.com/battle-creek-college

Price increasingly gained attention outside Adventist groups, and in the creation–evolution controversy other leading Christian fundamentalists praised his opposition to evolution – though none of them followed his young Earth arguments, retaining their belief in the gap or in the day-age interpretation of Genesis. Price corresponded with William Jennings Bryan and was invited to be a witness in the Scopes Trial of 1925, but declined as he was teaching in England and opposed to teaching Genesis in public schools as "it would be an infringement on the cardinal American principle of separation of church and state". Price returned from England in 1929 to rising popularity among fundamentalists as a scientific author.[48] In the same year his former student Harold W. Clark self-published the short book Back to Creationism, which recommended Price's flood geology as the new "science of creationism", introducing the label "creationism" as a replacement for "anti-evolution" of "Christian Fundamentals".[49]

Biography

Clark was born in 1891[2] and raised as a Seventh-day Adventist on a farm in New England. His interest in science and religion was first evoked by George McCready Price's Back to the Bible (1916). After years of church-school teaching, he enrolled at Pacific Union College in 1920, where he studied under (the newly arrived) Price. He graduated two years later and replaced Price (who had accepted a position at Union College, Nebraska) on the faculty. In 1929, he had dedicated his work Back to Creationism to Price.[3] Historian Ronald L. Numbers credits this book with the introduction of the name "Creationism" to the movement, which had previously been known as "Anti-Evolution".[4]

That summer, and a number of vacations thereafter, he spent studying glaciation, coming (in the 1930s) to the conclusion that large proportions of North America had been covered in ice for as long as one and a half millennia after the flood — a view that was anathema to Price. In 1932 he earned an MA in biology from the University of California, and on his return updated and enlarged his book, introducing his views on glaciation, and rejecting the common Adventist view, associated with Price, that species were fixed, in favour of one that allowed considerable hybridization. The revised book drew effusive praise from Price.

In 1938, Clark visited the oil fields of Oklahoma and Northern Texas, where his observation of deep drilling confirmed long-standing suspicions that there existed a meaningful geological column, a position adamantly denied by Price. Clark attributed this column to antediluvian ecologies ranging from ocean depths to mountaintops, rather than the successive layers through deep time of mainstream geology.[5] Despite continuing to point out that he still believed in six-day creation, Clark was pelted with criticisms from Price, who accused Clark of having contracted "the modern mental disease of universityitis" and curried favor with "tobacco-smoking, Sabbath-breaking, God-defying" evolutionists.[6] This led Price to vitriolically and implacably break with Clark,[6][5] who Price would continue to criticize strongly in his 1947 pamphlet Theories of Satanic Origin.[7]

Clark died in St. Helena Hospital on 12 May 1986, aged 94.[8]

Publications

• Back to Creationism, 1929[9]

• Genes and Genesis, 1940

• The New Diluvialism, 1946[9]

• Creation Speaks: A Study of the Scientific Aspects of the Genesis Record of Creation and the Flood., 1949 (2017 Reprint, CrossReach Publications)

• Crusader for Creation: The Life and Works of George McCready Price, 1966

• Fossils, Flood and Fire. Outdoor Pictures. 1968. ISBN 0-911080-16-3.

• The Battle Over Genesis[10]

• New creationism. Nashville: Southern Pub. Association. 1980. ISBN 0-8127-0247-6.

THE INTREPID FOOD CRUSADER REFORMERS ARE A HARD-DYING LOT.  Among the most persistent of the species is the dietary zealot. The man who conceives it to be his sacred mission to improve the eating or drinking habits of his fellow-beings will not accept defeat. Beaten at one end of the line, he immediately returns to the assault at the other. 

A couple of years ago an experiment was conducted in New York City for the purpose of testing the effects of an all-meat diet on the human system under conditions as found in the temperate zone. The laboratory material was the explorers Stefansson and Andersen, who had lived in the Arctics for long periods on the food of the native Eskimos, which is practically nothing but meat, and thrived on it. After a year’s time, during which the twain were subjected to rigid scientific control, the most painstaking examination failed to reveal the faintest trace of injury, physical or mental. 

Naturally, this did not “set well” with our food faddists. A number of alibis were at once forthcoming: The two men were exceptional specimens, of extraordinary toughness, inured to hardships and all manner of dietary irregularities; the period of trial had not been nearly long enough; anyway, what apparently had proved harmless in their case would not do at all for the average individual; etc., etc. 

To this chorus of denunciation is now added a note that we have not heard before. In Glendale, near Los Angeles, is a sanitarium which publishes a little magazine called Glendale Sanitarium Health Exponent, “devoted to the interests of better and finer living,” as stated on the title-page. The “summer number” of this periodical contains an article from the pen of P. Martin Keller, M.D., entitled “Does an Exclusive Meat Diet Insure Health?” In this we read: 

Recently in Los Angeles there could be found on the various large bill-posting boards the following statement: “Meat is the only single food which will sustain life for an unlimited time.” This, I suppose, was placed on the boards by the meat interests as a result of recent experiments of Dr. Lieb’s. He took as subjects Stefansson and Andersen, who have had experiences in the Arctic region. 

But, says the author, the two gentlemen “did not live entirely on a meat diet—they lived chiefly on fat (!): One-half pound of tallow and a few ounces of meat was their daily ration.” Stefansson, who had been placed on “an exclusive meat diet,” was compelled to give it up after a while and mix it with fat, as the lean ‘meat created “digestive disturbances.” Consequently, argues the writer, the contention that “an exclusive meat diet” insures health was not proved. 

Furthermore, Dr. Keller goes on, examinations have shown that the “intestinal contents of animals that live almost exclusively upon raw meat” harbor “large quantities of putrefactive bacteria” which, injected into guinea-pigs, kill. Not only that, but “a purely meat diet increases the work upon the heart.” This has been demonstrated by experiments on—cats. After a meal of meat, there was a rise in the rate of feline heart-beats “above the fasting level.” 

Just what it is sought to prove by this sort of stuff is not clear. Is it the doctor’s thesis that man, in order to insure health and long life, must not forget to mix his fat with his lean? Or that lions and tigers could get rid of the obnoxious bacteria which inhabit their intestines by having their meat well cooked? Or that cats do not know what is good for them, and could reduce their pulse-rate to the “fasting level,” thus insuring their “better and finer living,” by turning vegetarians? 

Effusions such as these could be ignored, or laughed out of court, were it not for the fact that too many people, in matters of diet, are in the habit of listening to, and being influenced by, anything, no matter how absurd or easily refutable, put out by quasi-experts in the name of science—especially if these have an M.D. handle to their names. 

It should not need restatement that no sane person has ever recommended a diet for human beings consisting wholly of raw meat, lean meat, meat mixed with fat, or meat in any other shape or combination. To intimate that stockmen, or anybody else connected with the “meat interests,” hold an exclusive meat diet to be a guarantee of good health is too absurd for a moment’s consideration. To ordinary logic the food fanatic seems as impervious as he is devoid of a sense of fair play. Either he concocts his arguments out of thin air, or he attempts to twist a laboratory demonstration of an isolated phenomenon into a law of universal application. Having set up a dummy to shoot at, nothing is too grotesque to serve as pellets for his little popgun. 

What live-stock men do stress is that meat, in the cold and temperate zones, is a natural, wholesome, and necessary food for man; that for the average healthy, active, human being, meat in even liberal quantities is an indispensable part of the daily diet, if full efficiency is to be maintained; that, under normal conditions, an ideal menu is one in which dairy products, vegetables, and fruits, in the right proportions (which everybody must determine for himself accord- ing to his individual needs) are grouped around meat as the central item; that, as an appetizing, tissue- building, strength-imparting food, meat has no equal; that the meat-eating nations throughout the centuries have been the nations of achievement; that among men noted for their accomplishments in war and peace, in art and science, in literature and music, the great majority in all ages have been meat-eaters; that in sanatoria for those of depleted systems—for those, for example, suffering from tuberculosis, diabetes, anemia, and other insidious diseases—chief reliance is placed in meat, meat and gland extracts, and other foods of high protein content, as an aid in building up the patient’s strength; that physicians, with few exceptions, testify to the faith that is in them by being generous partakers of meat themselves. 

These are facts, easily verifiable. But if further proof is needed of the effect of a meat diet, as compared with one of nothing but fruit and vegetables, visit a convention of vegetarians, or go to one of their restaurants, and then attend a meeting of stockmen, or sit down with a bunch of cow-punchers around the chuck-wagon, and notice the difference! 

Dr. Keller ends his discourse by painting a blood-curdling picture of the procession of innocent animals marching to the shambles to satisfy man’s cannibal appetite for flesh. The answer to this is that the sacrifice of lower forms in the interest of higher has always been, and always will be, a concomitant of organic life. As long as the destruction is not wanton, purposeless, unnecessarily painful, or likely to exterminate beneficial species, it is justifiable. Would the doctor extend his protecting hand of fellowship to the fly that drags its filthy legs over his Shredded Wheat biscuit, to the cockroach that devours his cracker, or to the mosquito that sucks his bacterium-free vegetarian blood? In his opinion, would it be less reprehensible to turn our herds of cattle out to die of cold or starvation, or to permit them to propagate their kind without check, until their numbers multiplied to such an extent as to spell wreck and ruin for every grain-and truck-farmer in the land? In that case, where would our vegetarians be?

East of Eden

It is possible to provide all essential nutrients except vitamin B12 without using animal foods. On the other hand, it is possible to provide all essential nutrients with a diet composed only of meat. Personal dietary appropriateness including the value of a diet as a source of essential nutrients and its value as a preventative for oneself and one's significant others is the foremost dietary consideration of pragmatic vegetarians. In contrast, the overriding dietary consideration of ideologic vegetarians varies with the particular ideology. Typically, their motivation is a blend of physical, psychosocial, societal, and moral, often religious, concerns.

A continual problem for SDAs who espouse the "back to Eden" ideology is the absence of a non-animal food source of vitamin B12. A vegetarian Registered Dietitian who wrote a column for a church periodical asked me if I thought vegans could derive vitamin B12 from organic vegetables that were unwashed before ingestion. I opined that it would be better to eat animal foods than fecal residues. She agreed.

A perennial assumption among vegetarians is that vegetarianism increases longevity. In the last century, Grahamites devotees of the Christian "hygienic" philosophy of Sylvester Graham (1794-1851) taught that adherence to the Garden of Eden lifestyle would eventuate in humankind's reclamation of the potential for superlongevity, such as that attributed to Adam (930 years) or Methuselah (969 years). I discussed this matter 25 years ago with an SDA physician who was dean of the Loma Linda University (LLU) School of Health. Although he admitted that lifelong SDA vegetarians had not exhibited spectacular longevity, he professed that longevity of the antediluvian sort might become possible over several generations of vegetarianism. SDA periodicals publicize centenarians and often attribute their longevity to the SDA lifestyle. However, of 1200 people who reached the century mark between 1932 and 1952, only four were vegetarians. 10 I continue to ask: Where on Earth is there an exceptionally longevous population of vegetarians? Hindus have practiced vegetarianism for many generations but have not set longevity records. At best, the whole of scientific data from nutrition-related research supports vegetarianism only tentatively. The incidence of colorectal cancer among nonvegetarian Mormons is lower than that of SDAs. 11 A review of populations at low risk for cancer showed that World War I veterans who never smoked had the lowest risk of all. 12 As data accumulate, optimism that diet is a significant factor in cancer appears to be diminishing. An analysis of 13 case-control studies of colorectal cancer and dietary fiber showed that, for the studies with the best research methods, risk estimates for dietary fiber and colorectal cancer were closer to zero.13 A pooled analysis of studies of fat intake and the risk of breast cancer that included SDA data showed no association. 14

A meatless diet can facilitate weight control because it is a form of food restriction. But one need not eliminate meat to maintain a healthy weight, and there are many overweight vegetarians. Surely prudence and selectivity overshadow mere abstention from consuming animal products.

The cholera lectures gained new converts to the cause of meatless living and garnered praise in some circles of the established medical profession. A group of physicians in Maine reported that “we entertain a high sense of our obligations to Mr. Graham for his Lectures on the Science of Human Life, in which the laws of the vital economy have been explained and elucidated by a great variety of original, striking and happy illustrations.” Similarly, John Bell—a Philadelphia medical doctor who later became a harsh critic of Grahamism—reported that Graham “speaks like a man who has earnestly and carefully examined his subject” while claiming to “known of no lecturer or writer out of the profession, who is, in the main, so well informed in physiology.” 

A key component of Graham’s meat-free diet was a reevaluation of the bread consumed by Americans to accompany nearly every meal. In the early nineteenth century most bread was baked at home and comprised of corn or rye meal. However, as the decades progressed, cities grew, and men and women joined the industrial workforce, more and more Americans purchased their daily bread from a local baker. Produced in mass batches, this bread differed in composition, often whitened through the process of bolting, which removed the outer casing from grains and with it much of the nutritive value.  

The bolting process often utilized chemicals such as chlorine in order to whiten grains. As a result, white bread was less expensive and in greater abundance, particularly with the spread of large farms into western New York and the Midwest that provided cheaper, abundant wheat. The bread was also produced outside of the household. As Americans were shifting from producers to consumers, Sylvester Graham offered a critique of the increasing disconnect between individuals and their food sources.  

With a heavy dose of nostalgic yearning, Graham hearkened back to “those blessed days of New England’s prosperity and happiness when our good mothers used to make the family bread.” Bread baked at home, according to Graham, was crafted with care and control over its ingredients, while the wheat used to make bakers’ white bread was inferior, aimed at maximizing profits rather than dietary excellence. These principles led to the development of what became known as Graham bread, “coarse wheaten bread” that was “the least removed from the natural state of food” and “best adapted to fulfill the laws of constitution and relation.”  

Throughout his cholera lectures in 1832, Graham labeled bread as “the most important article of artificially prepared food used by civilized man” and warned of “the pernicious effects of superfine flour bread.” Graham pointed to the greedy motives of bakers who “make bread and sell it for the profi ts of the business, and not for the sake of promoting your health.”   When it came to bread and diet in general, individuals had a responsibility to regulate their own bodies by taking control over what was ingested. Graham’s attacks on bread offered a harsh critique of the rise of industrial capitalism in the United States, warning against the profit-driven motives of bakers and farmers, looking to “extort from those acres the greatest amount of produce, with the least expense of tillage, and with little or no regard to the quality of that produce in relation to the physiological interests of man.”  

Although Graham first advocated for wheat bread as a pulpit minister in New Jersey, broader audiences began to become aware of its existence as his activities gained attention. Frequently the coverage was negative. As early as July 1832, Atkinson’s Casket —a humor magazine published in Philadelphia—mocked Graham bread as indigestible and hard enough to break a window.  However, the journal’s use of the term Graham bread without a precise definition illustrates that the product was already known in some circles. One publication described Grahamites as appearing too thin and irrationally inflexible in their dietary ideals. Another pleaded for the “speedy extinction of Grahamism,” an event that “should be witnessed by every lover of mankind.”  The New York Mirror labeled Grahamites as being filled with “humbug” and the system as filled with “absurdities[,] . . . perversion and folly.”  One medical journal said Graham was “entirely out of his element” in discussing matters of health and driven by “pride and vanity.”  Other publications mocked the culinary choices of Grahamites. New York’s Morning Herald described Grahamites as clinging to a “crusty morsel like half starved dogs, and prefer[ing] sawdust bread to fresh, superfine flour.” The author stated that a bachelor friend was lonely not because of inherent personality flaws but rather because of “the awful catastrophe” known as Grahamism. The New England Review described the “first Grahamite” as “the man who fed on husks until he lost all his flesh.” The individual, however, reportedly soon found his way, and “was very glad to make public confession of his folly for the sake of a cut from the falled calf.”  The New York Review was explicit in its rejection of a Grahamite, meatless diet, referring to it as “dietetic charlantanry.”