Dietary Timeline



Click here to return to the timeline index page

Click here to return to the timeline intro page


Seventh-Day Adventists reject alcohol and keep the dietary prohibitions identified for Jews in the unclean food lists of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. The faithful are called upon to reject specific foods:

"Those who indulge in meat eating, tea drinking, and gluttony are sowing seeds for a harvest of pain and death….A diet of flesh meat tends to develop animalism…Flesh meats will deprecate the blood. Cook meat with spices, and eat it with rich cakes and pies, and you have a bad quality of blood…Tea is poisonous to the system. Christians should let it alone. The influence of coffee is in a degree the same as tea, but the effect upon the system is still worse…Never take tea, coffee, beer, wine, or any spirituous liquors" (Councils on Diet and Foods 1938 ).

So-called "hot" spices and condiments, specifically chili pepper and black pepper and aged cheeses (Limburger and Roquefort) are also discouraged by Seventh Day Adventists.
