The Global Influence of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church on Diet

Abstract

Abstract:The emphasis on health ministry within the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) movement led to the development of sanitariums in mid-nineteenth century America. These facilities, the most notable being in Battle Creek, Michigan, initiated the development of vegetarian foods, such as breakfast cereals and analogue meats. The SDA Church still operates a handful of food production facilities around the world. The first Battle Creek Sanitarium dietitian was co-founder of the American Dietetics Association which ultimately advocated a vegetarian diet. The SDA Church established hundreds of hospitals, colleges, and secondary schools and tens of thousands of churches around the world, all promoting a vegetarian diet. As part of the 'health message,' diet continues to be an important aspect of the church's evangelistic efforts. In addition to promoting a vegetarian diet and abstinence from alcohol, the SDA church has also invested resources in demonstrating the health benefits of these practices through research. Much of that research has been conducted at Loma Linda

Association between life-style behaviors and health outcomes in Adventist and non-Adventist adolescents in Mexico: a pilot study

“…However, this study did not find any significant differences in risky eating pattern between Adventist and non-Adventist groups. These results were unexpected in light of the Adventist principle which diet plays an essential theological role [17, 48]. In particular, among the 8515 Adventist schools worldwide [49], these institutions serve vegetarian meals to their students and promote an atmosphere in of balance between diet, exercise and schoolwork [47].…”

“…Previous studies conducted in the Adventist population have examined the impact of lifestyle habits on the prevalence of morbidity and mortality of diseases such as obesity, diabetes, dyslipidemia, heart disease, and cancer [6, 7, 13–16]. During the last 20 years, some researchers have studied the association between religiosity and spirituality in health maintenance and recovery from cross-sectional and longitudinal studies [7, 11, 12, 14–17]. On the other hand, there are few peer-reviewed articles on the relationship between the Adventist religion and the adoption of healthy behaviors in Mexican adolescents.…”

Livestock in Evolving Foodscapes and Thoughtscapes

“…A Garden-of-Eden image of vegetarianism (Sánchez Sábaté et al, 2016;Testoni et al, 2017), which was shaped in the 19th century by Bible Christians, Grahamites, and Seventh Day Adventists, led to claims that meat is impure and provokes carnal lust. Notions of impurity gained traction in both vulgar and professional dietary discourse during the 20th century, as the superficial narrative moved away from the spiritual and sexual to the medical and environmental (Banta et al, 2018;Leroy and Hite, 2020).…”

Should dietary guidelines recommend low red meat intake?

“…Likewise, when omitting Seventh-Day Adventist studies from meta-analyses, the beneficial associations with cardiovascular health for vegetarian diets are either less pronounced or absent indicating the specific effects of health-conscious lifestyle rather than low meat consumption as such (Kwok et al, 2014;FCN, 2018). This is important, as Seventh-Day Adventism has had considerable influence on dietary advice worldwide (Banta et al, 2018).…”