To answer your last question, I wish I knew Hebrew. I feel the English grammar leaves the directive unnecessarily vague and ambiguous. The ambiguity has the potential for creating a contradiction in the scriptures. However, given the statements from Mrs. White, in conjunction with additional verses from the Bible that are connected to this topic, I feel it can be clear that God was giving Adam and Eve the fruits of the trees as their diet, and was not giving them such things as lettuce, carrots and potatoes, even if each of these plants can produce seeds.

(Note: God did not create potatoes, and potato seeds are almost never viable on account of the potato plant's tetraploidy condition.)

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

There it is again. Bible interpretation by emotion.

And in error.

Ge 2:16 ¶ And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
Ge 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Ge 3:1 ¶ Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

Nothing about fruit nor seeds. The woman said fruit. The woman also said "touch". Continuing in an incorrect interpretation would be that the woman was punished because she ate the fruit instead of the seeds.


So, you would be saying the Bible language would distinguish between seeds and spores.
So, you would be saying the Bible language of "seed" means what you mean to mean seed.

Ge 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
Ge 4:25 ¶ And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.
... (and many more)





So you would be saying some herbs don't have seeds.
So you would be saying (according to your definition), cows only eat ferns.

Assuming dictionary.com has the same definition as the Bible, you would be saying that fruits cannot grow in fields.
So you would be saying trees only have fruits.
So you would be saying vegetables cannot grow outside of fields.

Glad it clarified your understanding. Didn't address the problem, though.



wow

So, you would be saying lettuce, carrots, potatoes cannot produce seeds? !!!

wow

I have half a dozen potato plants I grew from seed, and have now set the tubers outside which have grown into bigger plants. I have many potato fruits that I dried from last year and planned on planting some more this spring, but have misplaced them. We have volunteer lettuce (and dill) growing from the tremendous amount of seed produced last year.


I just don't know where to start on you saying God didn't create potatoes! And that all potatoes are tetraploids! And that tetraploids cannot produce seed! (Could you have meant triploids? Of which I doubt any commonly grown potatoes are) I think you have enough to handle up to that point.

I must say, you have given me insight into why people continue to repeat such stuff. They just don't know about plants. Guess that's why we are instructed to have our own garden so we can learn about God's second book.

I would like to approach the topic question from a different angle.
40 years ago the Department of Agriculture published a report comparing the nutrient levels in foods at that time, and 50 years prior. Some trace elements had decreased by as much as 85%. So who can imagine what things are like now, another 40 years on? Might have some relevance as to why it is so hard to obtain sufficient nutrients from purely plant based sources.
But there is another factor that has come to light over the last 15 or so years. That is that our cells require 8 different sugars to communicate effectively, while only 2 are currently provided in our diet. And while the body can manufacture the missing six, it is via a lengthy and expensive process.
The vegans I know tend to be very low sugar and fat consumers and that may make it more difficult for their bodies to produce the six missing sugars. This seems to make sense to me. Though in spite of all our knowledge, we still seem a long way from knowing all the answers.

Why don't you just say you are a Mannatech salesman?

APL,

I had never heard of Mannatech before, and now I've looked it up and see why you might connect it with the prior comment. Nonetheless, your comment really does not address Geoff's thought. It is true that our bodies digest some foods more easily than others. Meat is generally harder to digest than vegetables, which are harder than fruits. But each gives a different proportion of "sugars". The energy in meat takes more time to break down, being that it is higher in protein and protein does take time to assimilate. The body would prefer to get energy from starches than from proteins. Even fats may be easier to digest, overall, than proteins, and they give more calories.

And it is true that there are multiple pathways of energy for a cell. I recently learned that coconut oil can be fairly easily converted to ketones in the body which can provide a secondary pathway to feed the brain in the event the primary sugar pathway has become blocked, basically a diabetes of the brain. We call it Alzheimer's. Fat can be converted to ketones as well, but perhaps coconut oil in the diet is a better source than trying to raid the fat cells for their stores.

In terms of sugars, however, I would need to see more evidence before I would accept that meat will have something more to offer than a vegetarian diet.

Mrs. White tells us that milk and eggs should not be put in the same category as meat, but even here, I would not be recommending the use of them for their sugars. Milk and eggs have other properties needed in the body that have little to do with calories. B12 is one of these. Sulfur is another. Enzymes and emulsifiers are some more. B-vitamins are high in eggs. And the protein can be important for some, particularly the amino acid lysine.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Hi Apl,

I thought the information I shared was relevant to the topic, regardless of my connection with Mannatech. I was not making a sales pitch, but highlighting some other factors which might throw some light on the question.
I feel priviledged to belong to a company that has endured years of ridicule from powerful interests, because they knew they could make a difference, and they are. It is not something I am ashamed of or try to hide. By the same token I didn't feel this forum was the place to promote the company, so I did not mention their name.

Just to clarify, I didn't mean to infer that non-vegans were getting the building blocks for the missing sugars from meat, but that the lacto-ovo vegetarians probably had more sugars in their diet which made it easier for the body to engineer the missing ones.

See Green? I was right.

"Manna" tech. How can you go wrong? As one website said it, the link is now off the internet, “Mannatech was born out of a cry in the hearts of Sam and Linda Caster for a God-breathed technology that would touch and change the world for His glory”. How can you go wrong? Sam Caster was the CEO of Mannatech. Hmm, what did Sam do before Mannatech? He has an interesting history...

EGW's writings on health are simple, plain, and don't cost an arm and a leg to implement, and it is easy to implement in most lands of this planet. Let everyone be persuaded in their own mind.

I understood you to mean that, but I'd like more information as to what you mean by "sugars" and how are lacto-ovo vegetarians getting more in their diet.

Also, I would like information on the report regarding nutrient levels in agricultural foods. This would tend to discredit the idea that a fruit was wonderfully made by God and has the same nutrient levels grown on poor ground as on rich ground - just that there may be only one fruit as opposed to many fruits.

I'll have to give a more complete answer later. But why would a fruit wonderfully made by God have to have the same level of nutrients whether grown on good or poor soil? Another factor that comes into play is that many crops have been bred to give increased yield. But this also has come at a cost of a lower level of nutrients, regardless of soil type.
That report is fourty years old, I am sure there would be much more up to date figures available somewhere. Many researchers have concluded that we are not getting all we should from the usual diet.

I'll just mention one easily verifiable fact in passing. Their Nutriverus product is one of the most cost effective nutrient packages in the market, and for many would be the closest they get to fresh organic produce.

I had assumed you were speaking of agricultural soil conditions. Looking back, I see your comment does not require that. It could mean a change over time through breeding programs. I agree, that breeding plants is the same as having different plants with different nutrient levels. But, if you were speaking of only environment, I would stand with the plants were designed to produce a certain level or they would not produce. And I would qualify that by saying the plant manufactured nutrients since if you grew lettuce on a soil with no arsenic, that lettuce is not going to have arsenic in it.

I still would go with a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts and grains prepared in as simple manner as possible would be best diet.