Food for Life – Temperance or Intemperance?

What is so rare as a day in June? – Lowell

“’Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong;…that saith, I will build me a wide house and large chambers, and cutteth him out windows; and it is ceiled with cedar, and painted with vermilion. Shalt thou reign, because thou closest thyself in cedar?…Thine eyes and thine heart are not but for thy covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it.’” Jeremiah 22:13-17.

“This scripture pictures the work of those who manufacture and who sell intoxicating liquor. Their business means robbery. For the money they receive, no equivalent is returned. Every dollar they add to their gains has brought a curse to the spender.

“With a liberal hand, God has bestowed His blessings upon men. If His gifts were wisely used, how little the world would know of poverty and distress! It is the wickedness of men that turns His blessings into a curse. It is through the greed of gain and the lust of appetite that the grains and fruits given for our sustenance are converted into poisons that bring misery and ruin.

“Every year millions upon millions of gallons of intoxicating liquors are consumed. Millions upon millions of dollars are spent in buying wretchedness, poverty, disease, degradation, lust, crime, and death. For the sake of gain, the liquor seller deals out to his victims that which corrupts and destroys mind and body. He entails on the drunkard’s family poverty and wretchedness.…

“Houses of prostitution, dens of vice, criminal courts, prisons, almshouses, insane asylums, hospitals, all are, to a great degree, filled as a result of the liquor-seller’s work. Like the mystic Babylon of the Apocalypse, he is dealing in ‘slaves, and souls of men.’ Behind the liquor seller stands the mighty destroyer of souls, and every art which earth or hell can devise is employed to draw human beings under his power. In the city and the country, on the railway trains, on the great steamers, in places of business, in the halls of pleasure, in the medical dispensary, even in the church, on the sacred Communion table, his traps are set. Nothing is left undone to create and to foster the desire for intoxicants. On almost every corner stands the public house, with its brilliant lights, its welcome and good cheer, inviting the working man, the wealthy idler, and the unsuspecting youth.…

“To create the liquor appetite in little children, alcohol is introduced into confectionery. Such confectionery is sold in the shops. And by the gift of these candies the liquor seller entices children into his resorts.…

“More terrible still, the curse is striking the very heart of the home. More and more, women are forming the liquor habit. In many a household, little children, even in the innocence and helplessness of babyhood, are in daily peril through the neglect, the abuse, the vileness of drunken mothers. Sons and daughters are growing up under the shadow of this terrible evil. What outlook for their future but that they will sink even lower than their parents?”

Ministry of Healing, 337-339.

Tofutti Cream

Place in blender:

1 cup water

½ teaspoon sea salt

¼ cup cashews

½-¾ cup dates

1 tablespoon vanilla

1/3 cup pineapple juice

12 oz. soft tofu

When thoroughly blended, add 1 heaping cup of your choice of fruit such as blueberries, peaches, strawberries, apricots, boysenberries, persimmon, raspberries, blackberries, or mangoes.

Blend again and pour into ice cube trays and freeze. When frozen, put through a juicer or blender and serve at once.