To teach the people a better way of living, not only spiritually and mentally, but also physically, is the work of the true minister. Evangelists should attempt to correlate these phases in their program as neatly, soundly, and appealingly as possible. In this time of war there is a larger opportunity than ever for giving our health message to the world.
Through the study of foods and cooking demonstrations people will see and understand that healthful living is a strong Bible teaching and that Seventh-day Adventists have been blessed of God with the most balanced health program of any people on earth. They will come to realize that proper care of the body is vitally connected with care for the soul.
Our country had been in the war just three months when my husband and I opened a Bible and health auditorium in Buckeye, Arizona, where we conducted three nights of Bible lectures and one health lecture weekly for a period of six weeks. It was an opportunity to carry out the teachings of the Spirit of prophecy concerning a program of health reform among the people.
Most of us know what we ought to do. But the thing we want to know is how—how to do all the things we should be doing in giving God's message to the World. My husband had been interested in the denominational health program for a long time and had taken every opportunity while in academy and college to acquire a fund of information on the subject.
We were especially favored when the Arizona Conference sent us to take the newly instituted Health Evangelism Course at Loma Linda, given particularly for ministers already in the field. This furnished us with an abundance of inspiration, information, and prestige with the people, for Loma Linda is generally a respected and familiar name in Arizona. While in the Los Angeles area, we interviewed Mrs. R. B. Spear, who for years has successfully conducted a health kitchen in connection with her husband's evangelistic meetings. We gained from her many practical, workable ideas which blend into the evangelistic program.
In Buckeye we chose Tuesday night for our health program, so that we might make full use of both Monday (when there was no meeting) and Tuesday in preparing for it. My husband planned to give a ten-minute health talk preceding the Bible lectures on the other nights, in order to tie the whole program together. But we were forced to dispense with these as sunset in wartime brought darkness so late. The health message was bound around the cooking school idea, in which we always gave the people a taste of everything that was made. This proved to draw the people, making our crowds on Tuesday nights as large as on Sunday night.
If the minister and his wife can be associated in some public way, it helps much in visiting the people later, who then feel acquainted with both the workers. So in our health program my husband took the lead, and I was his assistant. He did the major part of the lecturing on principles, and I demonstrated the recipes and talked about them as I worked. Then in our visits to the homes the people had questions to ask of both of us.
As soon as our tent was up, with its sign, "Bible and Health Auditorium," we placed a news article in the local paper concerning the cooking. school, which was called the Buckeye Home Builder's Health Kitchen. Before printing the first week's handbills we solicited a local grocery for a donation of food to be used in our school in return for advertising their store. The power company lent an electric range.
The first handbill was a two-color folder with an insert announcing the Home Builder's Health Kitchen, showing our picture with the lecture title "Wartime Foods to Be Demonstrated." On the reverse side was our invitation to the people, telling them that "two delightful hours will be spent in getting acquainted with food that will build strong, healthy bodies. Samples of food will be prepared before the audience and will be given away with a series of savory recipes."
The following weeks' advertising consisted of a four-page folder, one page being given to the health kitchen. The signboard outside the 'tent reinforced our printed handbills, as did also posters in the store windows and an occasional notice in the paper.
How We Conducted the Health Kitchen
I. Platform Arrangements. Curved across the back of the platform hung full, green burlap curtains, giving us a rich background for our demonstrations. In the center was a streamlined display of Madison and Loma Linda foods. To the right was the electric range, and the long table for food demonstrations. To the left was the speaker's table from• which he gave his lectures, based on an eight-point program taken from the paragraph in Ministry of Healing: "Pure air, sunlight, abstemiousness, rest, exercise, proper diet, the use of water, trust in divine power,—these are the true remedies."—Page 127.
In a room behind the platform other women helped by arranging food to be served, washing dishes, and preparing items that might be needed. Assisting me before the audience was a young woman who supplied my wants from the pantry, and watched the food as it cooked, while I was demonstrating other recipes.
2. Program Arrangement. We planned to vary our program instead of conducting a health lecture or a cooking school only. We made ours a variety program which would appeal to the non-Adventist and provide a little educational entertainment along with our strong health principles; which at first seem extremely straitlaced to the usual person of the world. Here is a sample program whose length averaged two hours: Introduction and words ot welcome. Passing out of recipes.—Mr. J.
Demonstration of vitaniin broth and gluten steaks.—Mrs. J.
Lecture : "How Little Mistakes in Eating Can Keep You Half Sick."—Mr. J. Passing out Rusket samples. Recipe Demonstration of Carrot Bread.—Mrs, J. Questions and Answers. Discussion of "Air."— Mr. J. Passing out of printed lecture.
Recipe Demonstration: Asparagus cooked the "waterless way."—Mrs. J.
Colorful salad arrangements demonstrated.—Mr. J. Recipe Demonstration : Nut and Potato Pie.—Mrs. J. Health pictures (Kodachrome slides).—Mr. J. Remarks concerning a dessert and sandwiches already prepared.—Mrs. J.
Colleet premium cards and offering.
Cafeteria service and grace.
Premiums given out. Open forum.—Mr. J. Good night.
For my running comment during the mixing of recipe ingredients, I discussed the values of the foods I was working with and the methods I was using in mixing and cooking. I talked about everything from vitamins, proteins, and gardens, to wooden spoons, food grinders, and cooking utensils.
I continued to work with the recipes while my husband gave his part of the program. This did not detract attention from him, and it gave me a chance to collect my ingredients and my bearings for the next demonstration. The roasts, pies, cakes, and breads are prepared first, leaving the salads, sauces, gravies, and cookies till later, for they do not require the amount of cooking that the others do.
While the attendance awards were given away, we arranged two rows of food samples on clean sheets of paper along the edge of the platform. After prayer the audience passed around in two cafeteria lines, serving themselves from the steaming dishes, the salad' bowls, the sweets, and the sandwiches. We stood by on the platform to help them and answer their questions.
Each dish should be labeled with a sign so that the people may identify it. Music from an electric phonograph will a add to the conviviality of this part of the program and help fill in the minutes when nothing can be said.
3. Recipes. The recipes demonstrated were gleaned from many sources and chosen for their public appeal, as well as for their health virtues. Not until the last two nights did we introduce balanced menus, and then I gave out copies of these, in which the meals contained dishes we had demonstrated durinab our health kitchen nights. We did it this way because, first of all, we wanted to gain the interest of the people without being too technical, and next because we wanted to stress the meatless dishes before we discussed the balanced diet.
No words were spared in giving them the facts concerning the harmful effects of alcohol, tobacco, tea, coffee, meat, spices, and vinegar. We used no baking powder, soda, or vinegar in our recipes, and gave the reasons for omitting them.
There may be some question about serving food samples in the evening, as this violates our principle of avoiding eating between meals. We instruct the people regarding the evils of in-between-meal eating ; but inasmuch as it is impossible to go to each individual's home for a food demonstration at mealtime, the audience readily understands why the lecturer must provide food samples at an hour convenient to hundred S of people who could participate in the food demonstration in no other way. Following are some points that will be found helpful:
I. Plan every minute. Avoid pauses by having an abundance of material.
2. To receive names, and to promote interest in health foods, give away several cans and boxes of food to ticket holders with winning numbers.
3. Advertise, once in a while, the names of the recipes to be demonstrated.
4. Demonstrate several recipes with each lecture.
5. Eucourage men to attend by serving them double portions if they wish.
6. Give away pamphlets and samples each night.
7. Display and sell various foods and health books.
8. Lecturer can wear white professional coat ; recipe demonstrator, white uniform; ushers, white jackets ; waitresses, white uniforms with colorful aprons and caps.
9. Always take an offering, usually before the food is served.
10. Build the platform larger and higher than for the average evangelistic meeting.
11. A stove and refrigerator on the platform help create kitchen atmosphere.
12. Recipe Books Used: Better Meals for Less, by Cornforth, Review and Herald ; Community Cooking School Recipes, by Winifred Lindsay, and Lesson Outlines in Nutrition and Cookery, School of Dietetics, Loma Linda.
13. Sources of Lecture Information: Ministry of Healing; Counsels on Diet and Foods; Nutritional Charts, H. J. Heinz Co., Pittsburgh; Vitamin Food Chart, Cream of Wheat Corporation, Minneapolis; Health magazine; Life and Health; Consumer's Digest, Consumer's Co-operation, New York City; Madison Health Messenger, Madison College, Tennessee; Health and Food News, which appears occasionally in the Pacifiic Union Recorder; series of colored leaflets by M. A. Hollister, obtained from Southern Publishing Association, Nashville.
14. Kodachrome Slides and Film Strips: MaySe Studio, Box 25, San Diego; G. L. Goffar, 661 Cliff Drive, Newport Beach, California.
