I wrote to the Board of Life Education on the 14th November 2022, expressing my concerns about the partnership with Sanitarium, reflecting a grant of $200,000 to fund the nutrition module. I have yet to receive a reply...
"To whom it may concern
Promoting Sanitarium’s ideology, and their ultra-processed commercial foods (cereals, grains, soy), appears to be at odds with Life Education’s core mission statement.
I am very concerned that Life Education’s health message may be compromised by its partnership with Sanitarium and that it is potentially being used as a vector to promote a commercial food industry, wholly owned by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, with devout ideological beliefs on diet and Salvation. These beliefs, given in Vision to their prophetess in the late 18th Century, include the demonisation of meat, dairy, and eggs, while downplaying the serious risk to health posed by vegan diets.
Consider for a moment, the long-term harms of a nutrient-deficient, highly processed diet; in the context of a child’s health and well-being. A vegan diet is deficient in the following nutrients; Vitamin B12, Retinol, Vitamin D, Vitamin K, Sodium, Potassium, Calcium, Iron, and Omega-3 essential fatty acids. The consequences of these deficiencies will cause poorer health outcomes, especially for children and adolescent girls who have begun menarche. How can this possibly become Life Education Policy?
What if parents don’t choose to ascribe to the restrictive dietary teachings of the Seventh-day Adventist Church for their children? Will there be a choice to include animal proteins and fats as part of an Ancestral Diet? Will there be a choice to include meat, dairy, and eggs as part of a culturally appropriate diet?
Please consider the attached material for careful consideration in regards to your partnership with Sanitarium. I remain available for further discussion and clarification.
#BrandsOffOurKids
Sincerely,
Belinda Fettke
Has 'Healthy Harold' become a mascot for a commercial food industry wholly owned by the Seventh-day Adventist Church? A commercial entity that pays no tax on the sales of their goods, or services, because Sanitarium comes under the church's Basic Religious Charity umbrella...
The attachment to the email... "Concerns re Life Education’s Partnership with Sanitarium"
Right now, the processed food industry spends millions of dollars every year targeting Australian children with marketing in every aspect of their lives. But as big food companies make more and more profit as a result, it is our children’s health that is at risk, now and into the future.
At the time of writing my letter, Life Education was a signatory of the Obesity Policy Coalition's #brandsoffourkids initiative, now known as the Food For Health Alliance. Life Education have since removed their name...
In my original correspondence, I asked, "How can Life Education be partnering with an ultra-processed food company that not only sells cereals, alternative meats, and milks (including the highly processed UP&GO) but actually markets to kids here, here, and here! As such, I am concerned that Life Education’s health message has been compromised by its partnership with Sanitarium."
Promoting Sanitarium’s vegan dietary beliefs appears to be at odds with Life Education’s core mission statement.
Concerningly, Life Education is potentially being used as a vector to promote a commercial food industry, and indirectly, the devout ideological beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church on both diet and Salvation. These beliefs, claimed to be given in Vision to their prophetess in the late 18th Century, include the demonisation of meat, dairy, and eggs, while downplaying the serious risks to health, especially in children, posed by vegan diets.
Life Education, founded by the late Rev Ted Noffs in 1979, is Australia’s largest provider of preventive health and drug education to school children. Its reputation has been above reproach. Empowering young people to make ‘safer and healthier choices’ requires educational resources that are inclusive, respectful of cultural diversity, religious beliefs, and above all, promote health.
Unfortunately, the Life Education partnership with Sanitarium (signed in September 2021) rings alarm bells.
While the assertions sound reasonable at first impression, “to teach children how to make healthier food choices through the development and delivery of a new nutrition module for middle primary school kids which will also include resources for teachers and parent's” the question remains, is Sanitarium simply using the partnership as a vehicle to promote a vegan, ultra-processed diet that endorses their religious ideology and does their business model no harm? #BrandsOffOurKids
Church founder and Prophetess, Ellen G White, claimed to have been told by God; - "meat is a toxic stimulant that defiles men, women, and children - morally, spiritually, and physically". She taught; - "A religious life can be more successfully gained and maintained if meat is discarded, for this diet stimulates into intense activity lustful propensities, and enfeebles the moral and spiritual nature."
Her Health Reform message not only disregards Ancestral Diets and evolutionary hunter-gathering, but also disregards the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy from the First Testament and the entire Second Testament of the Bible. The Seventh-day Adventist dietary beliefs are not based on science...
Public Health Education - A duty of the Church
Ellen G White taught it was the duty of “God’s Chosen ‘remnant’ Church” to actively engage in public-health education to warn others of the physical dangers of eating flesh meat and violating the Laws of Nature, authored by God himself. Medical Evangelism is considered the Right Arm of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and their Health Reform message - ‘The Entering Wedge’, to ‘hasten the return of Christ.'
(Note; - The Seventh-day Adventist version of ‘The Truth’, including their beliefs on the Great Controversy, the Investigative Judgement, the Sanctuary Doctrine, and their Health Reform message, are based on Ellen G White’s Prophetic Visions and extra-Biblical writings)
According to Sanchez, R., Gelabert, R., Badilla, Y., Del Valle, C., 2016, ‘Feeding holy bodies… A study on the social meanings of a vegetarian diet to Seventh-day Adventist church pioneers’ - food and nutrition become a medium to communicate values and ideas; a tool to open doors to evangelise; and a way to take the gospel to the people.
Aussie Kids are Weet-Bix Kids
Most people in Australia are non-plussed by Sanitarium’s advertising slogan, one of the most instantly recognised jingles in Australian history, and many even believe it to be true!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... https://fb.watch/guV0EEFG6J/
Sanitarium’s website acknowledges their ‘Social Purpose’ initiatives that include working with kids to build trust and brand loyalty; -
A Nutrient Deficient, Highly Processed Diet…
Consider for a moment, the long-term harms of a nutrient-deficient, highly processed diet, in the context of child abuse.
A vegan diet is nutritionally deficient in the following nutrients; -Vitamin B12, Retinol, Vitamin D, Vitamin K, Sodium, Potassium, Calcium, Iron and Omega-3 essential fatty acids. The consequences are likely to be lifelong and cause poorer health outcomes, especially for children and adolescent girls, who have begun menarche. How can this possibly become Life Education Policy?
An important consideration is that grains, beans, nuts, and seeds - the staple foods of plant-based diets - contain phytate, a mineral magnet which substantially interferes with absorption of essential minerals like zinc, calcium, iron, and magnesium. Oxalates - mineral-binding compounds found in a wide variety of plant foods interfere with iron absorption.
Only animal foods contain every nutrient we need in its proper, most accessible form. To learn more about nutrient availability and how it affects brain health, please read Dr. Georgia Ede's article on micro-nutrients and mental health.
Children and young people, in particular, need bio-available protein and healthy fats to thrive. Ultra-processed foods containing high levels of sugar are causing health issues including non-alcoholic fatty liver disease never before seen in children! A high-carbohydrate diet throughout the day results in constant insulin spikes and will eventually wear out the pancreas.
The rising incidence of mental health issues and non-communicable disease, including Type 2 diabetes in young people, is alarming.
SANITARIUM - A Seventh-day Adventist Food Company
Sanitarium, a department of the South Pacific Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, has somehow managed to create a ‘health halo’ around their brand and remove the religious association just far enough away from everyday life that Australians don’t feel they are being proselytised to. But the Church’s ideological influence is everywhere… pushing a ‘plant-biased’ health message while simultaneously demonising animal proteins and fats.
Using public health education as the ‘Entering Wedge’ to take ‘the Seventh-day Adventist Gospel’ to the people.
Is this what will be taught as “healthy” by Life Education… A so-called ‘Biblical Garden of Eden diet’ devoid of animal proteins and fats? Where is the transparency for those who do not ascribe to the dietary teachings of the Seventh-day Adventist Church?
SANITARIUM - History
The SANITARIUM HEALTH FOOD COMPANY was established by Church founder, Ellen G White and registered as Australia’s first health food company in April 1898.
It was designed to be based on Kellogg’s model in Battle Creek, Michigan…
*** JOHN HARVEY KELLOGG was just 12 years old when he went to work for the ‘first family’ of the Adventist Church. He was given the task of type-setting Ellen G White’s book … An Appeal to Mothers (also titled A Solemn Appeal) which spoke only of the responsibility of mothers deterring their children from Self-Vice - the puritan term for masturbation. Meat was considered the major cause!
Her written word was delivered through the powerful art of sermon, instilling guilt and fear into her readers. Imagine being a 12-year-old and typesetting these words…
The penalty of violating nature’s laws, according to Ellen G White, were seen in various diseases and physical decay, with "many sinking into an early grave’. The penalty included everything from a minor headache to the loss of memory and sight, epilepsy, cancer, and “the head often decays inwardly“… “Such are just as surely self-murderers as though they pointed a pistol to their own breast and destroyed their life instantly.”
Is it any wonder that when he became a doctor, John Harvey Kellogg tried everything to prevent intemperance and sinful masturbation. He invented bland breakfast cereals, nut and soy meat analogues, and prescribed vegan diets, Marketed as 'Health Food’ to curb sexual desires…
SANITARIUM - The Corporate Arm of the SDA Church And
Sanitarium Health & Wellbeing Group, one of 20+ global commercial entities of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, is owned and operated by the Australian Health and Nutrition Association Ltd.
As part of the Church’s operations Sanitarium is afforded ‘Charity Status’ and as such, pay no tax on the sales of hundreds of commercially processed 'foods'; including Weet-Bix and Up&Go (a liquid breakfast cereal), soy products, alternative milks, nor do they pay tax on their vegan food range (Veggie Delights, Life Health Foods, Alternative Dairy Co). Tax exemptions extend to income from investments and the business entities which come under the Sanitarium umbrella including; Vitality Works - one of Australia and New Zealands largest corporate health & wellness providers, and the Complete Health Improvement Program (CHIP) - a wellness program delivered to Churches, Communities and as Corporate Wellness Programs world-wide.
While the Church acknowledges that diet is not a mandate for membership and/or participation, the following resource from Sanitarium’s 2018 CHIP facilitator guide, shows pretty clearly what the Adventist Church's position is on Meat, Dairy and Eggs... They top the list of harmful ‘substances’ contributing to the worst possible health outcomes! Can they really be more dangerous than processed foods and alcohol?
Sanitarium's Technical Advisor and Australian Food and Grocery Council representative sits on the Health Star Rating (HSR) Expert Technical Advisory Committee, helping to design the algorithm that allocates ‘stars’ depending on the fibre, salt, and saturated fat content of processed foods. Sugar appears to get a free pass on Sanitarium’s product UP&GO...
SUMMARY STATEMENT
Prescribing plant-based diets to children without including straightforward warnings of the risks, and offering clear guidance as to how to minimize them, could be considered professionally irresponsible and medically unethical, and therefore should not form the basis of public health recommendations by Life Education.
An inclusive educational resource MUST offer all dietary options regardless of personal, religious, and commercial bias. Ensuring optimal protein and fat intake with the accompanying essential vitamins and minerals determines health outcomes, particularly in growing children.
I am not challenging Seventh-day Adventist beliefs per sae. Nor is this about an individuals' belief within the Church, but rather, I am challenging the corporate Church's influence on our health and dietary guidelines, their commercial interests that remain tax-free, and the support/protection they receive from the Australian Government and Dietetic/Health Associations nationwide that fiercely protect their 'Plant-based' ideology.
I am challenging Sanitarium's influence on health professionals and associations, including Life Education, whom I believe are unwittingly promoting medical evangelism for the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Belinda Fettke
Independent Researcher
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