Seventh-Day Adventist Food Practices

Seventh-day Adventist is a Christian denomination that holds worship services on Saturdays and encourages its followers to adhere to a vegetarian diet based on scientific research and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Members abstain from meat and seafood, tobacco, alcoholic drinks, and caffeinated beverages, including coffee and tea. Headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, the church supports Loma Linda University in Loma Linda, California, whose medical school sponsors rigid research into the health benefits of vegetarian diets. Two of its controlled studies—the first beginning in 1958 and the second in 1974—offer insights into relationships between vegetarian diets and health, providing scientists, physicians, nutritionists, and consumers with guidelines for vegetarian diets. A later health study, the Adventist Health Study-2, followed more than ...