On this day in vegan history · November 26, 1827
Ellen G. White Is Born in Gorham, Maine
A twin girl born on a Maine farm grew up to talk a whole church out of eating meat, and the sanitarium kitchens built to feed that idea invented the veggie burger.
The facts
- Born
- November 26, 1827, in Gorham, Maine, to Robert and Eunice Harmon
- Twin sister
- Elizabeth, born the same day
- Health reform vision
- June 6, 1863, in Otsego, Michigan
- Kitchen legacy
- Adventist food companies included granola, Kellogg's corn flakes, Post cereals, Worthington Foods, La Loma Foods, and Morningstar Farms
On November 26, 1827, Ellen and her twin sister Elizabeth were born to Robert and Eunice Harmon in Gorham, Maine. Ellen went on to co-found the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and by her own account she was once "a great meat eater" who believed flesh was essential to her strength. That changed on June 6, 1863, when a vision she had in Otsego, Michigan convinced her a plant-based diet was healthier, and she spent the next three decades slowly giving up meat herself while urging her church to follow. The sanitarium kitchens the Adventists built to feed that diet, most famously John Harvey Kellogg's Battle Creek Sanitarium, went on to invent granola, corn flakes, and some of the earliest commercial meat substitutes.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
-
Grains, fruits, nuts, and vegetables constitute the diet chosen for us by our Creator.
Ellen G. White, The Ministry of Healing, 1905
Source: Wikipedia -
a great meat eater
Ellen G. White, describing herself before her 1863 health vision, as quoted by the Ellen G. White Estate
Source: Ellen G. White Estate
Why it still matters
White's health message pushed an entire denomination toward plant-based eating decades before the word vegan existed, and the industrial kitchens Adventists built to feed that diet became the direct ancestors of today's meat-substitute aisle.
Sources
This history is still being written.
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