Ezra Taft Benson, President of the Quorum of the Twelve

To a great extent we are physically what we eat.

Most of us are acquainted with some of the prohibitions, such as no tea, coffee, tobacco, or alcohol.

What need additional emphasis are the positive aspects—the need for vegetables, fruits, and grains, particularly wheat. In most cases, the closer these can be, when eaten, to their natural state—without over refinement and processing—the healthier we will be. To a significant degree, we are an overfed and undernourished nation digging an early grave with our teeth, and lacking the energy that could be ours because we overindulge in junk foods.

I am grateful to know that on this campus you can get apples from vending machines, that you have in your student center a fine salad bar, and that you produce an excellent loaf of natural whole-grain bread. Keep it up and keep progressing in that direction.

We need a generation of young people who, as Daniel, eat in a more healthy manner than to fare on the “king’s meat”—and whose countenances show it (see Daniel 1). [“In His Steps,” 1979 Devotional Speeches of the Year (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1980), p. 62.]

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