Read Ellen G. White, Counsels on Diet and Foods.

From the SDA Church Manual, we read: "Christian behavior . . . means that because our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit, we are to care for them intelligently. Along with adequate exercise and rest, we are to adopt the most healthful diet possible and abstain from the unclean foods identified in the Scriptures."

Twenty-first Fundamental Belief: "The original diet. The Bible does not condemn the eating of clean animals. But God's original diet for man did not include flesh foods because He did not envision the taking of any animal's life and because a balanced vegetarian diet is the best for health—a fact for which science offers mounting evidence.

"The diet God ordained in the Garden of Eden—the vegetarian diet—is the ideal, but sometimes we cannot have the ideal. In those circumstances, in any given situation or locale, those who wish to stay in optimum health will eat the best food that they can obtain."

The General Conference Nutrition Council, in their Position Statement of 2006, titled Vegetarian Dietary Guidelines states, "We recommend the generous use of whole grains, vegetables, and fruits; a moderate use of low-fat dairy products (or nutritional equivalent alternatives); legumes, nuts, and seeds; a very limited use of foods high in saturated fat, cholesterol, sugar, and salt."

What are some of the dietary challenges that you face in the area where you live? Is there an abundance of food, which can lead to eating not only the wrong foods and also to overeating? Or is there a struggle to get enough of the right foods? What can you as a class do to help those who could be struggling either way?

What are the extremes in diet that we need to avoid?

How should our understanding of the nature of humanity impact our understanding of how important our physical bodies are? In other words, because we do not believe that the soul is immortal, and can exist independently of the body, should not we then have even more reason to take care regarding how we treat our bodies? Explain.

Many new Adventists do not know a thing about a healthy diet. How can we help them learn about this important topic in a balanced way that doesn't push them into extremism?