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This article goes into never-before discovered health benefits of coffee: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/scientists-just-discovered-huge-health-110100064.html ” class=”bbcode_url”> https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/scientists-just-discovered-huge-health-110100064.html I realize that some research is suspect, particularly if it promotes the economic success of a specific product. However, if this research is true, it means that coffee drinkers have an edge on a healthy digestive system.
SD
I’ll give my disclaimer before I get into it. I think the bans on coffee and tea are beyond ridiculous. That said, if the bans on coffee and tea were rescinded tomorrow I wouldn’t start drinking them. I don’t have any interest in coffee whatsoever, having tried it already before I joined the church. Tea I could take or leave. This is just me saying that I’m not chomping at the bit for leaders to relax rules on coffee or tea so I can start drinking them. If I wanted to drink them, I wouldn’t wait for permission. With that out of the way…
I can hear the echoes of an apologetic argument in my mind. “There’s always another study.” Like back in the day when there were studies that showed that eggs were good for you, then studies that showed they were bad for you. I can imagine an apologist for the current implementation of the word of wisdom pulling out studies to show that coffee is bad for you.
I wanted to get out of that debate for a moment and enter a different one.
š Billions of people have drank coffee and they’ve been doing it for over 1000 years. We’re well past the human trial phase of coffee consumption. Anything you consume could be bad for you if consumed in extremes and there is no magic diet that will prevent you from dying.
I can understand with alcohol and smoking because those decisions can affect others. Alcohol leading to abuse or accidents involving other people. Secondhand smoke. But if the effects of your choices are limited to you it seems less important. Again, there’s no magic diet that will prevent you from dying.
People know their own bodies. If eating a particular food makes you sick, you’ll avoid it. It doesn’t mean the food should be blanket banned for everyone. E.g. some people have diverticulitis, so no one can eat nuts anymore.
Now there could be an argument about addictive substances and in the case of coffee, the caffeine could be considered addictive. I don’t know where I come down on that debate. Personally, when I’m thirsty I crave water (for real). Does that mean water has become an addiction for me and I should curtail my consumption of it? I literally couldn’t live without it.
There’s no word of wisdom on things that are far worse for you than caffeine. Diets high in sugar intake, saturated fats, processed foods, etc. Yet god doesn’t feel a need to interject and incentivize people to avoid those things by withholding saving ordinances. Those all fall under the umbrella of people’s agency to partake, just pay the price. Why can’t coffee and tea be the same?
What was the point of Peter’s vision of no unclean animal? Or what was the point of Jesus’ teaching that it’s not what goes in someone’s mouth that defiles a person, it’s what comes out? What happened to that?
It really depends on what “problem” the Word of Wisdom was trying to solve.– I think that Joseph was trying to get back into Emma’s good graces / earn Emma “brownie points” by outlawing the tobacco on the floors that Emma was cleaning up and wanted to write something up for the church to break the habit rather then put in the elbow grease himself. Then when he was writing it up, he felt inspired to write other stuff including “hot drinks” (which was translated into coffee/tea).
NOTE: I am not sure how many times church policy has been influenced so directly by the work that women are doing, but in my opinion, it’s not enough:)
– I think that there were some community economic policies at play as maybe a grassroots effort to campaign against importing coffee, tea, and alcohol as the saints migrated?
– What about social markers of “eating meat” in a farming society that was on the move between New York, Ohio, Illinois, and eventually Utah?
The 1990’s “problem” the Word of Wisdom was trying to solve?– The Word of Wisdom at this time was about “preventing substance abuse” in a variety of forms. But “Prevention” was the conservative watch-word for a lot of teachings at the time. The focus was street drugs, caffeine, smoking, and shifting into nutrition.
The 2010’s / 2020’s “problem” the Word of Wisdom is trying to solve?– Caffeine (Energy drinks), and the standard alcohol/coffee/black tea (not all teas in the blanket ban). Smoking is still included.
NOTE: ADHD research and other medical evidence that caffeine can be helpful at times makes it an interesting conversation. If you process the caffeine outside of the coffee – is it still a problem?
NOTE 2: A nuanced part of the conversation at times is that “Prevention” doesn’t always work, but “Harm Reduction” can also be a useful point. This gets clouded over into the “Moderation” theme when talking about nutrition these days.
I’d say that in the year 2024 the current implementation of the word of wisdom serves more as a cultural identifier and loyalty test than an actual law of health. I agree with the cultural identifier and loyalty test aspects. I think it’s also a benchmark used in our social ranking system in LDS culture. And is a mechanism we can use to judge others un-righteously:) I did a quick Google search for “Hot Drinks 1800s” and the main results were LDS-history oriented (which I found interesting – most non-LDS people don’t care about the drinking habits of the 1800’s evidently).
What if the WoW was really a brain-storming session/almost rant about “what humans put into their mouths & bodies” that was sanctified between Joseph Smith’s revelations on it and the cultural fallout from the Prohibition period?
All we really have is speculation. I’ve heard any number of things. Hot drinks (and the later clarification of being coffee and tea) really originated from god. I don’t want to completely rule that one out.
- There was a temperance movement at the time (e.g. the “Cold Water Army”) that mainly focused on abstinence from alcohol but there were also factions that believed that any stimulant at all was harmful and should be abstained from, including coffee and tea.
The argument here is that the saints were influenced by surrounding religious/pious cultures and the WoW became another thing in a long list of things in Joseph’s periphery that he cribbed into the restoration.
A modern equivalent might look like leaders of the church really being convinced by the keto diet, so much so that they introduce it to the members as a revelation for maintaining good health. Fast forward a few generations and the keto diet that was once a mere suggestion becomes a commandment with the thinking, “why would anyone
notwant to follow the Lord’s advice?” - I’ve heard that coffee and tea specifically was a tit-for-tat response. Tobacco and alcohol got taken away from men, so we’re taking coffee and tea away from the women. That one feels like a stretch but here’s a quote from David Whitmer. Note that this quote is from the Des Moines Daily News, 16 Oct 1886. An 81 year old Whitmer commenting on a revelation that was received over 50 years prior.
Quote:Some of the men were excessive chewers of the filthy weed, and their disgusting slobbering and spitting caused Mrs. Smith ā¦ to make the ironical remark that āIt would be a good thing if a revelation could be had declaring the use of tobacco a sin, and commanding it’s suppression.’ The matter was taken up and joked about, one of the brethren suggested that the revelation should also provide for a total abstinence from tea and coffee drinking, intending this as a counter ādig’ at the sisters.
Trying to explain why we abstain from coffee and tea to nonmembers is complicated. The best that I can come up with is A) we believe that God commanded it, and 
it’s a tradition.Getting any more in depth about it makes the whole thing seem really silly. i.e. there were health movements at the time that might have influenced Joseph Smith, the word of wisdom was specifically given “not as a commandment” but then later we decided to make it into a commandment and enforce it by taking away members access to the temple if they partake in the banned substances.
It is similarly hard to justify the ban on wine when Jesus drank wine in the NT and the text of the word of wisdom says that wine is ok as long as you make it yourself.
To a casual outside observer, it looks like we are just making up rules.
Roy wrote:
Trying to explain why we abstain from coffee and tea to nonmembers is complicated. The best that I can come up with is A) we believe that God commanded it, and it’s a tradition.Getting any more in depth about it makes the whole thing seem really silly. i.e. there were health movements at the time that might have influenced Joseph Smith, the word of wisdom was specifically given “not as a commandment” but then later we decided to make it into a commandment and enforce it by taking away members access to the temple if they partake in the banned substances.
It is similarly hard to justify the ban on wine when Jesus drank wine in the NT and the text of the word of wisdom says that wine is ok as long as you make it yourself.
To a casual outside observer, it looks like we are just making up rules.
To the non-casual inside observer, it still looks like we are just making up rules:)
I think it would be an interesting exercise to shift from a “purity based” checklist of observances to a “loving-kindness based” approach that asked questions and provided guidance about what we were taking from our environments and ingesting and treat food as the complex OTC drug that it is.
I have given a lot of thought to caffeine and its use as caffeine (originally in the form of coffee) does function as a “poor man’s version” of ADHD medication. 3 of my 4 family members have attention restraints consistent with ADHD and benefit from ADHD medication (during the week) and doctor-supervised ADHD medical management. As part of being a responsible parent, I pay attention to when my family members are medicated so that they don’t have caffeine on top of the medication. At times, scheduling and executive functioning constraints make it preferable to use caffeine (in packet form) instead of the heavy-hitting ADHD prescription medication because it doesn’t last in the system for quite as long.
At the time the first family member started stimulant medication, my husband and I had ethical questions at the intersection of the Word of Wisdom and ADHD treatment – the leaps from “hot drinks” to “coffee” to “caffeine” to “Super-Caffeine aka ADHD medication” are there.
The differences between actual wording and interpretation are fascinating, in general, not just with this topic. I can support abstaining from āhot drinksā (especially if āhotā is not defined exactly), since the harmful line is unclear and individual. Burning oneās throat and beyond is not fun. I think coffee was the obvious example of that time and place, so it was emphasized – but iced coffee became included when specifics over-rode the principle. The same thing happened with tea, even though a lot of tea is not consumed when hot (and is not addictive). Many missions in areas where tea is an important shared ritual (like Japan) no longer enforce its prohibition.
The Church is focusing away from specific rules and on principles now that it really is a worldwide church, so it wouldnāt surprise me at all if the Word of Wisdom settled into that same framework: āAbstain from harmfully hot drinks – and inherently addictive substances.ā
Old-Timer wrote:
The Church is focusing away from specific rules and on principles now that it really is a worldwide church, so it wouldnāt surprise me at all if the Word of Wisdom settled into that same framework: āAbstain from harmfully hot drinks – and inherently addictive substances.ā
I’m in trouble if they define cheese as an “inherently addictive substance”. Just sayin’.
SIDE NOTE: We had to shift to a lower sodium diet a few years back. This meant replacing table salt with a salt substitute (with taste differences). It was actually a harder transition then we thought it would be – with bouts of depression and all that. We got through it mostly unscathed (there was a lot of other stuff going on at the time), but it made me think about the addictiveness of table salt:)
NOTE: Low sodium cheeses include mozzarella and swiss. Now you know:)
Old-Timer wrote:
Many missions in areas where tea is an important shared ritual (like Japan) no longer enforce its prohibition.
I did not know this. What a happy development.
Old-Timer wrote:
The Church is focusing away from specific rules and on principles now that it really is a worldwide church
Yes, moving away from a prohibition of R rated films for example. I have actually seen individuals purchase the unrated directors cut as a way to skirt the “no R rated films” prohibition. Pure silliness. I’m glad to be moving to a more principle centric stance … one baby step at a time.
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