What specific foods and drinks are forbidden by the LDS (Mormon) Church?

score:6

Accepted answer

The Word of Wisdom refers both to Doctrine and Covenants section 89, and also to its interpretation. The scripture is listed here:

http://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/89?lang=eng

As with many issues in LDS doctrine, some aspects are specified, and others are left open-ended. The official list from mormon.org posted above contains a few items that are explicitly banned--you can't claim to be "living the Word of Wisdom" (and be considered worthy of a temple recommend) if you consume them, even occasionally. However, the scripture contains other guidelines whose interpretation is open to debate within the LDS community. In addition to caffeine (discussed elsewhere), the following is debated:

Yea, flesh also of beasts and of the fowls of the air, I, the Lord, have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving; nevertheless they are to be used sparingly; And it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine.

Within the LDS community, someone on a pure meat diet would not be ineligible to receive a temple recommend, but personal opinions vary widely on how this should be interpreted.

Upvote:10

From Mormon.org:

Our body is a precious gift from God. To help keep our bodies and our minds healthy and strong, God gave a law of health to Joseph Smith in 1833. This law is known as the Word of Wisdom (see Doctrine and Covenants 89:1-21).

In addition to emphasizing the benefits of proper eating and physical and spiritual health, God has spoken against the use of:

  • Tobacco.
  • Alcohol.
  • Coffee and tea.
  • Illegal drugs.

God promises great physical and spiritual blessings to those who follow the Word of Wisdom. Today, the scientific community promotes some of the same principles that a loving God gave to Joseph Smith nearly two centuries ago.

Reading the comments on the site linked above, the reasoning for the prohibition of these substances is that they impair the clear use of the mind; this is essentially the same principle why drunkenness is forbidden in Catholic moral teaching: free will and intelligence are gifts from God which allow us to know and love Him, so the voluntary impairment of these is wrong. St. Thomas Aquinas, on the question of how much are we allowed to drink, answers that we can drink "to the point of merriment (also translated as 'hilarity')."

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