Caffeinated soda

[MustardSeed]

When and why (specifically) did it become taboo for members to drink caffeinated soda? 
I think the story I have told myself must be incorrect because I can’t find any evidence. I do specifically remember when I was six, which would’ve been 1973 or 74, my mom and dad sent me down as an only child at the time, and very seriously explained that we would no longer be drinking Coke because the prophet said it was bad for us.  From then on it was known in my family is “the devil’s drink” because that’s what I called it and it became sort of a joke. 
It was a really big deal to me because we were a family that drank a lot of cola. My grandfather worked for PepsiCo. 
 

Now, because I can’t find any information on any general conference talk or what have you, I’m wondering if maybe my parents were just trying to instill the idea of how important it is to follow the words of a prophet and they made it sound like a huge new revelation.  
 

So many people in my algorithms are discussing the fact that “Mormons can’t drink soda” and I haven’t provide a decent explanation as to why this is what the belief is even though it’s inaccurate. 
Any insights would be appreciated!

Edited September 18, 2024 by MustardSeed

[Calm]

Iirc, Heber J Grant said something about it wasn’t against the rules but he would see it as a personal favor to avoid caffeine, but not sure of timing or effect.

[bluebell]

Here's a blog that says it's compiled everything that has been taught by church leaders about caffeine.  I haven't read the whole thing but it looks useful.

https://www.ldsliving.com/caffeine-what-the-prophets-have-actually-said/s/86182

Here's a couple excerpts.

Quote

An official statement issued by Church leaders in the 1970s states: “With reference to cola drinks, the Church has never officially taken a position on this matter, but the leaders of the Church have advised, and we do now specifically advise, against the use of any drink containing harmful habit-forming drugs under circumstances that would result in acquiring the habit. Any beverage that contains ingredients harmful to the body should be avoided” (Priesthood Bulletin, Feb. 1972, p. 4).

Quote

 

Spencer W. Kimball taught:

I never drink any of the cola drinks and my personal hope would be that no one would. However, they are not included in the Word of Wisdom in its technical application. I quote from a letter from the secretary to the First Presidency, 'But the spirit of the Word of Wisdom would be violated by the drinking or eating of anything that contained a habit-forming drug.' With reference to the cola drinks, the Church has never officially taken any attitude on this but I personally do not put them in the class as with the tea and coffee because the Lord specifically mentioned them [the hot drinks]. (Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball).

 

 

Edited September 18, 2024 by bluebell

[MustardSeed]

6 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Here's a blog that says it's compiled everything that has been taught by church leaders about caffeine.  I haven't read the whole thing but it looks useful.

https://www.ldsliving.com/caffeine-what-the-prophets-have-actually-said/s/86182

Interesting. 
The degree to which I would have felt shame at serving any Coke products at a church activity in the 80s or 90s or 2000s (I drank it whenever I wanted to, but would have felt really awkward, offering it to another member) has always had me believing that there was something official that was stated. I assumed that it was a general conference talk or something. Turns out it was all literally cultural. So so interesting.

And so interesting that Spencer Kimball pointed out the caffeine in the drink, but not the sugar. Perhaps now we are more aware of how dangerous sugar is and how it kills. Not to mention the addictive qualities.

Edited September 18, 2024 by MustardSeed

[MustardSeed]

One thing I do know for sure is when my dad was called to be a bishop in the 1980s, he was told that he could no longer drink Coke. (He was a Pepsi drinker anyway lol but also obedient so he abstain while he served.). 
he also had to shave his beard. It was a tough time for our family.🤪

[bluebell]

14 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

Interesting. 
The degree to which I would have felt shame at serving any Coke products at a church activity in the 80s or 90s or 2000s (I drank it whenever I wanted to, but would have felt really awkward, offering it to another member) has always had me believing that there was something official that was stated. I assumed that it was a general conference talk or something. Turns out it was all literally cultural. So so interesting.

And so interesting that Spencer Kimball pointed out the caffeine in the drink, but not the sugar. Perhaps now we are more aware of how dangerous sugar is and how it kills. Not to mention the addictive qualities.

I think you are right in that our information about sugar is so different now than it used to be. That's probably why it's staying off the radar.

[bluebell]

7 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

One thing I do know for sure is when my dad was called to be a bishop in the 1980s, he was told that he could no longer drink Coke. (He was a Pepsi drinker anyway lol but also obedient so he abstain while he served.). 
he also had to shave his beard. It was a tough time for our family.🤪

That's nuts!  Stake presidents really go rogue sometimes.

[MustardSeed]

4 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I think you are right in that our information about sugar is so different now than it used to be. That's probably why it's staying off the radar.

I should shut up.  That’s the last thing I want declared off the menu

[bluebell]

4 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

I should shut up.  That’s the last thing I want declared off the menu

I think it's also because sugar is way more nuanced than the 'don't' parts of the WoW.  If it ever was read into that section I think it would just be like a 'eat meat sparingly in winter' kind of thing.  Easy for all of us who love sugar to ignore and still feel ok about ourselves.

[Stargazer]

58 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

When and why (specifically) did it become taboo for members to drink caffeinated soda? 
I think the story I have told myself must be incorrect because I can’t find any evidence. I do specifically remember when I was six, which would’ve been 1973 or 74, my mom and dad sent me down as an only child at the time, and very seriously explained that we would no longer be drinking Coke because the prophet said it was bad for us.  From then on it was known in my family is “the devil’s drink” because that’s what I called it and it became sort of a joke. 
It was a really big deal to me because we were a family that drank a lot of cola. My grandfather worked for PepsiCo. 
 

Now, because I can’t find any information on any general conference talk or what have you, I’m wondering if maybe my parents were just trying to instill the idea of how important it is to follow the words of a prophet and they made it sound like a huge new revelation.  
 

So many people in my algorithms are discussing the fact that “Mormons can’t drink soda” and I haven’t provide a decent explanation as to why this is what the belief is even though it’s inaccurate. 
Any insights would be appreciated!

When I joined the church in 1966 I recall this being a "thing." "The Faiths Men LIve By," a book I read long before I met my first Mormon, mentioned in its chapter on the Mormons that one couldn't find cola drinks on the campus of BYU. The book was published in 1954. In those early days of my church membership, I recall that caffeinated drinks other than coffee and tea were referred to as "against the Spirit of the Word of Wisdom." I don't recall when or from whom this idea sprung.

That's the best I can do at this point.

[blackstrap]

Even breathing can kill you,,, if you are under water. Section 89 is not titled , The Final Word of Wisdom . My spouse feels awful when eating anything made with wheat flour, and yet the WoW says wheat is for man. If one is drinking 2 liters of Cola a day, that technically does not break the WoW, but it is likely not wise. Straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel comes to mind.

[Rain]

Sometime in the 1990s my dad told me that the reason our family didn't drink it was because he had gone to a solemn assembly in Utah many years before and "the prophet" told the men there that caffeine was against the word of wisdom. 

It really frustrated me because we are only going to tell men (and only some of them) something that is important to know? 

[The Nehor]

You shouldn’t drink Coke. You should drink light beer like the Word of Wisdom clearly instructs.

[Stargazer]

16 hours ago, blackstrap said:

Even breathing can kill you,,, if you are under water. Section 89 is not titled , The Final Word of Wisdom . My spouse feels awful when eating anything made with wheat flour, and yet the WoW says wheat is for man. If one is drinking 2 liters of Cola a day, that technically does not break the WoW, but it is likely not wise. Straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel comes to mind.

An interesting situation happened regarding DC 89 is that when the first official missionaries were sent to Nigeria and Ghana they found ready-made congregations of unbaptized Mormons. In one of the congregations the leaders had interpreted the "Nevertheless, wheat for man, and corn for the ox, and oats for the horse, and..." as a prohibition for worthy members to eat oats. And they were apparently adhering to this direction. This was quite a sacrifice, given that oatmeal was a staple there! They were very happy to be told that they could start eating oatmeal again.

There are plenty of people who simply cannot tolerate gluten, meaning wheat is not for them. 

[Stargazer]

12 hours ago, The Nehor said:

You shouldn’t drink Coke. You should drink light beer like the Word of Wisdom clearly instructs.

DC 89:17 -> "Nevertheless, wheat for man, and corn for the ox, and oats for the horse, and rye for the fowls and for swine, and for all beasts of the field, and barley for all useful animals, and for mild drinks, as also other grain."

Here's a mild drink:

[The Nehor]

14 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

DC 89:17 -> "Nevertheless, wheat for man, and corn for the ox, and oats for the horse, and rye for the fowls and for swine, and for all beasts of the field, and barley for all useful animals, and for mild drinks, as also other grain."

Here's a mild drink:

This was readily available in the 1830s?

They were talking about beer and maybe the sweet barley drinks that were around but those were mostly a treat for children or used to feed the sick because it was believed that barley drinks were easier for a sick person to digest. There is some medical truth to that idea but not much. These drinks were not commonly used because they weren’t shelf stable.

The Word of Wisdom was talking primarily about beer.

While we have a scriptural allowance to use something other than wine for the sacrament from near the beginning (that revelation came before the Word of Wisdom) the LDS church most commonly used wine for the sacrament until the 1910s and some places continued into the 1920s. Basically we changed it due to the temperance movement which the Church ran directly into. Compliance with the temperance movement’s aims has a lot to do with how the Word of Wisdom has been altered and evolved. A suspicious person might suspect that the Church’s move to comply completely with federal law might have been an attempt to mitigate their other contemporary controversy around not following federal law.

[the narrator]

17 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

The Word of Wisdom was talking primarily about beer.

 

Then how do you explain this quote from Brigham Young:

Quote

The same may be said of money spent in the purchase of beer. It is a mild drink, and is very pleasant and agreeable to a great many; but when a man pays his fifty cents, his dollar or his ten dollars for beer it goes into the hands of the grocery keepers and they send it off, and it does no good to the community. The beer itself does no good, it injures the system of those who habitually indulge in the use of it, and, whether they think of and realize it, or not, they will be brought to account for the means they have thus wasted.

Oh wait nm.

[Stargazer]

19 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

This was readily available in the 1830s?

Wasn't suggesting that.

It's what amounts to a "mild drink" made from grain in our day and age.

I was kind of joking, actually.

[california boy]

I just ran across this article that talks about how some Mormons handle the Word of Wisdom and the real health issues involved. Oddly, this came from seeing how some members heavily use soda on the whole "Mormon Wives" series.  I have seen members of my own family use excessive amounts of soda but would feel like they were going to hell if they had a cup of coffee.  Those same siblings also wonder why they have a hard problem with their weight.  From the article

Quote

 

In episode five, the girls of MomTok head to Utah hotspot Swig, the drive-thru soda chain that gained TikTok fame all on its own. However, what shocked viewers was the transparent amount of sugary soda Demi, Layla, and Mayci consume on a weekly basis. In fact, some of the girls copped to drinking a 44-ounce soda up to six times a week.

 

"We don't drink alcohol or do drugs, so [soda is] kind of our vice," Demi says in the episode, before ordering her own signature drink: a sparkling water concoction with sugar-free coconut, vanilla, raspberry, pineapple, and coconut cream.

 

The other women are seen throughout the series sipping from the styrofoam Swig cups, all the while professing the same stance (for the most part) on caffeine and alcohol. However, from a purely health standpoint, the soda habit isn't exactly good for you either.

Tonal coach and nutrition expert Ackeem Emmons says there are "numerous health concerns that come along with regular soda consumption [and] at the top of the list is adding excessive sugar in your overall diet. Added sugars can affect your cardiovascular health, cause obesity, and even lead to diabetes."

Not only is the sugar content concerning, but there's also the fact that they're not consuming it in moderation.

 

 

Quote

And while the cast might avoid coffee for religious reasons, it's actually healthier than all that soda. Coffee has nutrients like B12, niacin, magnesium, and potassium, as well as other antioxidants. Not to mention the high amount of caffeine in their 44-ounce sodas (between 132mg and 184mg) versus a regular-size coffee (95mg in one cup).

 

Also, in the Mormon culture, caffeine seems to be vilified as being something to be avoided at all costs.  The science shows that while caffeine in large quantities may not be good for everyone, it does have many positive reasons for consuming it.  From Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  And from the Mayo Clinic.

My point is that having caffeine in one's diet may actually be a very important health benefit to some people.  To make it a litmus test of being worthy to go to the temple seems very arbitrary and actually counter to the idea of a good health code to live by. Too bad members are not allowed to make this personal choice for themselves.

[randy]

I consider myself a "striving to be faithful" member of the church.  I LOVE my Mormon Whiskey! (Pepsi)  I am 67 yrs old, and my understanding has always been that cola drinks was NOT part of the WoW with respect to receiving a TR, although, I understand we have been encouraged not to partake, that it falls into the category of "he who is compelled in all things etc".    I would be smarter and no doubt healthier if I did not drink caffinated drinks.  I feel the Lord is giving me some leeway to exercise a higher degree of faith and common sense as to let me deal with that challenge, but not restrict my being able to attend the Temple.   I served with a great Bishop who loved his Dr. Pepper!

Edited September 19, 2024 by randy

[Calm]

4 minutes ago, california boy said:

I just ran across this article that talks about how some Mormons handle the Word of Wisdom and the real health issues involved. Oddly, this came from seeing how some members heavily use soda on the whole "Mormon Wives" series.  I have seen members of my own family use excessive amounts of soda but would feel like they were going to hell if they had a cup of coffee.  Those same siblings also wonder why they have a hard problem with their weight.  From the article

 

 

Also, in the Mormon culture, caffeine seems to be vilified as being something to be avoided at all costs.  The science shows that while caffeine in large quantities may not be good for everyone, it does have many positive reasons for consuming it.  From Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  And from the Mayo Clinic.

My point is that having caffeine in one's diet may actually be a very important health benefit to some people.  To make it a litmus test of being worthy to go to the temple seems very arbitrary and actually counter to the idea of a good health code to live by. Too bad members are not allowed to make this personal choice for themselves.

But why are they condemning them for having high sugar intake when at least the one example used is sugar free?

[Calm]

1 hour ago, california boy said:

The science shows that while caffeine in large quantities may not be good for everyone, it does have many positive reasons for consuming it.  

Timing is important though as it will interfere with quality of sleep for most people. It takes ten hours typically to clear the system (but may take longer for some, for me it’s ridiculously 20 hours, so I avoid it completely unless it’s necessary to stay awake), so for most people it should not be consumed after lunch according to the sleep specialists I have been researching (will get link if anyone cares).

Added:  Just an FYI for health…

Edited September 19, 2024 by Calm

[Rain]

16 minutes ago, Calm said:

But why are they condemning them for having high sugar intake when at least the one example used is sugar free?

I wondered a similar thing.  "The example they use to show high sugar is sugar free?" Not all sparkling water is sugarfree so I checked and it looks like Swigs is sugarfree. Then the flavors listed were sugarfree.  

 

 

[california boy]

20 minutes ago, Calm said:

But why are they condemning them for having high sugar intake when at least the one example used is sugar free?

From the article, the author calls out 3 of the 4 girl's sugar consumption I

Quote

 

n episode five, the girls of MomTok head to Utah hotspot Swig, the drive-thru soda chain that gained TikTok fame all on its own. However, what shocked viewers was the transparent amount of sugary soda Demi, Layla, and Mayci consume on a weekly basis. In fact, some of the girls copped to drinking a 44-ounce soda up to six times a week.

 

The article also comments on the excessive drinking of using sugar-free syrup, though the author doesn't really offer any support for her statement on that.

 

Quote

Even the sugar-free syrup that Demi adds to her drink could be concerning, he says. Many products that are labeled sugar-free are harmful for other reasons, like the ratio of carbs versus dietary fiber. 

"Based on the proportions of these two, it will dictate how much of the carbohydrates will be converted into sugar," Emmons adds. "Another red flag to be aware of with these sugar-free products, is the replacement of sugar with sugar alcohol. Another harmful chemical to ingest into the body. "

I do think the scientific evidence of drinking coffee being more healthy than soda drinks is pretty conclusive.  

[california boy]

26 minutes ago, Calm said:

Timing is important though as it will interfere with quality of sleep for most people. It takes ten hours typically to clear the system (but may take longer for some, for me it’s ridiculously 20 hours, so I avoid it completely unless it’s necessary to stay awake), so for most people it should not be consumed after lunch according to the sleep specialists I have been researching (will get link if anyone cares).

Of course.  When the effects of caffeine has come up with friends, what I have learned is that it effects everyone differently.  A lot of people can only have caffeine in the mornings.  Others have an afternoon cutoff.  My partner can have a cup of coffee right before he goes to bed and sleeps like a baby.   

None of that negates the health benefits of coffee that most people get and that personal decision people can make about their health is instead tied to temple worthiness.