Why does mormons forbid coffee

What can Mormons eat and drink? Video Content. How can I learn more? New Zealand News. Health Practices. Image source, brighamyounguniversity. Brigham Young students, who are still forbidden to drink alcohol, annually celebrate milktoberfest. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. View original tweet on Twitter. Related Topics. Still, many of the middle-class pioneers were literate, kept diaries and read guide books prior to embarking on the overland journey west to Utah, which came to be known as the Mormon Trail.

All of the guides of the time included recommendations for provisioning the wagons. But while they were packing the wagons, they may have contemplated the advantages of quitting any coffee or tea habit they had acquired while living in Illinois. So, to some extent, the rejection of tea and coffee amongst the Mormon Pioneers was a mechanism for building Mormon identity at the most basic, formative, constitutive level.

During the Temperance movement years, the Mormons referred to the Word of Wisdom to eschew alcohol consumption and became associated with strict Prohibition reform. Around , the Mormon Church switched from the use of wine in religious ceremonies to water. Today, it seems that full participation in the Church participation in the Mormon Temple is granted to those who are strict adherents to the Words of Wisdom.

Even today, there is a lot of discussion about whether it is just coffee and tea, whether cola is ok, whether decaf coffee and tea are ok, etc. Essentially, the Church leaders recommend the rejection of any drink that might be habit forming. Any beverage that contains ingredients harmful to the body should be avoided.

Now, coffee is seen as part of that slippery slope that leads away from God. Some LDS members also consider hot chocolate to be acceptable, but very firm believers reject it because chocolate can also be habit-forming since, like coffee, it contains caffeine.

Another long-time favorite coffee replacement for LDS members is a product called Postum, developed by the Post family of cereal fame. Postum is a coffee substitute made from roasted grain usually wheat bran and molasses. Starting in January , the product has been available in some select grocery stores and online for fans of the warm beverage option. But, with hot drinks being banned, coffee and tea both get the boot from faithful adherents of Mormonism.

Church leaders have clarified over the years the reasons for the prohibition, and canny LDS followers have found ways to fill the gap in their lives that excluding coffee brings about. Unlike tobacco and marijuana and alcohol, coffee, as well as tea, are increasingly seen as potentially harmless—but church leaders insist that the coffee prohibition stands and that God has never given a revelation to retract the wisdom of avoiding coffee.

From Salt Lake City, Utah, to various places around the world, Mormons strive to live according to what they view as the word of the lord and live a healthy life based on the tenets of the Word of Wisdom. Ahmed Mir is a coffee enthusiast and editor of Sip Coffee. He loves to travel and learn about new cultures.