June 06, 2013

Can We Drink Herbal Tea?

Q.

I am confused about the use of Green Tea for health benefits. I thought Green Tea was an Herbal Tea and was O.K. to use and not prohibited by the Word of Wisdom?
Are all teas prohibited by the Word of Wisdom?

A.

The section on the Word of Wisdom would be the most widely interpreted section or book of the Scriptures. It's not just the section's wording, but there's the situation that parts of it have since been declared as being commandments, due to members not following it. So how much should we follow the other advice?

This section also brings out the question of how we interpret God's intension in giving each part. This is vital if we wish to follow God in some meaningful way. The church has just made this into a commandment that forbids smoking, alcohol, tanin tea and coffee. All the rest is still left for each person to work out with God. Anyone giving you commandments beyond what the church has said officially is only giving you ideas in their heads that may be right or wrong in application.

However, having said that, there is still the question of your health - the purpose for which God gave it in the first place.

The apostle George Q. Cannon said in early days of the church that even hot soup was to be avoided. He also mentioned not eating pig. Believe it or not the Word of Wisdom tells people that, along with certain other meats, in a subtle way.

We put hot soup or drinks in our mouths and feel them as hot. Then we swallow them and think that because we have no sensation of them being hot while travelling down to the stomach that they are fine. But the reason is that we don't have an ability to feel them as they are going down. In other words the problems are still happening with this hot substance.

The solution is to not drink any substance that you can't put your finger in and be able to leave it there. If you can do this with your herbal tea it is fine.

Some may then pose, "then can we drink lukewarm tanic tea and coffed"? These suffer other reasons of a health nature to not use them. Tanic tea creates an instant "up" that within about 20 minites will drag your system "down". Coffee does the same. Both are also addictive.

There is talk in the church of chocolate being related to coffee. Coffee comes from the coffee bean. Chocolate comes from the Cocoa bean. The only caffeine in chocolate is that which is present when you roast any bean or grain.

I occassionly drink green tea myself. But I've left it to cool or put cold water in it to bring it to a good temperature.

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