Coca-Cola sued health risks of sugar-sweetened beverages

…that will probably parallel the tobacco settlement of 20 years back for similar reasons. Everybody knew tobacco was bad—hardly anyone gets lung cancer without it or asbestos being involved—but when it came down to proof of causality, that actually came, according to a news article I read, in the 1990s. Similarly, anyone who passed health class knows the correlation between sugar and diabetes, and can calculate sugar to fat, but proving it has something to do with Coca-Cola is elusive.

And a note for the Post; that’s Diet Coke in the picture.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

I dare these pastors(?) to preach one or two sermons on gluttony.

"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan

Because all those helpless people kept on chugging coke and couldn’t stop themselves…. and none of them ever ate a donut or ate anything else sugary in their life. All Coke’s fault. No genetic factors either. And they ran miles every day to stay in shape but that Coke just kept the pounds from coming off and kept the crud in the arteries. The multiple servings of spinach a day—no good. The Coke those armed thugs made them drink just canceled out all that healthy eating.

… and then you have all those false claims from Coke that it will make you stronger, lose weight, develop a healthier cardiovascular system, and reverse the aging process. Lies. All lies.

And there just aren’t any other evils that could be more important than this Coke plague, so… yeah, count me in.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

[Ron Bean]

I dare these pastors(?) to preach one or two sermons on gluttony.

I think this many, many times, generally when I’m in a congregation full of obese people and the pastor is preaching on a sin I’m pretty sure most of them are not committing. But especially this time, well said, Ron.

I also got in big trouble one time for teaching on the sin of covetousness and letting people know that if they had barns full of things they weren’t ever going to use, God was, per James, going to judge them. That one went over about as well as a lesson on gluttony would go over in our semi-rural area for obvious reasons.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

Aaron,

Very good article on gluttony. Many misuse the word today.

David R. Brumbelow

I would tend to “lost”, actually, as obesity actually is linked pretty closely to a stricter definition of gluttony. The trick is that unless it is stretched by feasting, the ordinary human stomach holds about a pint, or a pound, of food. So if you’ve got any portion of lower calorie foods in your diet—fruits, vegetables, beverages, whatever—you are going to have trouble getting a huge surplus of calories.

Gut check (pun intended) is that if you can down a steak of 1 lb or greater with sides, drink a Big Gulp /Super Big Gulp/etc.., make two or more trips to the steam table at Old Country Buffet, down a supersized meal at McDonald’s, or down an entire rack of ribs at the BBQ, you have probably stretched your stomach through gluttony. I know I’m guilty, and I’m paying for it in some ways.

Regarding the Biblical passages about being too lean, it’s worth noting that physiologically, the body starts breaking down when it gets below about 5% body fat. So both Scripture and science speak to a “sweet spot” in terms of body fat; higher than starvation, lower than feeling sufficient in ourselves. Scientifically, it’s probably about 5-20% for men, 10-25% for women.

Really, we’ve got a culture of gluttony, and as we look at what health conditions we pray for each Wednesday—signs of heart disease, diabetes, various skeletal problems—we might do little better than to point this besetting sin of our culture out periodically.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

Or at least a lack of discipline.

—If the majority of your eating is done without utensils.

—If you put food in your mouth when you already have food IN your mouth. (Most people do this.)

—If you can’t see your belt buckle or shoes or can’t button your suit jacket.

—If your doctor tells you that you need to lose weight

—If a little kid in your church pokes a finger in your belly and says your fat

"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan

It’s actually quite easy to gain weight steadily without “feasting.” The reason is that (a) as I pointed out in the linked article, most of can earn our living sitting all day. (b) We live longer, and what used to be dying age is now middle age, so we have years of reduced metabolic rate added onto relatively little opportunity for exercise.
Some of us can keep calorie consumption down below 1400 a day and not lose weight… and at 1500 gain weight slowly. All the while, feeling hungry most of the time.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

“Feasting” is God’s idea. At least 5 major feasts instituted in the Mosaic Covenant.

A 12 oz can of Coke has fewer calories than your typical 12 oz serving of orange juice or apple juice (admittedly, also with a whole lot less beneficial other ingredients, but calories are calories.)

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

Aaron, while it’s correct that about 1500 calories is about the daily caloric need before exercise of an average sized adult—say about 150 pounds—the average American adult gets 1200 more calories than that at about 2700. Unless one’s diet is almost exclusively high calorie density foods—say like high fat cheeses and Hostess fruit pies and such—it’s hard to get there without stretching your stomach.

Side note; the average American adult is, not surprisingly, 168 lbs with a BMI of about 26.3, clearly in the “overweight” category.

And if you’re eating a lot of foods that have a ton of calories but leave your stomach quickly enough to want more—say that Coca-Cola guzzled by the bottle—Proverbs 24:13 comes to mind. Again, if we look at our “organ recitals” we perform each Wednesday at prayer service, we need to start taking the sin of gluttony seriously. (my pickup adds “covetousness” as well, having helped move amazing amounts of junk from many houses)

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

I had a heart attack last fall and have entered the “watching what I eat and reading nutritional information” discipline. A Christian nutritionist pointed out that we often condemn smoking as harming the temple of God but then assault that same temple with a knife and fork. (I’d added a bay window to the temple porch but that was 40+ pounds ago.)

BTW, reading labels have pretty much convinced me that restaurants, and especially buffets, are a plot to kill us all!

"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan