| To give an additional datapoint for those curious about this (I grew up LDS, father was a bishop, family grew up in Utah but moved to the Midwest): - Among church congregations, it was common in talks about the Word of Wisdom for someone to bring up modern studies indicating something harmful about coffee/tea, as a sort of justification for the doctrine. (Being nutritional studies, seems you can find studies saying that both X is harmful and X is healthy, for all X.) - I wonder what the reputation of coffee houses was in early 1800s America. I know that in England in the 1600s-1700s, coffee houses were a sort of salon environment where people gathered to philosophize; a lot of Enlightenment-era philosophies were bolstered by such places. The focus on politics and gossip in such environments made them less-than-reputable among some circles. Perhaps some of the reasoning for the "hot drinks" thing in the WoW was a desire for the membership to avoid such places and ideological influences. - The main 'reason' to follow the WoW given in my family was that it was an opportunity to show obedience. Essentially, it may seem arbitrary in some cases (though in other cases there's obviously sensible stuff in it), but learning to follow guidance is valuable even if it seems arbitrary. - Pero (also known as Caro outside the US) is a non-coffee/tea hot drink that is common among some LDS ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pero_(beverage) ) My mother drank it a fair amount when I was younger. Herbal teas also seem to be fair game, though I've only ever seen them drunk on an individual basis and not brought to like a ward activity. - As for the question of iced tea/coffee, that seemed to be discouraged in general. I remember my dad saying that he chose not to drink them because he didn't want to acquire a taste for tea/coffee that would make it harder for him to keep the more set-in-stone guideline. - Hot chocolate is fine and common on campouts. - Caffeine was culturally thought of, particularly in Utah/Idaho, as the reasoning behind the coffee/tea restriction, but my devout Utah Mormon grandmother always had her caffeinated Diet Coke every day. Our family would jokingly call it her "vice," but none of us really felt like she was sinning or anything by doing so. The WoW occupies an interesting position of being half a "guideline" or good idea, and half a religious restriction. |