Eating for pleasure is gluttony?

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I was listening to the YouTube channel Sensus Fidelium, and the priest, Fr. Ripperger, was saying that eating for pleasure only is gluttony. That eating should always be done for health. Not obsessively so that we insist on the highest quality, etc. which is a different kind of gluttony. But if our food is, like Cheetos or Coke, that is gluttony because we’re eating for taste and not health.** We can enjoy our food,** but the purpose of eating should only be for health, otherwise it is the sin of gluttony. I have to take some if what Fr. Ripperger says with a grain of salt, but I wonder about the merit of this. Perhaps he’s right?
 
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If that were the case, he is suggesting we only eat foods that are good for us, and nothing that we actually enjoy? That doesn’t seem right. I always thought it had to do with the amounts of food consumed, meaning eating until not hungry anymore, vs. eating beyond that just because it tastes so good.
 
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It’s not about if he’s right or not, if it’s good for you, why not do it? There will only be benefit. No one needs unhealthy food.
 
I’m not going to express my own opinion, but the early Church Fathers were almost unanimous in their opinion that eating for pleasure was some kind of sin, if not full-blown gluttony.

D
 
The purpose of food is not only health. We should be able to enjoy eating. Fr. Ripperger sounds like he knows what he’s talking about, but most of the time he’s just preaching his own opinions.

Eating for pleasure ALONE is a sin however.
 
Because some of what it’s considered healthy doesn’t taste good.
 
If one only eats healthy foods, they will taste perfect to you. It is only because most people have disordered palates that they can’t stand it. If you eat healthy with no seasonings for 3 months, you’ll come to love it
 
Then that is what you should do, but I am not going to eat things I don’t like because they are “good for me.” There is nothing wrong with eating things we like the taste of, but which you deem unhealthy. It is not a sin to enjoy the taste of your food.
 
This sounds very extreme and I see no moral bais for it. Yes, there are different forms of gluttony, like insisting on delicacies that are to your taste, being fussy, being ungrateful for the food you have and wanting something else, etc. However eating something simply for pleasure, I can’t see being a sin. Enjoying a glass of wine, surely, is more about enjoyment than sustenance. Is it a sin? A few squares of dark chocolate? Personally I can’t see it. Of course one should examine the disposition of their heart in all things, food included, and root out disordered attachments, but I think Father may have gone to an extreme here. But I haven’t watched the talk.
 
I suppose that all depends on what their definition of pleasure was then, wouldn’t it?
 
Lucy_1 said:
I have to take some if what Fr. Ripperger says with a grain of salt, but I wonder about the merit of this. Perhaps he’s right?
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He’d probably tell you that seasoning your food is morally unacceptable as well. So hold on that grain of salt if you would. It’s the devil’s condiment!

You can add that odd viewpoint of his to his young earth creationism and his strong views about women in the workplace.
 
Our source of comfort should always be God. We shouldnt eat to comfort our anxiety, and real hunger is not anxiety, its normal it urges us to eat. I never see animals in the forest obese, do you? They eat when they are hungry and seem to have a natural balance of exercise to eating with having to hunt for their food. Gluttony is a word that can be used for many things not just food. We should regard our body as a sacred vessel of our soul and eat what we need to be our optimum health so we can be at our best condition to do whatever good we can do in the world around us.
 
The traditional understanding of gluttony is twofold: 1) gluttony from excess, and 2) gluttony from luxury.

Gluttony from excess is when we don’t moderate our behavior or what we consume.

Gluttony from luxury is when we are unduly particular about things having to be a certain way.

Both of these things are opposed to Christian virtue and to the way Our Lord lived. A good way to develop the corresponding virtue is to practice intermittent fasting and this is something that has been practiced for 2000+ years and it does work.

Peace.
 
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No, he said we should enjoy what we eat, as stated in my op. And we don’t have to only eat things we hate, though sometimes that can be a mortification. Taste/enjoyment shouldn’t be the main consideration though.
 
Seems a bit extreme.

What if you enjoy healthy food? Is that wrong too, because it gives you pleasure?
 
Lol, yes. Of course there are many of his views which are unwarranted to say the least, but even a broken watch is right twice a day.
 
With all due respect to Fr. Ripperger, it sounds like he’s stripped one of the purposes of eating out of the act. I’d be similarly skeptical of a priest who said that a husband and wife shouldn’t have sex if one of them wasn’t fertile.

Yes, nutrition is one purpose of eating but community and socialization are another. I’ll certainly admit sitting at home getting your clothes dirty with cheetos dust sounds a great deal like gluttony, but a bunch of friends enjoying cheetos and coke while watching a game does not. Food is not just for feeding us physically.

It is no coincidence that when Christ gives Himself to us He does so in the form of the Eucharistic Feast. Food is not just about nutrition but about fulfillment, and He fulfills us not just as individuals but also brings us together as His Church.
 
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He didn’t say we couldn’t enjoy food. He said we should enjoy our food. Only that the food we eat and the reason for eating should be for good health alone.
 
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