Is it the sin of gluttony?

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Hello.

I have recently read about the sin of gluttony and how it was described by pope Gregor within 4 different ways to commit the sin of gluttony.

I wondered on whether to continue eating when you are pleased when it comes to hunger, but you would like some more, is gluttony or not?

On beforehand thanks for answering 🙂
 
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In all things we should observe moderation. Eating until one is stuffed is not healthy.
Gluttony is precisely that, eating not because we are hungry but simply for the pleasure of eating.
Now we also need to recognize some psychological issues the person may have that induces to eat compulsively. That would not be a sin but should be treated. As eating without moderation can have serious health consequences.
 
I think it is classic gluttony.
 
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When we were young we were taught to always leave the table wanting a little bit more.

However, we were also told to never waste food, so it may require a little juggling.

I think we all know when we’re being greedy don’t we.
 
But shouldn’t we also eat drink and be merry?

Surely there should be moderation. But what’s the point of sweets?
 
There has been a lot of posts about gluttony recently, guess it’s becoming more common lol.

Gluttony has less to do with literally over eating as it does with wasting resources and living beyond your means. It is a gluttony in terms of being wasteful in anything, not just food.

Food has two intristic values, nourishment and pleasure. Food eases and alleviates our hunger but there should also be some enjoyment and pleasure from eating as well. But once you are eating to the point when nourishment is no longer necessary but is actually counterproductive just for the sake of pleasure, that is gluttony because it manipulated the very intrinsic value of food.

For example: eating steak is fine and having seconds of steak is fine also because it is tasteful and gives us some pleasure. But if you overeat too much steak, you can get iron poisoning. To do this would be to disrespect the intrinsic value of nourishment for the sake of pleasure alone.

So gluttony is not “eating seconds is bad”. That doesn’t even make logical sense because again food does have the intrinsic value of pleasure also. But gluttony could be getting seconds and then only barely eating it and throwing out the rest, because this food was not needed for nourishment but you also wasted it. Do you understand my point?
 
Some people - when angry, anxious, guilty conscience,
they eat faster - and more - as if under compulsion -
They way smokers are - when feeling that way - etc
 
I see your point.

But is it never okay to grab just a small extra bite because you would like just a little more? Is gluttony always so serious? For me it’s hard to see that this could actually be a serious sin. It’s sort of like I know the facts but I don’t really believe that it’s that serious. Would that potentially weaken the seriousness of the sin, that I don’t really believe that it can possibly be so serious?

It’s like I could understand it if gluttony were only about eating and spending in a way where it were keeping resources away from those who need it, or if it were too much. That’s what I’ve been thinking of when I hear gluttony, except for lately when I’ve done some reading online.

Also, another sin I committed were something that some say is grave. I didn’t know why it was grave so I belived I didn’t fullfill the criteria of full knowledge. I recieved the Holy communion at the time. Were I right about it not fullfilling the criteria or should I go to confession for this?
I think it’s hard at some times to decide for whether something is a mortal sin or not.
 
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A mortal sin you need full knowledge and if you are questioning why it is bad, chances are you didn’t have full knowledge.

Getting some extra food isn’t gluttony and I think that is something that a lot of people tend to think. As I mentioned, gluttony is broader than that. If you got some extra food and then only ate half of it and threw out the rest, that is gluttony because you didn’t need the extra to fulfill hunger and you wasted half for pleasure alone
 
There were five listed ways
  • Laute - eating food that is too luxurious, exotic, or costly
  • Studiose - eating food that is excessive in quality (too daintily or elaborately prepared)
  • Nimis - eating food that is excessive in quantity (too much)
  • Praepropere - eating hastily (too soon or at an inappropriate time)
  • Ardenter - eating greedily (too eagerly)
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But overall, this is not the teaching today. Gluttony is still a sin, but the Church doesn’t get into an attempt to explain it. You have to get down to the general principle that it is our obligation to nourish our bodies for our health. To eat in a manner that hurts our health is sinful. But the idea that one merely has to eat tasteless, unseasoned food that isn’t too elaborately prepared, eaten at the wrong time or quickly or in too much quantity is how one eats a healthy diet is misguided and ignorant.

My husband studied and taught history medieval history. Their understanding of nutrition was primitive. They understood that food nourished the body but they considered all food having equal nutritional value. So it’s best to really look at what the science today says about healthy eating and to see if in the land of vices, that’s a vice which God is calling you to really focus your attention on. If you focus your attention equally on all the vices, you’ll grow in your spiritual journey a lot slower. It’s best to let God direct you to what area of your life demands your attention.

If your doctor is talking to you about your diet and health, then you need to make it a priority. Gluttony is a hard sin to manage just like lust. And one piece missing is undereating. Both overeating and undereating have been categorized as eating disorders by modern medicine. There’s a tendency to eat for comfort, but there’s also a tendency to diet for some emotional need as well. Understanding what truly motivates sin and what modern tools we have to help can go a longer way than just looking at our primitive attempts to understand the vice.

But make no mistake. Gluttony is still sinful. We are called to be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect. So while we shouldn’t beat ourselves up, that person who eats intimidatingly healthy and is physical fit that you see in the gym has been mastering some good virtues. That doesn’t mean there isn’t some vanity there. Every virtue we grow in involves a temptation to vanity and that’s one we have to keep an serious eye on. We can master all six of the seven vices, but if we are pompous and look down on others because of our virtue, our pride can send us straight to the lowest reaches of Hell.
 
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I dont think its gluttony to always eat when you’re pleased. For example, many people do fasting now, where they eat in a limited window (e.g. 4 hours) and fast the other 20 hours, so in that case you have to eat more than you ordinarily would in the 4 hour window, but you’re doing it in order to fast the other 20 hours, for various benefits, not just spiritual but also health benefits. Do you guys think that is gluttony?
 
Keep in mind that today we have more knowledge of human psychology than the early Church fathers did. Eating disorders like bulimia and binge eating disorder may appear as gluttony but, as mental health conditions, shouldn’t be viewed as sinful.
 
Yeah, I’m not a big fan of attaching sins to eating habits in this day and age because food is already an emotional issue for many people, and having to worry that you’re sinning when you eat just adds to the emotional baggage. This is how eating disorders are born.

It’s already difficult for many people to manage their eating in a healthy way, whether they’re eating too little, too much, the “wrong foods” etc. Telling someone that it’s holier to go around being hungry is just wrong IMHO.

This forum seems to frequently get questions from people who are worried they committed gluttony because they were hungry at lunch one day and ate an extra helping, or ate a whole sandwich when normally they eat only half a sandwich. This isn’t gluttony and it bothers me that people would even worry about it.
 
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“intimidatingly healthy” sounds gluttonous to me.

The teaching has not changed on gluttony. Your explanation makes it sound more complicated than it is.

Too much, too quickly, too daintily, too soon. These are ways to commit gluttony.

How our health is affected is a consequence. But sins must be judged apart from consequences. God judges our actions, not their consequences.
 
Sounds like promoting gluttony, unless such a diet is prescribed by a doctor to treat a medical condition such as morbid obesity. And in such a case, the effectiveness of the treatment ought to be rigorously tested.
 
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Aquinas11 said:
For example, many people do fasting now, where they eat in a limited window (e.g. 4 hours) and fast the other 20 hours, so in that case you have to eat more than you ordinarily would in the 4 hour window, but you’re doing it in order to fast the other 20 hours, for various benefits, not just spiritual but also health benefits. Do you guys think that is gluttony?
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No, but I do think it’s an ill-advised way to manage your metabolism. If you do it over the long term, as opposed to just one day every couple of weeks, it’s going to affect all sorts of things about how your body processes food and stores fat.
 
Kima said:
Hello.

I have recently read about the sin of gluttony and how it was described by pope Gregor within 4 different ways to commit the sin of gluttony.

I wondered on whether to continue eating when you are pleased when it comes to hunger, but you would like some more, is gluttony or not?

On beforehand thanks for answering 🙂
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Modern Catholic Dictionary:

GLUTTONY. Inordinate desire for the pleasure connected with food or drink. This desire may become sinful in various ways: by eating or drinking far more than a person needs to maintain bodily strength; by glutting one’s taste for certain kinds of food with known detriment to health; by indulging the appetite for exquisite food or drink, especially when these are beyond one’s ability to afford a luxurious diet; by eating or drinking too avidly, i.e., ravenously; by consuming alcoholic beverages to the point of losing full control of one’s reasoning powers. Intoxication that ends in complete loss of reason is a mortal sin if brought on without justification, e.g., for medical reasons. (Etym. Latin glutire , to devour.)
 
Aquinas says:
As stated above vice of gluttony properly consists in inordinate concupiscence (plain English: disordered desi). Now the order of reason in regulating the concupiscence may be considered from two points of view. First, with regard to things directed to the end, inasmuch as they may be incommensurate and consequently improportionate to the end; secondly, with regard to the end itself, inasmuch as concupiscence turns man away from his due end. Accordingly, if the inordinate concupiscence in gluttony be found to turn man away from the last end, gluttony will be a mortal sin.
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Aquinas sees desires as not leading to their natural good ends. If we simply blindly follow our passions, our fallen nature emerges, sin emerges. As such, to reorient our desires to their naturally good end, we must use our reason to look at the purpose of our desires and intentionally choose the path that seeks the greatest good.

His conclusions are wrong though because his understanding of man is limited by the age he lived in. As Pope Saint John Paul II taught us, we need a proper anthropology of man. Any flaws in our understanding of human nature will flaw our theology. This is why we need a theology of the body. The natural law is a theology of the body. The two are not so radically different. For in looking at our body and understanding our body, we can see the natural law…or at least gain a greater glimpse of that law. But when we persists in clinging to old myths about the nature of our body, the conclusions of the natural law will be flawed or incomplete due to our ignorance.

If we understand what Aquinas observed on a deeper level, he’s simply looking at the behavior of obese and likely diabetic people who live in an age where you can’t monitor your blood sugar levels or inject insulin. He is only able to compare how these people eat with how healthier people eat, but his knowledge goes no further than this. This makes his conclusions incomplete.

The reality is that an obese diabetic person has rapidly rising and falling glucose levels from all the sugar they eat. They get an excess of sugar. If sugar levels are too high, it can kill them. Their body rapidly produces glucose to store the energy of the sugar (It stores it as fat). But if their diet doesn’t involve a lot of complex carbohydrates and proteins (which take longer to digest), their glucose levels drop too drastically yet again to dangerous levels which can kill them yet again. Their cravings for sugar and for eating NOW are rooted in their body trying to save itself from death.

I mean, it does get more complex than this, especially if you’re dealing with a diabetic. And our understanding of nutrition is still one of the less developed sciences. There are still various theories. But overall, Aquinas’ rules are incomplete and his understanding of gluttony incomplete. It’s not his theology. It’s his anthropology.
 
twoangels said:
  • Laute - eating food that is too luxurious, exotic, or costly
  • Studiose - eating food that is excessive in quality (too daintily or elaborately prepared)
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I’ve never heard of these, but it makes sense that they exist. The first two seem very similar. What is the difference? Is it that the first deals with how much you are spending and the second with how much preparation is being put into it?
 
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