I am a convert to the church, I joined when I was 30 years old, and so I have no preconceived ideas about the Word of Wisdom. After reading the WoW for the last twelve years and studying everything I could find on it I still have a question about wheat being the staff of life. A staff is something to assist you when you need extra help not something to rely completely on. If I were reading the WoW without any help of interpretation I would think that the basis of our diets should be herbs in season and if we need extra energy we can eat grains and if we have nothing else then we can eat meat. I love my grains so I’m not looking for a reason to get rid of them, I am just always bothered by the interpretation of the word “staff ”. The only two definitions I can think of for the word staff is as in a walking stick or the staff as in the teachers at school, both are not to be heavily relied on, they are just there to assist when needed but not to do all the work.
What do you think? I know it is difficult to have an objective opinion about something that you have grown up understanding a certain way. My wonderful husband was raised in the church and raised on cracked wheat and bread and so it is difficult for him to think outside the box on this one (literally the bread box). I hear people mention stories through history about people eating mostly grains but in many instances that is because they had nothing else.
Rebecca
Hi Rebecca,
Thanks for the email.
I looked up “staff” in the 1828 Webster Dictionary. It had this as its first definition:
A stick carried in the hand for support or defense by a person walking; hence, a support; that which props or upholds. Bread is the proverbially called the staff of life.
So, if a staff is a support, then perhaps the phrase “staff of life” means “support of life”. Interestingly enough, in Joseph Smith’s time, it appears the staff of life was most frequently used specifically for bread. Yet what the Lord says is that all grain supports life (see D&C 89:14).
All that being said, I think the Word of Wisdom makes it very clear that we are to have a balanced diet full of a variety of healthy foods.
I am unable to deal with gluten, a protein in wheat, so I find it a little more difficult to deal with food storage. I hope that doesn’t mean I’m a bad Mormon. Lol
You can use rice a staple? It is the number one staple food in the world.
Good thing the Word of Wisdom specifies all grain then, and not just wheat.
Oddly, the more science evaluates grains, the more problems they find with them. I now think that at the time of Joseph Smith, wheat was generally thought to be the staff of life. I always believed the word of wisdom was prophetic. But I don’t that anymore. During this same period, there was a general temperance movement. So the Word of Wisdom really did not present anything new or that was not part of this general movement in the country.
And most LDS ignore the very little meat part of the W of W.
A closer look @ doctrine & covenants 89 vs 12-15 specifically tells us that (vs 12&13) meat is good for food, during the winter/cold, and famine. In vs 14&15 it says grain is good for food for both man and all animals… But ONLY in times of famine and extreme hunger… I had never seen it in this way before, but always thought that the Lord was going back a couple of vs to reaffirm about animals, but given the pattern of the whole section it doesn’t make sense that it would jump back and then talk about grains again in the following vs. (and vs 14 is referring to how grains are to be used for people and animals, not how animals are used…) I think we have misunderstood in a very big way.
I think verse 15 is specifically referring to animals mentioned in verse 14.
Verse 14, refers to “all grain”, which is singular. Verse 15 refers to “and these has God made…”, which is plural. If verse 15 is supposed to refer to verse 14, then there should be agreement between the article and the demonstrative.
On the other hand, Jesus lists several animal types in verse 14, which would agree with the plural demonstrative. Plus, he just finished referring to them in verses 12 and 13, which actually DOES make sense.
I don’t mean to argue, but in what way is “all grain” singular? You mentioned that in verse 14 Christ lists several animal types (he lists the animals only to illustrate how the grain is to be used, the subject is most definitely the grain), but if you look in verse 17 he lists several grain types as well (sure it’s after the fact, but it makes as much sense as using His listing of animals in verse 14 as proof). I don’t mean to be rude, but your logic is flawed in at least that sense. Also how else would he refer to “all grains” besides using the word “these”? Even if that somehow is incorrect grammar, so is skipping an entire verse that is directly connected to it. Perhaps it might be possible that it is referring to both?
That being said please don’t take that as trying to put you down. It’s a fantastic thing that you and so many others are actively studying this out to know for yourselves what it was intended to mean, and I by no means claim that my opinion is any more valid than anyone else’s. It’s possible that either of us could be wrong, but it might also be possible that there are some things we are all right about.
It’s singular because it uses the word “all”, which makes it a collective single body. Same goes if you used the word everyone or or anyone, for example. In all three cases, the words are referring to a single collective body.
Now, if verse 14 said “all types of grain”, then it would make sense that “these” in verse 15 would refer to the grain.
Notice verse 16: “all grain is good”. It does not say “all grain are good”. Singular.
“These” is plural, so it has to refer to several things. The only things immediate to verse 15 that are plural is the list of types of animals.
If grain was to be used to be used only in times of famine and hunger, which some people assert, why does verse 16 say all grain is good for the food of man? If some thing is good for us to eat, why would the Lord restrict it to only when we are starving?
Notice that the restricted meat (or rather flesh of beats and fowl of the air) is never labelled in D&C 89 as “good for food” by the Lord as all grain is.
My logic is anything but flawed.
Actually, your logic is flawed.
As you say “everyone” and “anyone” are collectives that denote plurality. Therefore “all grain” also denotes a plurality. Just like with you would not say “everyone are good” or “anyone are good” but instead would say “everyone is good” or “anyone is good.” Such it is with the collective singlar grouping of “all grain.” Proper english treats it the same as it does any other plural.
To use your own example again, when using the world “everyone” you would not follow it with a single pronoun when referening the group. “Everyone is good. They had a pleasent day.”
So it is with “all grain” being changed and used with the word “these” when describing them in verse 15.
Not only that, but the list of animals in verse 14 includes MAN as part of the list. If verse 15 were referring to everything that was in the list it would mean that man was also being listed as being good for food in times of famine and excess of hunger. I have a very hard time believing that the Lord was telling us that cannibalism was ok if we were starving.
Actually, that’s not what it’s saying. Read the foot notes connected to those verses. MEAT is what is to be used only in famine & extreme hunger / winter. It explains in the foot notes exactly what it’s talking about. I’ve come across several people who are reading it the way you did, & this is why it’s SO important to research the footnotes for each scripture! Hope that helps!
Actually, the footnote are not doctrine. They are they to help give you clarity when studying and point to other instances in the scriptures where similar things happened, not to point to where the the actual doctrine is located. All scriptures must be able to stand alone without them, as they were not given with them like we have them now. They are just helps, not doctrine. The reason that it is linked to verse 13 in this case is because it is another location where similar wording is located to help give context. The reference to D&C 49 is because it was put there by a mortal man who made a mistake. Just like the error in verse 13 where a comma was inserted in the 1920 edition that wasn’t originally there.
I personally still don’t think it fits the pattern established in that section and I don’t think the Lord made a goof. In fact, if this were the old or new testament, or even the Boook of Mormon, I could accept that because it was coming from man. This was perfect revelation from the Lord, and very recent considering scripture.
In English class for my son we went over subject and indirect object of sentences and the subject of the verse is grains, not animals, and when you consider the animals (indirect object), their best food sources are grazing on grass, eating bugs and the like. Yes, they are often fed grain, but it changes the composition of the food they produce for us (milk, eggs, etc) and often shortens their lifespan.
Therefore it still makes more sense to me that this refers to grains, and even now makes me wonder if this is a key to how Adam, Noah, and others of ancient times often lived to be so very old.
It makes no sense for it to refer to grain.
Verse 14: “all grain” is singular
Verse 15: “these” is plural
“These” cannot refer to “all grain”
In fact, look at verse 16: “all grain is good” (singular), not “all grain are good” (plural).
And for the record, grain is not the subject. It is an object. Verse 14 is written in the passive voice. “All grain is ordained for the use…” The simple present is “is ordained”, but it is not “all grain” that does the ordaining; “all grain” is having the ordaining done to it. The subject is the person or thing that ordained “all grain”. The subject is implied (just like the subject of “Pick up your socks.” is implied) and is probably God (see verse 10).
It might also be of interest to know that grains are subdivided into 2 families. There are pulse grains (seeds not from the grass family, so legumes, beans, nuts, flower/fruit/vegetable seeds) and cereal grains. The only grains listed in the section specifically are from the grass family known as cereal grains.
I don’t think pulses or legumes are grains. I could be wrong about this, but I think grains are specifically grass-based.
If you trust wikipedia, that is where the info is from. I didn’t just make it up, and when I learned it, I finally understood pulses, because I had been baffled by what it meant until I found it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_grain
I guess I must have taken the botany view.
Great observation
Restricting grain to famine and excess hunger doesn’t contradict verse 16. Notice how it mentions grain and fruit in that verse. Fruit of the vine (that includes vegetables) contains all we need to be healthy but is not always available especially in times of winter. Wheat can be stored indefinitely and when sprouted is one of the most nutritionally complete food sources we have (hence, all grain is good), but it still contains gluten which cannot be completely taken out and thus is damaging with extensive use. So eat fruit when you have it, and grain when you don’t. In the Journal of Discourses volume 2 Brigham Young said that when men shall live to the age of a tree, their food will be fruit. Sure you can be healthy and still have grain in your diet (when it’s prepared properly and not the mass scale it is today) but if you have fruit of the vine at your disposal, that would be the healthier option. This is what makes the most sense to me, so that’s what I’m doing. You have a different, but equally as valid a view on it so I’ll stop questioning it. My apologies.
I’m not sure who this is directed at, but if me, then I actually didn’t espouse a view.
I disagree. Verse 15 is not referring to grain. It is referencing animals, the same as in verse 13. I read it as another emphasis that meat should be used sparely. I have read through all the comments and they simply do not make sense to me. It seems very clear to me what was intended.
As a side note, I have always wondered why rice was not included. It is a grain after all and the most common staple of life in the world – both at Joseph Smith’s time and now.
AJ Walker, I have no idea if you’ll see this now two years later, but everything I’ve read from you so far resonates so much with me. After a lifetime of food addiction and dieting I turned to the Lord because I finally realized that the world cannot give me the wisdom I seek on how to feed my body, but He can. He led me to the word of wisdom in a way that taught me I need to eat a vegetarian diet because the “these” in the much disputed verse 15, applied to meat. Cutting out meat changed so many things for me and I started to heal and (once I wasn’t laden down with the meat) I discovered dairy made me feel terrible too. So I followed a vegan diet for a year, but it was very very grain heavy. I felt free from my food addiction and never ever ever felt the absense of meat even though it is a food I thoroughly enjoy. So, now, I’m looking again. I’ve been on a new path where I feel the Lord is teaching me how to eat more fruits and vegetables. I am back in D&C 89 and see that fruits and vegetables are for our constitution and nature. I have never “seen” those words before. Logically I understand they have always been there, but they didn’t mean anything to me until this time around. I read verse 15 and “these” applies to the grains, to me, this time around. The word of wisdom is adapted to capacity of the weakest of all the saints. I fully believe that The Lord is not bound by the rules of grammar and that the Spirit will teach us what we need to know for where we are in our lives. I really really appreciate what you have shared. It has validated my own experience and what I feel I’m learning right now.
“15 And THESE hath God made for the use of man only in times of famine and excess of hunger.”
If you look at the cross references listed under 15a for the word “these” the cross references point to:
D&C 49:18 “And whoso forbiddeth to abstain from meats, that man should not eat the same, is not ordained of God;”
and
back to D&C 89:13 “And it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine.” (this one is clearly referring to the meats discussed in verse 12
So it’s clear that when verse 15 states “and THESE hath God made for the use of man only in times of famine and excess of hunger” that “these” is referring to the “beasts of the field, and the fowls of heaven, and all wild animals that run or creep on the earth;” mentioned in verse 14.
So verse 15 is not referring to grain, but animals per the cross references. That one did throw me for a loop as well for awhile too.
https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/89?lang=eng
I agree wholeheartedly. You are absolutely correct.
Also, if I may, I might add: Verse 17 specifically says “wheat for man, …” What we have since decided to do to these grains before they make it to the store destroys their whole purpose. I do not buy flours at the store anymore. I do what I can to get as real, un-genetically modified grains as I can and grind them at home, and bake bread at home. Fresh ground grain flour with everything left in it intact is so amazing. My personal view is most all store bought (if not maybe even all?) is crap. they strip out everything good for you and you’re left with ground up endosperm flour which is basically pure energy without anything there to provide a healthy natural balance. That’s why processed white bread is so unhealthy for you. You don’t use all the energy so it turns to sugar and then to fat (per my understanding at least). i hope this didn’t come off too preachy, but I am getting passionate about home ground flours, homemade real butter, homemade yogurt…etc. Per our renewed investment in trying to live the WoW we’re also attempting to become (at worst) weekday vegetarians so if we have meat, it’s only on the weekends. It seems to make it easier for us to be mindful of our consumption. Then you gotta sweat, work out, be active. Gotta use all that good food right.
***end preaching** (sorry, but thanks for allowing :p)
Just to divert the comments away from semantics and word placement has anybody considered the lands/islands/countries where grain wasn’t even grown and therefore not even a thought when it came to diet?
I like the limited grain approach . . . . . just sayin’.
Just throwing this in the mix as well because I like meat.
D&C 89 seems clear enough: meat “should not be used, only in times of winter/cold/famine”.
So, going directly to LDS.com and looking up the chapter, here’s what you’ll see:
http://i27.tinypic.com/14lers.jpg
Note the comma after the phrase “should not be used”.
Compare that with a copy of the same section, out of an original 1835 Book of Commandments:
http://i28.tinypic.com/2u6mrut.gif
Note the absence of a comma after the phrase “should not be used”. It seems to have changed places, and now appears right after “it is pleasing unto me”. This changes the sentence structure, and changes the meaning of the sentence.
The original text reads ‘They should not be used only in times of winter/cold/famine’. In other words, anyone telling you meat is only for winter/cold/famine isn’t telling you what the Lord thinks.
Compare to D&C 49:18-19 “And whoso forbiddeth to abstain from meats, that man should not eat the same, is not ordained of God; For, behold, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and that which cometh of the earth, is ordained for the use of man for food and for raiment, and that he might have in abundance.”
See, back in Joseph Smith’s day, there was indeed a sort of ‘religious diet fad’ of the day, advocating limiting or eliminating meats from our diet. D&C 49 explicitly counters this idea. The original Book of Commandments Word of Wisdom section explicitly counters this idea. Somewhere, as we fallible humans added verse structure and tried to publish new editions, a comma crept in, and made it harder to understand.
This line of reasoning sort of springs from me here. I haven’t heard anyone else mention this comma – certainly I’ve not heard any church leader mention it. So take my post for what it’s worth – the opinion of some random Loudmouth Mormon. If anyone has information to the contrary, I’m certainly willing to change my tune.
I’ve also pondered the comma. The footnote reference only adds to the confusion… D&C 49:18 “and whoso forbiddeth to abstain from meats,” It doesn’t say whoso “forbiddeth to eat meats” which is the way it’s usually interpreted, but rather quite the opposite.
We can nit pick every line, phrase, comma, and footnote to death. I think the bottom line is that each body is unique. I have a friend who can’t eat apples because she’s allergic to salicylates. Apples are great for most people…. except people like her. The same is true for probably every plant, grain and animal out there. I think it will be important for each of us, temporally as well as spiritually, to draw close to the Lord and get direct revelation on what our own body needs, and encourage others to do the same. There are some “general standards” I think we can all agree on. Food should be wholesome and pure- free from toxic chemical additives. Water should also be clean and pure. We should not knowingly take into our bodies harmful substances. We do the best we can, and then we bless our food with grateful hearts to cover the rest.
I’ve always been intrigued by the “winter, cold, or famine” phrase as well. At first glance, the first two seem redundant, but they aren’t. In a famine you have nothing growing, and animals are starving to death as well. It makes sense to eat meat then. If you are excessively cold, eating meat will warm you up since it uses more energy to digest it, and a by product of energy use is heat. In winter, you once again have nothing else growing (if you live in a northern climate as I do), and animals are also scavenging for food. Another logical time to eat meat. In “Little House in the Big Woods” (I re-read with my grand-daughter recently) there was a comment that stood out in my mind this time. Spring had come, and Laura had seen a doe and fawn. She was concerned that when Pa went hunting that he wouldn’t shoot a fawn or doe. Pa reassured her that he would not kill a baby nor it’s pa nor ma. So there would be no more fresh meat until next fall/winter, he was done hunting animals for the season. So was that a more common knowledge/practice then? With supermarkets we are so out of touch with the rhythm of life and seasonal changes to our diets.
Joseph, my logic isn’t flawed. Your logic is.
For example, you say that:
Then you go on to say:
First you say that “everyone” and “anyone” indicate plurality, but then you say that we are to treat them as the singular indefinite pronouns that they are.
If indeed “proper english treats it the same as it does any other plural,” then in your examples, we would indeed write “everyone are good” or “anyone are good”.
Consider, for example, “He is good” and “They are good.” We use “is ” for the singular and “are” for the plural.
The fact that verse 14 uses “All grain is” instead of “All grain are” indicates that it is singular.
On your second point, I agree that “man” may appear to be part of the list, but on closer inspection, there is a list that excludes man as well. Notice the phrase “not only for man but for”. What follows is a list separate from (or in addition to) man, so I do not think you argument is applicable here.
You’re trying to use semantics to refute my comment, but it doesn’t work that way. My point is that grain is being used as a singular plural and is being treated like all other singular plurals (such as everyone and anything). For instance, when i tell people to avoid grain, i don’t say “Don’t eat grain [referencing all of them] because grain are bad” i say “grain is bad.” It’s a plural word and the main subject to which “these” in v 15 is referring.
Sorry, I disagree. It’s one whole list grammatically.
“You’re trying to use semantics to refute my comment”
No, I was using semantics to explain why your comment was confusing and made no sense.
“My point is that grain is being used as a singular plural”
I completely agree, as you can see throughout my comments on this page.
The “staff of life” is an English idiom. An idiom is “an expression that cannot be understood from the meanings of its separate words but that has a separate meaning of its own” (Merriam-Webster). Some well-meaning Latter-day Saints have attempted to use one of the words in this idiom to interpret the idiom as a whole, thus misunderstanding how an idiom functions in our language. They point out that a staff is a support, a type of crutch, something used only in time of weakness and necessity, and they conclude that grain as the “staff of life” is to be used only as a support, in times of need, and not as a staple food. But as the definition of the word idiom explains, you can’t understand the meaning of an idiom by focusing on the separate words in the idiom, because the idiom as a whole has its own meaning, apart from the separate words. Think of other idioms in our language; they are unintelligible by simply studying the meaning of the individual words:
open a can of worms
strings attached
go postal
pulling your leg
had a cow
It does little good to simply study the individual words; you have to understand the idiom as a whole by studying how it is used.
The idiom “staff of life” is the same. It cannot be understood by simply defining what the word “staff” means and then hypothesizing the meaning of the idiom. We understand the idiom by seeing how it has been used. Scholarly research clearly shows that the idiom “staff of life” has had a well-defined, consistent meaning throughout the long history of the English language. It clearly refers to a “staple food” (Oxford). The word staple means “having the chief place among the articles of . . . consumption” (Oxford). The Oxford English Dictionary illustrates this with examples beginning in 1638, but you can search the phrase “staff of life” on-line and find the same results (be sure to place quote marks around the phrase when you search for it).
When the Lord ordained grain to be the “staff of life,” he declared that grains should hold the chief place among the foods we consume every day. Some people are persuaded that soaking, sprouting or fermenting grains is better, and that may be fine, as long as the bulk of calories in the diet are still are coming from grains. Grains include grasses like wheat and rice, but corn and legumes (like beans, lentils and other pulses) can technically also be classified as grains. Other high-starch foods like roots/tubers (potatoes, cassava, yams and taro) are also staple foods in various parts of the world.
See also: Discovering the Word of Wisdom: Surprising Insights from a Whole Food, Plant-based Perspective (2013) (http://discoveringthewordofwisdom.com/buy-book/about-the-book/)
Grains tend to be vilified nowadays, but there is a reason God ordained grains as “the staff of life.” I’ve explored this issue in the following articles in Meridian Magazine:
“All Grain Is Good”
http://www.ldsmag.com/article/1/14615
“The Danger of Displacing Grain”
http://www.ldsmag.com/article/1/14646
“Wheat for Man”
http://www.ldsmag.com/article/1/14685
I also recommend this book: The Starch Solution: Eat the Foods You Love, Regain Your Health, and Lose the Weight for Good! by John McDougall
http://www.amazon.com/The-Starch-Solution-Regain-Health/dp/1623360277/
Staff of Life
“A staple or necessary food, especially bread. For example, Rice is the staff of life for a majority of the earth’s people. This expression, which uses staff in the sense of “a support,” was first recorded in 1638.”
For the Irish, in 18th and 19th centuries it was the potato.
I was wondering if anyone else finds it odd that rice was not mentioned in the word of wisdom. It is a staple grain that actually exceeds the use of wheat. Although not widely used in the United States in 1820, rice was a larger staple grain than wheat in the world. Was the revelation specific to the saints in the United States?
There are lots of grains unmentioned in D&C 89. To be fair, however, verse 14 does mention “all grain”.
Yes, I like to think “Wheat for man, rice for woman!” For westerners wheat has been the “staff of life.” I do think if this had been revealed to an Asian prophet it might have specified rice. But perhaps wheat does have some special properties. I speculate on this idea in this short post, “Why Wheat for Man?” [http://discoveringthewordofwisdom.com/about/the-word-of-wisdom/wow-faqs/why-wheat/]
One reason that Wheat is good is that it contains plant based minerals (around 45) that our bodies need for repair and maintenance. Dr Joel Walach proved 30 years ago that we need 60 plant based minerals to restore our bodies in a US Government mutimillion dollar study. How wheat is bad is the gluten that has been increased in our present wheat. Here is what I do to overcome that problem. Choose wheat that is old world ( no GMO) and use natural yeast not store bought. Store bought yeast does not take the time to digest the gluten like natural wild yeast does. Check out the site thebreadgeek to see how natural yeast brings wheat back as a healthy useful food source. Also spouting is a great way to use wheat. She has natural yeast at a reasonable price ( donation) that she will send to you or you can make natural yeast using Amish Friendship Bread starter.
Here is another thing to consider. Separate protein and carbs when you eat. Dr Hays diet from the 1930s. We use different juices ( acids and alkaloids) to digest food. These two juices cancel each other out. Vegs are neutral. So Protein and Vegs or Carbs and vegs, Fruits are counted in Carbs (sugar). Protein 4 hours to digest, Carbs 2 hours. This is why you are hungry in a few hours after eating Chinese lol.
Wheat is the staff of life, according to this scripture. I’m pretty sure God was referring to ACTUAL wheat, not the modern crap that contains grass (that we can’t digest). Einkorn is the most ancient wheat and has the fewest chromosomes. Noone is allergic to this wheat OR its gluten. It is also the basis for all the other ‘wheat’ varieties.
“Einkorn has 14 chromosomes , whereas modern wheat has 42 chromosomes which changes the gluten structure. Einkorn is considered more nutritious than modern wheat, based on the higher level of protein, essential fatty acids, phosphorous, potassium, pyridoxine, and beta-carotene.” (from einkorn.com)
I have heard that there were many people at the time the WoW was given who were hunters and ate pretty much nothing but meat. (Eating meat sparingly compared to them would certainly not be vegetarianism.) I have tried researching the food patterns of that time and have not found anything to confirm this. Does anyone know?