{"id":39,"date":"2010-07-02T22:34:31","date_gmt":"2010-07-03T04:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hotpepper.ca\/lds\/wordofwisdom\/?p=39"},"modified":"2011-06-27T20:40:04","modified_gmt":"2011-06-28T02:40:04","slug":"wheat-as-the-staff-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hotpepper.ca\/lds\/wordofwisdom\/2010\/07\/wheat-as-the-staff-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Wheat as the staff of life"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 A staff is something to assist you when you need extra help not something to rely completely on.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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 \u201cstaff \u201d.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

What do you think?\u00a0 I know it is difficult to have an objective opinion about something that you have grown up understanding a certain way.\u00a0 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).\u00a0 I hear people mention stories through history about people eating mostly grains but in many instances that is because they had nothing else.<\/p>\n

Rebecca<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hi Rebecca,<\/p>\n

Thanks for the email.<\/p>\n

I looked up \u201cstaff\u201d in the 1828 Webster Dictionary. It had this as its\u00a0first definition:<\/p>\n

A stick carried in the hand for support or defense by a person\u00a0walking; hence, a support; that which props or upholds. Bread is the\u00a0proverbially called the staff of life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, if a staff is a support, then perhaps the phrase \u201cstaff of life\u201d\u00a0means \u201csupport of life\u201d. Interestingly enough, in Joseph Smith\u2019s time,\u00a0it appears the staff of life was most frequently used specifically for\u00a0bread. Yet what the Lord says is that all grain supports life (see D&C 89:14).<\/p>\n

All that being said, I think the Word of Wisdom makes it very clear\u00a0that we are to have a balanced diet full of a variety of healthy\u00a0foods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0 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 … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Wheat as the staff of life”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grain"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Bc4t-D","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hotpepper.ca\/lds\/wordofwisdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hotpepper.ca\/lds\/wordofwisdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hotpepper.ca\/lds\/wordofwisdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hotpepper.ca\/lds\/wordofwisdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hotpepper.ca\/lds\/wordofwisdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.hotpepper.ca\/lds\/wordofwisdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42,"href":"http:\/\/www.hotpepper.ca\/lds\/wordofwisdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions\/42"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hotpepper.ca\/lds\/wordofwisdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hotpepper.ca\/lds\/wordofwisdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hotpepper.ca\/lds\/wordofwisdom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}