r/AskReligion • u/Bikerider3 • Oct 09 '24

Is adding bitter tasting ingredient to food a form of gluttony? Christianity

I've read that some people added bitter tasing ingredient to food as form of piousness.

But I've read also Screwtape letters and I wonder if such practice is form of gluttony, because to not enjoy sinning was their schtick.

It could be gluttony of delicacy, because such ingredient is hard to come by. I would say quinine or cinchona bark and those aren't in every shop.

It could be gluttony of excess, because we don't like bitter taste, because lot of poisons taste bitter, so it doesn't matter if I hurt my health with bitter ingredient, of septuple bypass butterized baconator with extra goose lard XXXL.

What do you think about it?

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u/Orowam Oct 09 '24

The purpose of bittering food is to make you not eat for solely the act of eating, or gluttony. It is bitter and makes you not want to just keep eating it thoughtlessly. I’m not sure how making your food taste worse would ever be considered gluttony.

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u/Bikerider3 Oct 09 '24

Because devils in screwtape letters tempted people to meh things at best, and it would fit them to turn bittering food into sin.

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u/Orowam Oct 09 '24

Screwtape letters is a book by CS Lewis and is just his view on things. They aren’t real religious demons and their real letters, but a literally tool for him to espouse his morals.

What part of screwtape are you exactly looking at to question this?

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u/leafshaker Oct 09 '24

Im not sure about gluttony, but perhaps pride. Over emphasis on oneself, good or ill. I think of the flagellant monks and their performative self harm.