"To Gladden the Heart"

In my process of trying to examine the nature of my relationship with food my stunning wife reminded me of a phrase in the scriptures. Referencing food she mentioned 'to gladden the heart'. This morning I undertook a study of the phrase which I originally thought was in section 89 (word of wisdom) of the Doctrine and Covenants. It's actually in section 59. I would highly recommend reading the entire section to anyone who needs reminded of how the Lord sees our relationship with food. It really hit home with me in reminding/confirming many of the things I've been thinking about. Here is an excerpt from section 59:

18 Yea, all things which come of the earth, in the season thereof, are made for the ^abenefit and the ^buse of man, both to please the eye and to ^cgladden the heart;

 19 Yea, for ^afood and for raiment, for taste and for smell, to^bstrengthen the body and to enliven the soul.

 20 And it pleaseth God that he hath given all these things unto man; for unto this end were they made to be used, with judgment, not to ^aexcess, neither by extortion.

The idea of emotional eating has always in my eyes had a negative connotation. If I'm sad, depressed, or in some other sort of emotional distress then I have in the past (indeed for most of my past) tried to feel better by overeating bad foods. Specifically foods laden with heavy fat, salt, and sugar. I joked about the 'Chinese buffet induced dopamine coma' in my other post, but modern science tells us about the relationship to food and the pleasure centric brain chemical 'dopamine' that is released into our bodies after we eat.  This is a totally normal response to food, that is backed up in both scripture and science. How fun when they meet head on huh?

The problem apparently comes when we do not heed the Lords admonition to use these things with judgement and not to excess. 

There is an excellent article in Scientific American that is reviewing research of this very thing in rats. Here is a link to the article: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=addicted-to-fat-eating 

It's a quick read, only two pages but here are some interesting highlights:

1. There is a baseline or 'normal' amount of dopamine receptors in a healthy rat brain. 

2. They found that with excessive eating, the amount of dopamine receptors (or the ability to feel pleasure from the activity) decreased--causing the rats to need to eat more in order to feel the same amount of pleasure.  (if this sounds familiar, like a drug addict needing more and more drugs to get the same high, it is. They found a lot of similarities between the food addicted and drug addicted rats.)

3. With cocaine the number of dopamine receptors in the rats brains returned to baseline or normal after only 2 days. With food it took almost two weeks. 'Well that's because they had to eat during those two weeks right?' No, what they found is that (though probably not in all cases) after feeding the rats a high fat high sugar diet for 40 days and then depriving them of it, and only offering the 'bland lab approved rat chow', the rats would not eat for 2 weeks before they finally gave in and ate the rat chow!

4. After addicting the rats to high fat/sugar diets they conditioned them by turning on a light that would indicate that an electric shock was imminent. The rats could leave their eating to avoid the electric shock but chose instead to continue to eat through the shock!! --This one made me laugh at loud. Despite the fact that there are very real consequences to human overeating that are plainly manifested; being fat, out of shape, not having good energy, not feeling confident, self hatred, expensive, disease, early death, and on and on and on, we continue to eat on right through that electric shock! I think that when you feel a kinship to a rat in a food study it is time to let your spirit rise up and overcome the natural man. 

None of this, I think, is ground breaking especially to those of us who have any spiritual common sense. In section 59 the Lord tells us that these things (whole foods) are there to 'gladden the heart', 'strengthen the body', and 'enliven the soul'. Food as a source of heart gladdening, soul enlivening, and body strengthening is pleasing unto the Lord. He just gives us the caveat that they are there to be used 'with judgement, not to excess, neither by extortion'. (not sure how the extortion part relates, anyone?) 

This also explains to me why healthy foods began to taste so good to me shortly after I stopped eating too much high fat/high sugar foods. My receptors have begun to reset. What a blessing the Restored Gospel is. While the purpose of scientific research is different I think it incredibly ironic that science is so far behind the Gospel of Jesus Christ in understanding human nature.