I was entertained somewhat by Dr Leaf’s latest Facebook post this evening. In it, there was a pairing of water and a pot-plant, and sugary drinks and a child, with the words, “If you give this (water) to your plants? Why give this (sugary beverages) to your children.”

Without looking too closely, one might think that Dr Leaf was making a good point. Water is good, and sugar is bad, right?

With just a little more thinking, one can see that the metaphor is pretty weak. Plants aren’t children. Following the same logic of the metaphor, I should feed my children manure instead of food, since it’s clearly good enough for the pot-plant.

What is worrying about this post is Dr Leaf’s linking of diet with our Christian morals. Dr Leaf tries to link the concept of drinking water to the worship of God, because your body is a temple, and “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31). By logical extrapolation, Dr Leaf is therefore saying that drinking Coke is dishonouring God and the temple he gave for you. If you drink Coke, then you’re a bad Christian.

Though that’s really only Dr Leaf’s interpretation, because the scripture that she quotes isn’t talking about the composition of the food you eat but about it’s relationship to the sacrifice to idols. As far as I was aware, Coke isn’t used in any worship of idols before it’s bottled and distributed. So really, I don’t think whether you drink coke or other sodas will have any bearing on your relationship with God.

Perhaps Dr Leaf would have better spent her time outlining the studies that back up her overly dramatic statement “that sugary drinks like soda and processed orange juice can cause neurochemical havoc in your brain” rather than just hoping people will take her at her word.

Lets be real … no one in their right mind is encouraging children to have more sugar, mainly because of the excess calories, and not the hysterical notion of “neurochemical havoc”. Dr Leaf’s trying to get it right, but her poor metaphor, and the linking of ones diet to ones honouring of God probably went a step too far.

It would be nice if Dr Leaf could reexamine her knowledge of nutritional science and the scriptures that she uses so that she doesn’t weaken her credibility with such posts in the future.