Diet Coke

I have ideas for at least three posts... and it's bedtime.

So I'll stick with just one: the better answer to why I don't drink Diet Coke.

I choose not to drink Coke (Diet or not) because
(1) I don't drink soda often anyway, and I don't think I will like it.
(2) I am probably not missing much by avoiding caffeine, but I do know that if I never have caffeine, I am guaranteed that its presence or absence in my life will never be a factor in whether I have a good day.
(3) I want to obey the counsel of the prophet (and potentially miss out on something tasty) so that I can lay claim on the greater blessings promised by our Heavenly Father for obedience to this commandment.

I believe God loves us so much He has given us a prophet on the earth today, just like He called Moses to be the prophet for the children of Israel. The prophet received a revelation regarding our health, called the Word of Wisdom (that you can read here, if you like). The Word of Wisdom was revealed to the prophet in 1833, which I'm pretty sure was before anyone had invented Coke as a soft drink (and a few years before it was marketed in the United States - check this out). But it teaches some wonderful principles about eating healthy foods and avoiding things that were not designed to be ingested or that might be addictive. It also teaches a principle of obedience - if we choose to obey the laws of God and His prophets, we will receive great blessings, like health, wisdom, knowledge, and endurance. The Word of Wisdom is a commandment by which we are to live our lives from the food/drink perspective. We get to exercise our agency to decide how (and whether) we will apply the principles taught within it into our own lives, and we get the added bonus of counsel provided by prophets who live in our current generation! Some prophets have spoken specifically about caffeinated drinks (like President Hinckley during an interview on 60 Minutes), and others haven't. Our responsibility is to learn the commandment, determine how to live the principles in our own lives based on the commandments given, and make choices accordingly.

For the record, I do like to use root beer to marinate pork, and do not object one bit to using Diet Coke and mentoes to create carbonated geysers (something I have never tried but have wanted to for a long time...).  :-)