The Word of Wisdom — Why Mormons Won't Drink Coffee But Will Drink Five Red Bulls Before Noon  

Why your Mormon coworker drinks Red Bull but won't touch coffee. Why Utah has dirty soda shops with cult followings among devout members. Why Mitt Romney's Diet Coke became a doctrinal crisis in 2012.

In 1833, Joseph Smith received a health revelation he explicitly said was "not by commandment or constraint" — while his own church stores sold coffee and tea, and while he smoked cigars and drank wine in Carthage Jail the night before his death. It became a temple worthiness requirement 70 years later under Heber J. Grant during Prohibition. The prohibition covers coffee and tea specifically, not caffeine — which is why Utah has one of the highest per-capita Diet Coke consumption rates in the country alongside one of the highest antidepressant prescription rates. BYU didn't sell caffeinated beverages until Mitt Romney was photographed with a Diet Coke in 2012 and confirmed he drank it. The dirty soda phenomenon — a large Diet Coke with cream, coconut syrup, and lime, more calories than a Big Mac, temple-worthy — is a Utah institution completely baffling to anyone outside the culture.

In this episode: the 1833 Word of Wisdom revelation — its original framing as advice, not commandment; Joseph Smith's personal use of alcohol, tobacco, and coffee; how Heber J. Grant turned it into a temple worthiness requirement during Prohibition; why the prohibition is on coffee and tea specifically rather than caffeine; Utah's Diet Coke culture and the BYU caffeinated beverage ban; Mitt Romney's 2012 Diet Coke photograph and the BYU policy change that followed; the dirty soda industry — what it is, why it exists, and what it reveals about LDS health culture; the meat provisions of the Word of Wisdom and why they receive approximately zero enforcement.

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