What Does God Think About Taking Vitamins, Immune System Enhancers, Diet Aids, and So On?

Good rule of thumb: Don’t be dogmatic about any issue on which the Bible is silent.

The Bible never talks about taking vitamins, immune system supplements, diet aids, sleeping pills, laxatives, brain sharpeners, protein bars, or anything similar.  So there is simply no straight Bible answer to this question.  This also means that this is not a matter of great importance to God.

So do whatever you feel comfortable with.

I personally don’t take anything other than a popular breakfast powder mixed with milk (twice as much as they recommend and using 2% milk instead of the recommended skim milk, which just tastes like milk-flavored water to me).  It does contain some vitamins, but I drink it for the taste.  Otherwise, I could take a third of a vitamin pill or something.  I see no sin involved in eating or drinking something enhanced.  Milk is fortified with Vitamin D, table salt is fortified with iodide, and some orange juice is fortified with calcium.  Where you do draw the line?  There is no line.  Eat and drink what works for you.  If what you’re eating and drinking isn’t working for you, you can ask the Lord to help you find something else that does work for you.

I’m not big on taking any pills for anything; I prefer to believe God.  That’s my choice, but I don’t try to force it on anyone else.  Some people are very happy Christians while it seems like they carry half of a pharmacy around with them.

I know a couple people who have lost a LOT of weight using a particular diet aid coupled with a strict diet with no breads, sugars, starches or dairy products.  On the other hand, I have shed a lot of weight by eating fewer calories than I expend without any radical diet change.  Part of this involved swimming a mile in my pool every day, which burned a lot of calories in short order, as well as long walks in the mountains on steep roads near my house.  I would never want to do the diet aid approach, but the other couple people did not swim for miles in a pool or go for steep walks for hours to lose weight.  Everyone is different and has what works for him, which may not be what would work for someone else.  I would rather exercise a lot more without being too drastic about cutting back food, while other people have great success just starving themselves without changing their exercise habits.  I like walking in particular because I do a LOT of praying while walking, which accomplishes two good things at once.  (It helps that I live somewhere where I can pray without people noticing due to the sparse population.)

Sometimes losing weight will eliminate the need for specific pills that end up being unnecessary if you’re no longer too heavy.

But any lifestyle that works, with or without special pills, will probably have to involve a good measure of self-control.  Without self-control in manifestation, you will naturally eat unhealthily or excessively and develop other bad habits like staying up all night playing video games or binge-watching seasons of crime shows all day.  The good news is that you HAVE self-control because it’s a fruit of the Spirit.  The King James Version refers to it as temperance in Galatians 5:22-23.  You can use the self-control that God gives you rather than trying to control your flesh with flesh.  2 Peter 1:6 tells us to add temperance (same Greek word) to knowledge.  You CAN do that.  Galatians 5:16 tells us that if we walk in the Spirit, we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.  Romans 8:13 reveals that through the Spirit (not our own will power) we mortify the deeds of the body.  And did you realize that 2 Timothy 1:7, where it refers to having the spirit of sound mind, is actually talking about self-control or moderation, not having a smoothly functioning physical brain?  (Healing for brains and all other body parts are covered by other Scriptures, of course.)

Also, some people eat food for comfort.  But you have three Comforters inside you – God, who comforts the downcast (2 Corinthians 7:6), Jesus who is a Comforter, who said that He would send another Comforter – the Holy Spirit (John 14:16, John 14:26, John 15:26, John 16:7).  When you learn to get your comfort from the Lord instead of food, you will not be tempted to eat nice-tasting but unhealthy food in excess just to feel good.

I’ve met people who load up on supplements that say right on the package that they are “not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”  My reasoning is that something isn’t any good if it doesn’t diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, but these people are convinced that the major drug companies just don’t want people to use cheap alternatives to their expensive prescription drugs so they lobbied the government to force those warnings onto “naturopathic” alternatives.  I’m not an expert on that subject who can weigh in on how true that is, but personally, I don’t want either expensive prescription drugs or cheap alternative naturopathic drugs – I don’t want any drugs, and that has served me well for decades.  But I won’t tell you that you have to copy me on a matter where the Bible is silent.

The Bible certainly isn’t silent about God’s will for ALL to be IN HEALTH (3 John 2), and that was true long before any special immune supplements showed up.  Jesus “healed them all” without making anyone buy the latest miracle pills being sold by multi-level marketers.  So it is still possible today to walk in divine health without all sorts of pills.  But if you feel you need something, it’s not a sin to take it.