The third in my Lent 2026 series on the Seven Deadly Sins.

Of all the seven deadly sins Gluttony is at once the grossest and the(apparently) least serious. It’s so easy to both be disgusted by gluttony and amused by it.  On the one hand we think of the typical glutton as the obese pig with his snout in the trough at the Golden Arches or the Golden Corral. The glutton is the couch potato with the bag of Cheetos, the bowl of ice cream and his hand in the cookie jar.

We also find the glutton somewhat amusing and excusable. Somehow eating too much seems a forgivable offense. Eating a bit too much? It’s only human right? Most of us can afford to lose a few pounds. Did that extra piece of pie really do any harm?

Well no, maybe not that piece of pie, but that piece was one among many and over years and years and maybe that’s why you have a heart condition and diabetes and trouble catching your breath and your joints are aching and your digestive system is all clogged up. So did that piece of pie do any harm? No but all the other combined did. Not to mention the smoking, the booze, the recreational drugs and the lack of exercise. So in that respect it becomes pretty clear how glutton is a deadly sin. All that junk will kill you.

But, of course there is more to it than the simply overindulgence in junk food. The sin of gluttony includes all kinds of substance abuse: alcohol, drugs, tobacco and food. In Screwtape Letters  C.S.Lewis points out that gluttony also includes any kind of food abuse. Being too persnickety about food is another kind of food idolatry:

“Thank you for breakfast, but I couldn’t possibly eat commercial white bread. Do you have any whole wheat? Thank you. Only a tiny bit of butter please. Spread very thinly.  Cream in my coffee? I couldn’t. Are the coffee beans from an organic source?  I try to make sure I only use coffee from FairTrade co operatives. I’ll say no to the banana if you don’t mind. It’s softer than I am used to, and I notice that it does not have a FairTrade sticker on it. I hope you will not take offense.”

You get the idea. Both the grotesque glutton and the fussbudget are making food their idol, and that is the root cause of the sin and the real reason why it is deadly. It is deadly not just from the physical health point of view, but also from the spiritual perspective.

The glutton is looking for a quick comfort hit. Not satisfied with his life, he reverts to a baby appetite–feeding for comfort and for him all food is comfort food. The fussbudget falls into the other side of gluttony–obsessing over the lack of food or taking pride in their ethical choices. In both cases food becomes the solution to a problem, the glutton uses food to try to feed the hunger within–a hunger that is a hunger for more than mere physical food.

The true hunger is the hunger for God, for life, for all that is truly beautiful, good and true, and that is not going to be satisfied by a bowl of Ruffles with Ranch dip.

In Dante’s Inferno the gluttons are plunged into a sludge of sewage and pelted with freezing rain while Cerberus, the three headed hound of hell gnaws on them. The symbolism is apt: sewage- the result of their disgusting habit, freezing rain – the opposite of the comfort they sought and being devoured as they devoured.

But looking on the positive side, what is the virtue that counters gluttony? Temperance. Self discipline. Temperance is that virtue that values all things according to their worth. Food and drink are good gifts of God–made better through hospitality and sharing. We learn to value them most when we use them for their innate and natural goodness: blessing, creativity, nourishment and conviviality. Gorging ourselves to pursue a false satiety only make us sick and may finally kill both our bodies and our souls.