A Fresh Look at the Word of Wisdom—a conversation with Ali Essig and Bill Turnbull

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Aug 10, 2025

Alli Essig, a nutritionist and founder of PlantWhys, shares her profound journey into the Word of Wisdom after her husband's stroke, advocating for a holistic view of health. Bill Turnbull, co-founder of Faith Matters, highlights the need to evolve our understanding of this historical health code. They discuss how rigid interpretations have shaped church culture and explore the transformative benefits of a plant-based diet. The conversation also touches on cultural perceptions of hot drinks and the importance of rest in modern productivity.

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ADVICE

Make Plants The Plate's Foundation

Ali Essig advises forming meals around plants and using meat sparingly, reversing the typical American plate.
She reports clinical gains when her husband prioritized plant foods.

INSIGHT

Watch For Profit-Driven Harm

Bill Turnbull warns industries can prioritize profit over people's health, echoing verse 4's warning.
He points to tobacco, alcohol, processed food, and pharma as modern examples.

INSIGHT

How The Word Became A Checklist

Bill Turnbull traces the 100-year shift from invitational revelation to temple-requirement rules.
Institutional choices in the early 1900s solidified prohibitions on tobacco, alcohol, coffee, and tea.

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Nearly 200 years ago, Joseph Smith gave us a holistic code of health called the Word of Wisdom. But over the next century, we largely reduced that revelation to a list of don’ts—one that came to define us as a church and serve as a kind of status marker within the Church. As we look ahead to the next hundred years, we’re asking: is it time to rethink how we see this revelation?

Today, we face an overwhelming number of choices about what we put into our bodies—some deeply harmful, others profoundly nourishing—and we now understand far more about health, nutrition, and the body itself. Are there principles in section 89 that transcend the context in which it was given? What did we miss when we transformed it from a principle with promise to a set list of prohibitions that defined worthiness? Is our current approach a stumbling block as we take the gospel to people in other cultures? And what about that curious issue of hot drinks?

That’s the conversation we’re having today with Bill Turnbull, one of the founders of Faith Matters, and Ali Essig, a nutritionist and founder of PlantWhys. Ali’s journey with the Word of Wisdom began after her husband suffered a stroke at age 37—a moment that launched her into a deep study of Section 89 and a reimagining of what it really means to nourish the body.

We’ll also be studying this section in Come Follow Me in just a couple of weeks, and so we hope this conversation adds some depth and energy into your personal study and that you see not a list of rules, but a radical invitation into a path of wisdom and wholeness.

In an era in which technology and media seem determined to disconnect us from embodied experience and presence, maybe it’s time to take a fresh look at a 200 year old revelation that challenges us to do exactly the opposite.

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