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Question: Is gluttony a sin and does gluttony affect sexual temptation?

Answer: Yes, gluttony is a sin and on top of this, it is also one of the seven deadly sins. Furthermore, the sin of gluttony indeed increases sexual desire or temptations. The sin of gluttony is special in this regard, which makes it really necessary to resist this temptation.

Many people are completely unaware of the fact that gluttony actually provokes the flesh into sexual sin. They think that they can eat however much they want of good tasting food or candy and snacks all the time without this actually effecting their spiritual welfare. The fact of the matter, however, is that gluttony is a mortal sin just like lust is. And not only that, but gluttony or superfluity in food actually provokes the flesh into sexual temptations and sin.

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, Doctor of the Church (1696-1787): “It is also necessary to abstain from superfluity of food. St. Jerome asserts that satiety of the stomach provokes incontinence. And St. Bonaventure says: "Impurity is nourished by eating to excess." But on the other hand, fasting, as the holy Church teaches, represses vice and produces virtue: "O God, who by corporal fasting dost suppress vice, dost elevate the mind, and dost confer virtues and rewards." St. Thomas has written that when the devil is conquered by those whom he tempts to gluttony, he ceases to tempt them to impurity.” (The Dignities and Duties of the Priest, Instruction III)

Pope St. Gregory the Great, Father and Doctor of the Church (540-604): “As long as the vice of gluttony has a hold on a man, all that he has done valiantly is forfeited by him: and as long as the belly is unrestrained, all virtue comes to naught.” (Quoted in Summa Theologica, by St. Thomas Aquinas)

The Holy Saints, Popes and Doctors of the Church are all clear that it’s imperative for one’s salvation to not allow the search of pleasing one’s palate to gain control over one’s soul, and this means that one must fast sometimes in order to chasten one’s body and senses. As long as a person really considers how small and trifling this penance is compared to an eternal torment in Hell, they will not refuse to follow the Church’s words or prescribed days of fasting and abstinence in this respect.

Pope Innocent XI, Various Errors on Moral Matters #8, March 4, 1679: “Eating and drinking even to satiety for pleasure only, are not sinful, provided this does not stand in the way of health, since any natural appetite can licitly enjoy its own actions.” – Condemned statement by Pope Innocent XI.

St. Alphonsus Liguori wrote the following when explaining what gluttony is: “Pope Innocent XI Odescalchi has condemned the proposition which asserts that it is not a sin to eat or to drink from the sole motive of satisfying the palate. However, it is not a fault to feel pleasure in eating: for it is, generally speaking, impossible to eat without experiencing the delight which food naturally produces. But it is a defect to eat, like beasts, through the sole motive of sensual gratification, and without any reasonable object. Hence, the most delicious meats may be eaten without sin, if the motive be good and worthy of a rational creature; and, in taking the coarsest food through attachment to pleasure, there may be a fault.” (The True Spouse of Jesus Christ, The Mortification of the Appetite, "The complete ascetical works of St. Alphonsus" (1887), vol. 1, p. 241)

Pope St. Gregory the Great described five ways by which one can commit the sin of gluttony, and showed biblical examples for each of them:

1. Eating before the time of meals in order to satisfy the palate.

Biblical example: Jonathan eating a little honey, when his father Saul commanded no food to be taken before the evening (1 Samuel 14:29).

2. Seeking delicacies and better quality of food to gratify the “vile sense of taste.”

Biblical example: When Israelites escaping from Egypt complained, “Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers and the melons, and the leeks and the onions and the garlic,” God rained fowls for them to eat but punished them later (Numbers 11:4).

3. Seeking after sauces and seasonings for the enjoyment of the palate.

Biblical example: Two sons of Eli the high priest made the sacrificial meat to be cooked in one manner rather than another. They were met with death (1 Samuel 4:11).

4. Exceeding the necessary amount of food.

Biblical example: One of the sins of Sodom was “fullness of bread” (Ezekiel 16:49).

5. Taking food with too much eagerness, even when eating the proper amount, and even if the food is not luxurious.

Biblical example: Esau selling his birthright for ordinary food of bread and pottage of lentils. His punishment was that the “profane person. . . who, for a morsel of meat sold his birthright,” we learn that “he found no place for repentance, though he sought it carefully, with tears” (Genesis 25:30).

The fifth way is worse than all others, said St. Gregory, because it shows attachment to pleasure most clearly.

To recapitulate, St. Gregory the Great said that one may succumb to the sin of gluttony by: 1. Time; 2. Quality; 3. Stimulants; 4. Quantity; 5. Eagerness.

In his Summa Theologica (Part 2-2, Question 148, Article 4), St. Thomas Aquinas reiterated the list of five ways to commit gluttony:

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