Ecclesiastes 10:17, commentary and pictures

Blessed eating is eating at proper and set times, for in due season means at the appropriate time. Its purpose and measure is bodily strength rather than indulgence, excess, or drunkenness, so nourishment itself governs what is eaten, including health foods. The right quantity is enough to sustain and give strength, but not so much as to stupefy, harm the body, or cause drunkenness.

Strength is built up from food because the tissues constantly break down and the waste from every movement of every organ must be repaired from food. Each organ receives its share of nutrition, with brain, bones, muscles, and nerves each supplied with its portion. Food is transformed into blood, and the blood builds up the varied parts of the body, continually supplying life and strength to each nerve, muscle, and tissue.

Eating in due season for strength and not for drunkenness is a lesson of temperance and regularity for every youth whose possibilities point to a destiny higher than that of crowned kings. Observing this temperance has wonderful power to promote the sweetness and serenity of disposition that smooths the pathway of life. It gives the self-control needed to meet the stern duties and realities of life, for this is wisdom whose ways are pleasantness and whose paths are peace.