Patristics

“Some men, in truth live that they may eat, as the irrational creatures, 'whose life is their belly, and nothing else.' But the Instructor enjoins us to eat that we may live. For neither is food our business, nor is pleasure our aim; but both are on account of our life here, which the Word is training up to immortality. Wherefore also there is discrimination to be employed in a reference to food. And it is to be simple, truly plain, suiting precisely simple and artless children – as ministering to life, not to luxury.” Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, 2:1, ANF 2:237