Jonathan Edwards on the Use of Food for God’s Sake

I found this section in John Piper's book, Desiring God, very insightful and practical:

Sereno Dwight tells us that Jonathan Edwards “carefully observed the effects of the different sorts of food, and selected those which best suited his constitution, and rendered him most fit for mental labor.” Thus he abstained from every quantity and kind of food that made him sick or sleepy. Edwards had set his pattern when he was twenty-one years old when he wrote in his diary, “By a sparingness in diet, and eating as much as may be what is light and easy of digestion, I shall doubtless be able to think more clearly, and shall gain time; 1. By lengthening out my life; 2. Shall need less time for digestion, after meals; 3. Shall be able to study more closely, without injury to my health; 4. Shall need less time for sleep; 5. Shall more seldom be troubled with the head-ache.” Hence he was “resolved, to maintain the strictest temperance in eating and drinking.”