Eating Like a Christian

I've decided to start posting some of my newsletter articles online via my almost abandoned blog.  Share this stuff electronically.  I hope you enjoy it, and feel free to share!  Peace!  Brad

We Are What We Eat;

Learning to Eat like a Christian

         Will last year in my parents’ garden. 

                  These are green bean vines.

            As I have mentioned before, my parents back in Etowah NC have an awesome garden in our backyard.  For a kid growing up it was an immense jungle of green and dirt.  Normal crops included green beans, squash, potatoes, sometimes tomatoes, carrots, and my favorite, okra.  As a kid though I had a serious problem; I HATED green beans (also known as string beans).  Yuck!  Gross!  Unfortunately that was the vegetable that required the most work.  Every summer giant old bed sheets would we spread across the living room floor.  A giant blue laundry basket full of green beans would be in one corner, the hard labor of my dad as he would pick bushels of the stuff.  Near the laundry basket of beans laid a large black canner pot.  The sight of that pot made me groan…work was to be done.  With the VCR cued to some Disney movie (usually the Little Mermaid, Cinderella, or that awful Parent Trap movie with Hayley Mills) my mom, sister, and I would sit Indian-style in the floor, a pile of green beans at our lap, and we would break the ends of the green beans, de-string them, throw them into the canning pot, and repeat...over and over, hours on end.  I wanted to quit and play, and my back would be sore from squatting and breaking, but we wouldn't stop until the pot was full.  Then mom and dad would get to work and begin canning the beans in the kitchen.  The whole house would smell of cooked green beans, even outside.  We usually canned 50-80 quarts a summer (depending on the rainfall), and every summer this cycle would repeat.  In the beginning mom and dad gave me a pass because I refused to eat them.  Over time I felt guilty not helping out so I pitched in, but I still hated them.

When I became a teenager the picky eater disappeared and I began to eat the foods I avoided.   This included green beans.  I learned they tasted pretty good, even delicious at times!  I also learned the difference between “home grown” and “store bought.”  Canned green bean from the store is a flavorless disappointment, but the canned green beans from Etowah are a delight.  I would take 4-5 quarts of green beans with me to college and eat them on special occasions.  Even now when mom and dad come down to visit there are wonderful mason jars of green beans in the trunk of their car for us!  Sure we could buy canned green beans from the store, but for us the choice is clear.  It’s homegrown or not at all.  The thought here is this; can we do more than just green beans?

            Lately my wife and I have been having some serious talks about our food for the past year or so.  Renee is the one who thinks healthy; looking at what we eat, how much, and from where it comes from on a health-based perspective.  I had begun thinking on my food intake from an ecological and ethical perspective.  We wanted to buy local, avoid processed food when possible, but there were costs and drawbacks to consider.  I think you would agree that anything from the ground or farm or local has superior flavor and is healthier compared to food that is heavily processed, preserved, and put on store shelves.  On the other hand, in our busy lives sometimes the price and convenience outweighs those bonuses, or so we think.  It was in the midst of this debate I went to Duke last winter for Study Leave.  While planning my schedule I saw a class that caught my interest; “God and Food,” by Dr. Norman Wirzba.  So I emailed the professor to ask permission to attend his class, and he said yes.

            So I cram into his classroom with other Divinity students.  Dr. Wirzba begins the class with a profound question; “What is food?  Is it fuel, or is it something more?”  Hmm…  He then countered with this statement, “Food is a gift of love from God.  We eat food, enjoy it, and remember that God loves us.”  Whoa!  The bowl of cereal in front of you, the hamburger in your hand, the green beans sitting the sealed mason jar, the meat and potatoes on your dinner plate, it’s not simply fuel, it’s evidence of God’s grace!  As such, our food and drink should be honored and respected as such.  It clicked for me.  While I had been trying to reconcile my food consumption on a health, ecological, and moral standpoint, I needed a Biblical standpoint too.  Isn’t it awesome that God’ Word usually has the answers we seek?  So what does God’s Word teach us regarding food?  The answers are spiritual and are rooted in the peoples who wrote it for our use.

1.      Genesis 9:3; “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.”  Food is a gift from God, created for our use and enjoyment.  It certainly functions as fuel, but it’s more than that.  It is sustaining, it is beautiful, and it is delicious.  Smells, flavors, textures, colors; food is a gift of need and pleasure!  When we eat super fast and quickly, do we honor the gift?  Or do we overindulge on the goodness and forget the source?  This leads into another spiritual reminder,

2.      Matthew 6:11; “Give us this day our daily bread.”  Look familiar?  Yep, it’s from the Lord’s Prayer, and is a reminder to say grace.  Why do we need to say grace anyway?  It is a reminder of from whom these blessings flow.  Acts of sacrifice in the temple involved food, and it always began with a prayer of thanks.

3.      Luke 4:2; “Where for forty days (Jesus) was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished.”  The fine art of fasting is often lost on us these days.  Sometimes we have that craving that we feel must be met at all costs!  I sometimes feel that craving too, usually for sweet drinks.  Trust me, that is my vice.  Watch me get excited when I see Mt. Dew on the table during Fellowship Time.  When we fast (whether for a little or a lot), we remember that it is through God we are sustained.  Through Him we are nourished.  He works through food, but not food alone.  Read verse 4, “But (Jesus) answered (the devil), ‘It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” 

4.      Ecclesiastes 3:1; “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”  The people of the Bible were very much attuned to the nature of seasons and change, like everyone else living in early historical times where agriculture was the primary job of…well almost everyone.  To raise crops, prepare for the harvest, and store them for the non-growing seasons, that was normal living and was generally sustainable.  People lived according to the seasons, the natural flow of life, and this included their food intake.  How have we responded?  More on that in a moment.

5.      Leviticus 23: 1-2, “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, These are the appointed feasts of the Lord that you shall proclaim as holy convocations; they are my appointed feasts.’”  Feasts were the times of worship, repentance, remembrance, and celebration.  They were to mark the occasions of remembrance of how awesome God is (ie, the Passover meal with the latter Exodus from Egypt (Exodus 12).  Burnt offerings of animals were offered at the temple and the people would share the bountiful meal together as families or communities.  Also this was a time to celebrate.  Remember the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11-32)?  How did the father welcome home his lost son?  By killing the fatted calf and hosting a Fellowship Dinner!  There is an important footnote to add here…this was about the only time you would eat meat in those days.  Meat was incredibly expensive, hard to produce, and saved for occasions of worship and celebrations (such as the wedding feast).  If you ate meat every day, you were likely a king.  What are we doing in regards to feast, or what do we eat in our feasts?  How often are we celebrating the feast, even unintentionally? 

            This brings us to the moral and spiritual dilemmas we are facing today.  Here’s the current reality (and it isn't pretty).

• Today we treat food as fuel.  Studies have shown that Americans are incredibly FAST eaters, that we want to eat quickly so we can get back to work, our conversation, our play, to get back on the road, or we eat on the road (drive-in-fast food anyone?).  Speed and convenience have a price too; on the quality of the food, its source, and its nutritional value.  Eating fast also allows us to ingest more food than our bodies naturally need (the stomach can expand A LOT), and that extra food is stored in our bodies as fat.  You know where that can lead…weight gain.
• We also want to eat whatever we want whenever we want.  Do you wish to eat a tomato in January?  No problem!  In January your supermarket tomato was probably grown in a warm climate (for us tomatoes in January usually come from Florida), cultured and engineered to not break when handled and to semi-ripen during long transports.  What is lost here is the delicious flavor from a homegrown sun-ripened tomato, plus you have to deal with the pesticides and complex fertilizers to help it grow into those perfect shapes.  The idea of eating seasonally is lost, especially when we want what we want RIGHT NOW!  Other produce has to go through similar steps to get non-seasonal food on our store shelves.      

Image from documentary Food.Inc, 2008

• What about meat?  (Oh no Brad, don’t you start on meat!  I need meat!)  Hey, I LOVE meat!   A juicy steak, a yummy hamburger, bacon, chicken nuggets, I love them too!  However there is a price to be had here too for the quantities of meat we consume.  Most of our meats (beef, pork, and poultry) come from extremely large farms where the animals are packed in like sardines. They are usually walking knee-high in feces and dead animals.  This proximity to waste is why many food recalls are needed; because of cross-contamination.  The cows are primary fed corn for their food, which is not part of their natural diet (corn-fed cattle produce more fat in their meats instead of lean meat from their pasture fed counterparts.  The taste difference is immeasurable).  Chickens on the other hand are served a really large amount of antibiotics (since their movements are restricted in tight areas they are at risk of disease), and are overfed in order to increase their breast size (Americans love white meat, thus it is produced for us in bulk).  These chickens are very top-heavy, have difficulty moving around, and often die before slaughter.  Can we eat this meat with a clear conscious?  Many of us do because in the last century we have been removed from the slaughter process.  We don’t know how that ground beef or chicken breasts got into the Styrofoam plates wrapped in plastic, and it’s easier not knowing. 
• We also are facing the reality of cost.  These processed foods and meats have become extremely cheap to make and sell.  Eating good vegetables and fruits can pinch your wallet when there’s the dollar menu at the fast food joint to consider.  The trade-off is that the processed fast-foods are high on bad calories and cost us in other ways.  You may believe that obesity is the result of lazy people playing videogames while eating chips.  There is some of that, but the larger determinant today for obesity in adults and children is if they live in poverty.  Why?  Because they can only afford the cheap processed foods high in salt, sugar, and fat.  There is a lack of menu choice here.  Of course, if we are constantly on the run, getting home late, and need “fuel” instead of “food,” we gravitate toward the cheap processed foods for the convenience factor. 
• Researchers are learning that our diet will impact more than our body shape, it is also impacts our mental capacities.  When we limit our diets to the sugars, salts, and fats, we are depriving ourselves of other needed nutrients our brain NEEDS to work right.  A good balanced diet allows the brain to receive the oxygen it needs to function.  An excess of one or another food can create imbalance and cause us problems further down the road (this is a lifetime/lifestyle thing.  One apple won’t save our life, or one French-fry ruin it.  It all adds up).  Unfortunately our brains work against us.  Biologically we are automatically programmed to seek out foods that have sugar, salt, and fat, which are rare in nature.  Now we have all three in abundance.  There is even credible research being done to examine how certain diets are negatively effecting the growth and brain development of toddlers and children. 

            We just can’t live like this anymore.  We have forgotten how much food is a love note from God to us.  We shouldn't abuse it, but we are, and we work hard to justify the reasons.  I can hear the complaints you are already raising (because I've said them too); “I lack the time, the money, the resources, I can’t grow and maintain a garden, etc.”  It’s nothing I haven’t told myself.  Well we keep saying that being a Christian is hard.  So is eating like a Christian, so take that in stride if you will.  I also don’t believe in simply giving you a doom and gloom scenario.  That would be rude.  Like I said, the Cunningham household has been working on this too, so I am going to share with you some of the moral and spiritual responses we have taken as a family in regards to how we treat our food.

Grace, photograph by Eric Enstrom, 1918.

1.         Say grace at every meal.  For a while we got kind of lazy on that (and that’s my fault.  I’m the pastor after all).  We were busy, working long hours, dealing with a needy toddler, experiencing growing hunger, and when the food would arrive we would thank the person who made it but not the Almighty who provides it.  Food is a love-note from God to us.  Today we thank Him, we remember, we appreciate it, and then we eat (and Will is learning this too).  Here’s the caveat, is the food in front of us also pleasing and acceptable before the Almighty?  Something to think about.

2.   We eat as a family with everyone at the table.  I hear from a lot of people who watch the reality show “Duck Dynasty” that the final scene is their favorite part of the show.  If you don’t watch it (and I only do on occasion), just know that this large redneck family gets into some shenanigans (it’s funny and stupid), but at the end of each episode this large family gathers around the table, the patriarch of the family says grace, and they eat together.  It’s simple and touching because it matters.  Part of being a Christian is to connect or reconnect with our loving God and the people around us.  Shouldn't our families also work together to reconnect after a long day?  Renee and I are pretty intentional in making this happen, because it matters.  We even “force” our picky son to join us for meals.  Sometimes we experience a miracle and Will tries something new.  Either way, we are sharing together the bounty God has given us.  Often we eat as solitary creatures  and that’s not what food is for.  It forces communion.  It is what Holy Communion is about!  I encourage you to maintain or rediscover this blessed gift.  Eating is something everyone in the world does, and it can be a shared, soul-nourishing experience.  Don’t miss out!

3.      Rediscover the seasons!  Summertime is the time of the tomato.  Fall is the time of the pumpkin!  Treats and delights from God in His time.  We often let our desire and instant-gratification to control our diet.  But if you stick the seasons, you encourage seasonal growth and not encourage the industrialized production and shipping of faraway fruits and vegetables out of their season.  Try being intentional about the seasons, and you might be surprised by the quality of what you eat!  Remember its God’s way of saying He loves you!

4.      Honor the idea of the feast, including the eating of meat.  Uh oh, you are thinking.  No, this is a cool thing.  Renee worked hard on me to let go on some of my meat consumption and I was pretty stubborn about it.  After attending lecture at Duke though I thought of meat in a new way.  Meat isn't an expectation now, it belongs in a feast.  Meat is a luxury to enjoy (not a deal breaker)!  Today we normally only purchase one meat a week to consume throughout the week.  We work hard to only purchase meat from our local Farmer’s Market.  This includes having some days where our supper is vegetarian.  You think this sounds horrid, but other day I put together homemade macaroni with fried zucchini for supper.  It was divine!  A love-note from God to my family.

5.   Simplify the food itself.  As a kid I remember trying to read and pronounce the names of all the ingredients on the side of a cereal box.  It was like a challenge!  Seriously though, do we want to consume an entire science lab on our plate?  I know some of it is to preserve the food for long transport, but some of it is to enhance flavor and color.  Do we want to eat that?  Or can we have it both ways?  In the Cunningham house we now work to make our meals from scratch.  Do we want pizza tonight?  Sure!  Renee pulls out the bread machine and makes the pizza dough from the raw ingredients, she or I will work to make the sauce using canned tomato sauce (pretty basic stuff) and add on own herbs and flavoring, we pull out the Farmer’s Market sausage we cooked the previous night, add cheese from Aldi that we shredded ourselves (God Bless the food processor) combine, and daa-da!  Delicious and nutritious!  Preservatives, extra flavorings, all brought down to reasonable limits. 

•  Note that there is a time and financial investment here.  This has come out of years of trial and error to find our system.  You can find yours too!

6.  Look to purchase your food locally.  We are all lucky because we live in Davie and/or Rowan County.  We are surrounded by farms and gardens, and many of our good Liberty folk keep up their own.  While Renee and I lack the grounds or time to maintain a garden, we've taken to honoring the farmers and growers in our midst.  Almost every Saturday we go to the local Salisbury Farmer’s Market, buy our local meat and produce there, and eat on it throughout the week.  We also shop at the grocery store (Aldi and sometimes Harris Teeter) for the rest with the goal of achieving some balance.  Now the products at the Farmer’s Market can be pricier, but the taste…WOW!  It’s like comparing my parents’ green beans to the yucky ones in the can!  We just have to become intentional about where we buy our food, and the payoff is taste and health!  Besides, you are buying USA products and supporting your local economy!  Everyone wins here!


7.  Know some helpful tools!  So perhaps you want to eat well and ethically but aren’t sure where to start.  Here are some resources;

• Check out the website “Local Harvest” (www.localharvest.org).  Local Harvest is a network site that helps people find local farmers that will sell food directly to you!  I typed in the church’s zip code and came up with 94 results!  Local food is available; this will help you figure out where to start looking.  Visiting and supporting your local farm is a great way to foster community and get nutritious food.
• Consider joining a Food Co-Op.  This is where local farms network together and share their meats, eggs, cheeses, and produce per-season and package them together for you to enjoy each week.  Renee and I regularly use our Salisbury food co-op, “Bread Riot” (www.breadriot.com).  They also do bulk meat-purchases from local farms that practice good sustainable agriculture.  Renee and I are about to enjoy a bulk-pork purchase!  Check it out!
• Use your smart phone.  If you are shopping in the supermarket and want your food to come from companies that practice good agriculture (and avoid those who do not), the smart phone is handy.  A recent app that is now available is called “Buycott” (www.buycott.com).  It’s a free app that uses your phone’s camera to scan the bar code of a product.  What you do is create an account, chose which “campaigns” you support, scan your food product (or even clothing or appliances) and it will tell you if the company who makes it supports your causes or works against them.  I use Buycott and set my account to check for companies who do not use Genetically Modified foods (or GMOs) and it has been enlightening.  If you have a smart phone, check it out (available on Apple and Android devices).

            When we decide to follow Christ, it’s more than just being nice, inviting people to church, and supporting charitable causes.  It is a call to holiness, to let God’s grace perfect us in this life (which is what the founder of the Methodist Revival John Wesley preached).  Often we forget the need for holiness in our lives.  For the Cunninghams that path to holiness has taken shape on our plates, and it has been a hard yet rewarding journey.  Today we sit together around the meal before us, purchased from sources we trust, prepared with great love, we bow our heads and say, “God is great!  God is good!  Let us thank Him for our food.  By his hands, we all are fed!  Give us Lord, our daily bread!”  Amen.

                If you have questions about this topic, would like some advice, hear from some of our trials and errors, I would be happy so share!  Peace!

Sources for this article;

• Lecture Class at Duke Divinity School by Dr. Norman Wirzba, Research Professor of Theology, Ecology, and Rural Life
• “Politics at the Plate; the Price of Tomatoes” by Barry Estabrook.  “Gourmet Magazine,” March 2009
• “Your Brain on Food,” by Dr. Gary Wenk.  “Psychology Today,” October 2010
• USDA Recalls: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Fsis_Recalls/Open_Federal_Cases/index.asp
• Food for Thought, cookbook and journal by Ben Starr (contestant on reality show MasterChef, Season 2).  2007
• “Naturally Slim,” a clinical wellness program based in Dallas, Texas.  It focuses on food portions, slower eating, and awareness of physical activity.  The Duke University Spirited Life Program Study offered this program to pastors who were part of the study, with positive results.  https://www.naturallyslim.com/index.html
• There is also a controversial documentary about modern food and agriculture practices called “Food, Inc.”  It was made in 2008 and while I think it’s overdramatic at times, it has good information and research included.  It is available to watch online (just “Google” it), take it with a grain of salt but it is decent.