Thanks to the new grain-free temporary lifestyle, I’ve been pushed into the world of alternative eating habits via blogs and Pinterest. A whole world awaits that has decided sandwiches are the enemy, and it has become my BFF every day at about 3:00 when I decide that dinner must indeed be served again. Which reminds me of one of my favorite pins:
But as I do my reading, I’ve been struck by how much evilness seems to lie in the idea of food. A quick list of everything that is awful:
1. Sugar, especially white, non-organic.
2. Non-foods, anything partially hydrogenated or that I can’t pronounce
3. Red Dye of any lot number
4. BPA, MSG or other three-lettered abbreviations
5. Margarine (as ants and flies won’t even eat it) (see –>)
But then, in reading between the lines of these Real Food blogs, insinuated other offenders pop up, depending on who you read:
1. Meat – we’re over-meated in this country, our resources could go further to feed people with vegetables as opposed to animals with food. We simply don’t need to eat the amount of meat that we consume.
2. Bread and grains – the DNA of our version of bread has been altered so much that it’s not digestible by many; it evidences itself in the form of allergies and other bodily (and sometimes mental) manifestations.
3. Milk and dairy – apparently we’re the only mammal to consume another mammal’s milk. We’re not exactly nursing at an animal’s teet, but the concept is kind of odd. Per some reading (either Pollen or a book I read by a vegetarian last year) we evolved to be able to digest cows milk sometime in Ireland when the cows were a plenty, but it’s not an original feature of the human digestive system.
So if you go through your grocery list and axe off everything that contains these things, you’re left with:
1. Fruit, though also a source of sugar and carbs, so eat between meals.
2. Vegetables
3. Nuts, but in moderation, and only those with the perfect Omega 3-to-6 ratio.
4. Water. But not from a plastic bottle.
All of this is difficult to swallow. It’s incredible to think that all of the things God created as good have suddenly been morphed to evilness. But I guess I know why.
Eve and that damned apple.
I suppose it should come to no surprise that the first sin of the world involved trying to figure out what is good for eating. It started with fruit from the wrong tree and continued on to the meat from the wrong alters, grains harvested on the wrong day and now ingredients added by the wrong source (laboratories rather than God).
But in looking at the story, the fruit wasn’t evil. It’s how she used it. She had a relationship and an expectation of the fruit that goes beyond what the fruit was created for. Thanks to genetics, Eve was nice enough to pass this trait down through the Eons – through both nature and nurture, I’m sure – and we humans continue to wrestle with how food plays into our lives. What to eat, how much of it, how often. What can keep us healthy, what can cause cancer. When to practice moderation, when to practice celebration. What we can control, what we can consume, what we can create.
So what I really want to know is… how to live within the tension. How to eat well and healthy. How to not be consumed by thinking about something I consume. How to be free of a 2000 year old (or older, depending on your theology) curse. Because I believe there is a way.
And then Jesus took the bread, gave thanks for it… and gave it to his disciples. This is my body, given for you. Take, eat and do so in remembrance of me.