Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Diet Rules!

I'm reading Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Diet and he's already got a new book out: In Defense of Food- An Eater's Manifesto. From a review in the LA Times:

"The third section offers rules (rather, gentle suggestions) for how to "escape the Western diet." Many are familiar, if you've spent any time paying attention to what you eat -- for example, don't eat packaged foods with lots of chemical ingredients. Some involve behavioral changes: Eat mostly plants, avoid supermarkets whenever possible, buy a freezer, "don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food," pay more to eat less and don't buy food where you buy gas. Some are more about how we eat than what we eat -- for example, do all your eating at a table, don't eat alone, eat slowly."

Other than the radical idea of avoiding supermarkets you've got to admit that there is an intuitive obviousness to such rules as "don't eat anything your great-grandmother (or, if you are my age, your grandmother) wouldn't recognize as food," and "don't buy food where you buy gas." Someday, anthropologists of the future may study our eating habits and decide that 21st century Americans had Fruit Loops for brains!

Theologically, I find the last three rules significant, though I haven't been living up to them: "do all your eating at a table, don't eat alone, eat slowly." For some reason, most Christians don't think that God has anything to say to us about the basic stuff that makes up most of our lives: what and how to eat, what kinds of recreation to pursue/avoid, what our home environments should look like and be designed toward, etc.

Or, if they think He does, they don't want to hear it?
Hebrews 11:6 might be an appropriate reference here.

1 comment:

Scotte Hodel said...

At least you didn't say not to buy food where you get gas. That would eliminate my addiction to salsa sauce!