A Few Small Food Reflections after 26 days or Eating Local

Sharing

Over the month Erica and I have formed a strong bond over food. It is strong enough to make me cut my one egg in half every morning and drive the other half of it to her. It is strong enough to make me hesitate to eat something without knowing where she is, if she has eaten, and if there is a way I can share. There have also been weird expressions of this sentiment like when Erica accidentally ate a couple noodles while we were cooking a non local meal for our home church. She wanted so badly for me to have a few noodles too. I actually don’t know why but it seemed like it had something to do with being fair and something to do with not being alone in ‘transgression’. Whatever the reason the truth of the feeling of sharing and being together as it relates to food is clear and strong. It hit me yesterday that this is a really important and good revelation. Not that Erica and I need to eat together (though I am sure we will a lot) but that we would always have that impulse to share our food. There should never be, regardless of scarcity or abundance, possessiveness about food. It is to be shared. I am starting to wonder if it is even really that appropriate to eat alone at all. I’m not looking to pass new laws or anything like that but think it good to hold convictions with such inclinations or leanings. We should second guess such moments.

Feasting

Yesterday was Easter and even though it fell within our 30 days we decided that since it was a celebration of Jesus and we would be at my families house that we should ‘breakfast’ for the sake of fully being present and with people in celebrating and fellowship. We ‘feasted’ with the family and it dawned on me that feasting is good and right but only within the context of a lifestyle of fasting. I actually ate quite a bit and felt fulfilled but contrasting what I took in with my life before, I ate very little in comparison. I had three or four chicken wings, a small piece of a roast, a quarter of a potato, about five baby carrots, and a small portion of apple crisp for desert. I ate very slowly and consciously and enjoyed every single moment of chewing. In contrast I used to swallow things whole. I think I thought eating was a race with others so I wasn’t cheated out of a fair or bigger portion. I was and technically am sick. This feast with my family after a season of going without was beautiful and healthy. I am still wrestling these thoughts of greed and possessiveness and the entire day was a battle within myself to control myself. I had some chips and salsa latter in the day as we watched some TV together and I had to be very thoughtful to hold it in my mouth and not immediately reach back into the bag. I was fully engaged in eating appropriately as though to honor God and I hope that in time my temptations will ease up and my habits will become healthier but it does seem right that eating be done consciously and reverently.

Dieting

You know dieting is an interesting phenomenon. It is a hallmark of a gluttonous society and is still in itself a gluttonous activity. It may be a resistance of food or certain foods but is often costly and self centered eating. If we were a society that properly respected each other and food and ate justly and appropriately we would always seems to be ‘on a diet’ but would never need to weigh in, stare at the mirror, or count our calories. I do think however, given our current state, that counting calories may be wholly appropriate for us to get a grip on our eating habits.

Purpose

What is the purpose of food? Food actually serves many purposes that I believe to be fundamental for life. Purposes that I believe God had in mind in creating the foundations.

Foods most clear and obvious purpose is sustenance. We eat to live and this is an important role of food. So if food is for sustenance and there exist people not getting enough food to live their lives in a healthy way, then one must consider the weight of the crime that is overeating. This leads us to another purpose of food.

Food is for the building of community and relationship. Food is to be shared. Many times you will hear a preacher set the bibles remarks about eating together in ‘context’ by informing you that to eat with someone in the first century was like saying that you wanted to enter into a lifelong relationship with that person. This is true and should also be true now as well. Shouldn’t we also connect our eating with the deepening of relationships and committing ourselves to our friends? What does it say about our current ‘context’ that a teacher or preacher would have to inform us of the importance food and the sharing of food played in the lives of Jesus and his followers. Jesus taught around the table, he became intimate around the table, and he even identified the great gesture of his existence by forever tying his incarnation and sacrificial death with the table itself. Our relationship (or communion) with God himself has been tied to the table, our relationships with each other (community) are formed and sustained around the table and our responsibility/relationship to those outside of our immediate community (commission) is directly impacted by what is on our table. In the discussion of relationships and food there is another relationship that exists that I would argue is a purpose unto itself.

The eating of food is our most intimate connection with the created world and its purpose is to draw us into a profound love and respect for the planet that we have been given dominion over. We have taken this dominion and turned it into an explotative relationship as we have also distance ourselves further and further from the actual source of food. This has only led to further and further alienation (and even conflict) with the natural world. God has given us this earth to care for and the production and eating of food is part of a symbiotic relationship between man and the planet in which we care for the earth and are sustained by respectfully consuming it. As I think about nature and how delicious much of its natural fruits are I can’t hlp but come to yet another purpose that I believe exists in the mind of God for our food.

That purpose is joy. Food is delicious and easily enjoyed. It is a pleasure that can shadow any sin or indulgence. Eating might possible be one of the most enjoyable things a person can do. This is a gift from God. As I went the month without salt or oil or spices or any of the other trapping that made my food so ‘enjoyable’ before I actually experience a loss of joy in eating. I became depressed and actually hit a point where I didn’t even care if I ate. Sustenance almost wasn’t motivating enough until you hit a point that enjoyment becomes irrelevant. (Which by the way is a state that a huge portion of the population of our planet live in) As Joy in eating was lost my psyche was deeply affected. I realized that enjoying food is actually a necessity for man. The problem however is what I have trained myself to find enjoyment in. The subtle flavors of a zucchini or a tomato were just not enough because my taste had become so conditioned to exciting flavors. I think it is important that I retrain my tastes to enjoy the subtle flavors of nature. My palette has been currently spoiled and perverted but I believe that a return to simple pleasure will restore my ability to find joy in the most natural of flavors. This can only help to deepen my relationship with this earth. As I dig my hands in the earth to sow seeds and pull fruits from the bounty of my yard I am experiencing a part of life that God intended for us to know him better.