11. Eat healthier

“And he made them a feast, and they did eat and drink.” Genesis 26:30

We hear “eat healthier” every where, but what does it mean? There are many different opinions, but my research has found some guidelines that basically agree with them all, even the umpteen different government food pyramids.

First we start with a little philosophy.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth...so God created man (this word means human unless the context specifically says otherwise. Only women get words devoted to only them.) in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.” Genesis 1:27


“All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.” John 1:3

“God is love.” John 4:8b


God made us and He loves us. He created this whole world for us to live in. He provided the perfect food to support us for all of eternity.

“And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat (food). And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.” Genesis 1:29

Everybody was originally a vegetarian, even the lions and vultures.

What happened? 

Adam and Eve disobeyed God. This brought death and disease into the world.

By the time of Noah, God told humans it was OK to eat meat. Many Creation scientists believe that some essential nutrient was leached from the soil during the flood and it is now only available through animal flesh. (Vitamin B12?)

God commanded Israel to eat red meat once per year, minimum (Passover feast). I am not saying we should begin torching sheep again, but I have learned that there are often health reasons behind the commands that God gave His people, though the main reason for the commands were spiritual.

• For example, Israel was to circumcise their baby boys. Israel today still performs this ritual with nearly 100% of their sons while other western nations are moving away from doing this. Israel is the only modern western nation without a dramatic increase in cervical cancer. 

Could God have chosen this as the sign of membership in His nation to protect His daughters? Circumcision also drastically reduces the rates of penial cancers, infections and unpleasant odors.

• God told Israel to wash after touching dead bodies. The doctors in the 1800's were "too advanced" to believe in such hocus-pocus. They would often perform an autopsy and then deliver a baby without even rinsing their hands. 

50-80% of women who gave birth in a hospital died of post-birth infection. (Most women refused to go to the hospital to birth at this time. Homebirth with a midwife lost very few mothers or babies. This is still true today as you are already immune to the germs in your own home while you are not immune to the ones in a hospital where sick people go.)

One doctor just rinsed his hands in plain water and cut his losses to less than 20%.

Today, of course, they all scrub with disinfectant and now losses are less than 1% (America now loses 7 women per 100,000 live births. This is still much higher than, say Greece, who only loses 1 woman per 100,000 births, but birth is basically safe in developed nations.) .

There are more examples. The point is, I think God had a reason for choosing to command Israel to eat sheep at least once per year (instead of, say, carrots), and it may have been for their own health as well as for the spiritual significance of death being required to pay for our sin.

What is the first thing to do to be healthy? 

Well, we should think in the longest terms for health. You can't get longer than eternity.

It is healthy to go to heaven.
It is not healthy to go to hell.

So how do you go to heaven? God's first command to Israel;

“Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one God, (not 1,253 like the pagan nations believed… One. You only have to please One.) And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. (With everything you've got. This leaves nothing for you to serve the un-satisfiable god “Self” with. It is all God's and He is so much easier to please.)

And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart; (If your heart is full of God's word, there is no room for fear, hatred, and worry) and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children (you don't really learn a thing to its full extent until you teach it to someone else, plus, this way your children are guaranteed to learn it) and shalt talk of them when thou sit in thine house, and when thou walk by the way, and when thou lie down, and when thou rise up. (Twenty-four hours a day. Well, OK, it doesn't say to teach them when you are asleep, but every waking minute. It isn't as easy to be a hypocrite with little eyes watching you all the time and listening to your every word)

And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates. (You will have them before your face at all times so you don't forget, and you must be literate to do this.)” Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Or as Jesus put it

“That whosoever believes (an action verb) in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” John 3:15

Giving your all to God is the healthiest thing you can do.

Studies have also shown that religious people have less depression and recover from serious illness faster and more completely.

So belief in God is not only good for your eternal health, but for you right-now-health too.

Now for physical food.

Food can be divided into five categories;

• water,
• fruits and veggies,
• breads and grains,
• dairy, and
• meat.

Fruit and veggies are foods that come from the orchard and garden on our farm. This would include herbs, spices, maple trees, sugar cane and honey, because that is the best place for your beehives.

We will put nuts and olives in this group for now. They are a little different nutritionally than most of what we call fruits and vegetables, but for ease of classifying we will lump them together. Also of course, apples, grapes, strawberries, carrots, tomatoes, spinach, pumpkin, etc. go here.

Grains and cereals come from the fields. This means wheat, corn, oats, rice, and oddly enough, potatoes (kind of “God's instant bread”).

Meats come from the pasture. There are cows, pigs, sheep, deer (they jumped the fence to get the good pasture grass), chickens (special meat breeds. Not the egg layers), turkeys, ducks, and fish (in the pond). Meat is any food you have to take an animals life in order to eat.

Dairy comes from the barn. Cows and laying chickens aren't taken too far away from the barn because it would be too inconvenient to collect the product everyday.

You do not kill an animal to eat dairy. A hen lays an egg everyday whether it has ever seen a rooster or not. It is just a natural part of her cycle. Eating an egg doesn’t mean you kill a baby chick.

Your assignment, if you should choose to accept it, is to mentally put each food you eat this week into one of these classes.

Ingredients on labels are listed in the order of amount. 

On a cake's label, flour is the first ingredient so cake is a bread/grain product. (Second biggest ingredient is sugar, so you could call it a secondary fruit.)

A candy bar usually has more sugar than anything else, so it is a fruit.

Be careful, though.

Manufacturers don't like to admit they put more sugar than anything else in their products. They will often use more than one kind of sugar in order to fool you. If you see a product with sugar, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, maltose, and fructose (in fact anything ending in -ose), you can be pretty sure there is more sugar than anything else in that product, even if none of those are the first ingredient.

For mixed foods, such as a burrito, you have to have more than one class. Let's see, a burrito would be bread because of the tortilla, meat because of the beef, dairy because of the cheese, and veggie/fruit because of the beans and salsa (tomatoes and peppers).

Lasagna would be a bread/meat/cheese/fruit also.

A hamburger is, well I guess it is the same if you have cheese on it.

A tuna sandwich is a bread/meat. If you use mayo and pickles on it you can add dairy and fruit/veggie.

Apple pie? Bread/fruit.

You get the idea.

This will help you to be aware of what you are actually eating.

Bon 'appetite.