Transforming Diet and Faith

Mash cooked beans, onions, garlic and spices with this soup mixer to make a dip.

Recent data concludes that eating large amounts of animal protein is harmful. Animal proteins are acidic and too much can force our bodies to alkalize the acid by leaching calcium from our bones. This is just as true for beef as it is for dairy. Eating lots of yogurt or drinking lots of milk gives the body a lot of protein and calcium but it is also acid-based and requires neutralization. Vegetables, beans and nuts can be a source of protein and calcium without the ill effects of saturated fat and acidic overload.

The diets we grew up with are based on old information. For example, eggs and bacon in the morning, a meat sandwich in the afternoon, and steak and potatoes in the evening can prove acidic and problematic, and as we grow older it can clog arteries with cholesterol and calcium to form a sticky substance known as plaque. Newer dietary information draws a strong correlation between nutrition and health (The China Study), and reveals that our daily intake of plant-based proteins should exceed animal proteins for longevity and health. A small amount of meat for flavoring a meal of vegetables, grains, and beans should be our goal.

This is a big change for us and requires a whole new way of cooking. It can be downright depressing to give up daily meat-based foods because our reference points on leafy greens, beans, and vegetables are so limited. However, our bodies were made for eating plants and our taste for leafy greens and other vegetables will quickly expand as we try new recipes. Many times we try to white-knuckle through a diet to lose a few pounds, counting points or calories until a meal is  more like a math problem. Changing to a plant-based diet is nothing like going on a diet and more like discovering a whole new world of food that is more delicious and with more variety. But best of all, you can eat as much of it as you want without gaining a lot of weight. We will wonder why it ever took us so long to change.

Religion can be just as bland and canned as the vegetables I ate as a girl. How can we meet an ever-present Savior? Like our meat-based diets, we must change our old practices. Christ did not come to guide us through a life without struggle as this world would have us believe. In fact, through struggle we find Him. If we can come to Christ daily asking for the strength we need to persevere through struggles, while we seek to live like Him and in service to others, His presence becomes palpable, and He opens our hearts to joy and gratitude over even small events.

And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Romans 5:3-5

Salt: The Good And The Bad

This vinegar is processed and contains 1050 milligrams of salt per teaspoon.

The recommended cap of 1,500 milligrams of salt a day for those with hypertension is left in the dust with processed foods. Hypertension (high blood pressure) leads to many health problems, but salt is one of the easiest foods to cut back because we quickly grow accustomed to the lower level. The trick to lowering our salt intake and keeping it low is to stop eating processed foods.

Salt contributes tremendous benefits to the processed food industry but is one of the most difficult ingredients for them to lower or eliminate. This is because the abundant effects of adding salt to foods are irreplaceable and salt is cheap. Salt enhances flavors, delays spoiling, and is largely used in the industry for masking bitter flavors. In fact, without salt, no one would buy processed foods because they don’t taste very good when salt is eliminated. Salt is a key ingredient of baked goods because it slows down the reaction of sugar and yeast, making the bread rise more slowly for better baking. Any processed meats will taste like cardboard and develop a rubbery unpleasant texture without a lot of salt. By far the most salt we eat is not from the salt shaker on our tables but from processed foods.

Jesus Christ said, “You are the salt of the earth.” Our Christian lives enhance the lives of those around us in our actions and words. We as Christians are of very little use by ourselves but are useful in many ways around others. Perhaps our words of hope in Christ or our gentle healing touch has “delayed the spoiling” of someone’s heart. Bitterness against the harsh realities of this world are “masked” by the promises of Christ for a new life and even a new world. Just as the processed food industry would end without salt, what would our world be like without Christ? Often we feed off of the effect of Christ in our world so much that we no longer see Him as we should. We forget the ways he changed the world and how great his mercy is to us that we are not the cruel heathens we once were.

Failure from trying to understand God can devastate us so that even our visual awareness is affected: our world looks drab and colorless, and the beauty around us is no longer pleasing. Many of our efforts can be directed at trying to “enhance” our lives to find beauty and pleasure. If we truly understand what Christ’s forgiveness means, we would not seek other things to take His place in our lives.  The kindness of other Christians helps us to understand that Christ Himself will help us to live as we should, and that He covers all our short-comings so that God only sees us as His children. When we live in the light of Christ, pleasure and beauty abound in and around us, but many of us will never forget the loneliness and the drabness of a life without Him.

Two thousand years ago the need for salt was nearly as great as a need for air or water. Salt was so useful that wages were sometimes paid in salt. A life in Christ is such an abundant life that it attracts all those who are seeking Him. To those who seek to know Christ, we are like salt to food and as important as air or water. When we finally find Him, our gratefulness pours out to others and we cannot help but to reach out to them.

Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.  Colossians 4:6

Nutritarian Public Enemy #1: Sugar

A school project showing the amount of sugar in beverages.
Knowledge is power at any age. Choose wisely.
(Facebook: Inspiration For Mind Body)

Sugar is poison to our bodies. A new study shows that high fructose, fructose, and sucrose are directly related to type 2 diabetes. Dr. Lustig’s video explains the reasons why we should avoid these sugars that are so toxic and why consumption of refined sugars can cause a host of health issues.

A recent New York Times article, “It’s the Sugar, Folks,” preps us for some very interesting upcoming activity concerning the government regulation of these sugars, an ingredient that is found in almost all processed foods at a quantity that is now known to be toxic. Processed foods use high doses of salt and sugar to cover the lack of taste in processed food, foods that we sell worldwide. In addition, a new study also from the NY Times, reveals that the Mediterranean Diet is very beneficial for those with heart disease.

As more reliable and true nutritional information falls into the hands of the public, we are faced with some very big decisions. Let’s have faith that we will work together to create nutritionally sound food supplies, especially for low and moderate income families. Right now cheap food is often processed food.  Good nutrition takes time, money, and will power when all around us we see tasty sodas, salty snacks, and sugar-laden desserts. We are at a turning point when demand for healthy food may well take precedence over our addictions to sugar and salt. Health-oriented markets like Whole Foods is a reflection of a more health conscious society.

Eating is often social. Nothing beats a good meal with good friends and family. The same is true of spirituality. We were made to worship with others. The Christian Church is the bride of Christ, that is, we who worship together are the Lord God’s most beloved and intimate relationship.  The meal that reflects the deep love that Christ has for his church is the bread and wine given to us the night Jesus was taken to be hung on a cross.

Creating a spirituality out of solitary prayer and study is like eating a meal of Twinkies. It tastes sweet but it will not get us through the day. We need each other, we need to love and be loved. We were not created to be alone, but to serve one another with holy reverence and respect in the arena of Christ’s holy church. So many times we get our feelings hurt or we feel ashamed of what we have done or not done, and we give up before we can realize the power of forgiveness and healing. We limit ourselves when we avoid committing to a church for whatever reason (and there are many reasons) when it would ultimately generate authentic Christian relationships for us, including a more authentic relationship with Christ. As Benedict J.  Goreschel in Spiritual Passages writes, Christ’s last discourse to His disciples makes clear that in a divine way He thought it better to love (His church) and lose than not to love at all.

Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy

— Ephesians 5:25

Discerning What is Nutritarian Food: Soy Products and the Dark Forces of Evil

Soy can lurk in unlikely places

The only dietetic advice my oncologist gave me was to stop eating soy. The thought that soy was bad for me never entered my mind until then. When I googled “Is soy bad for me,” I found a resounding “YES!” Soy is big business and touted as healthful but there are some very unhealthful aspects about soy.

Soy contains plant estrogens that can increase the level of estrogen in your body. This is bad news for women because some common types of breast cancer feed off of estrogen. Phytoestrogens in soy can also lower testosterone levels. In addition, soy is thought to interfere with thyroid functioning. Like most grains, soy contains lectins and phytates which also interfere with digestion. Fermenting soy can reduce the toxicity, but it is still wise to eat only small amounts of soy, preferably in the form of miso, tempeh, and nato. Really, all grains should be eaten in moderation.

Trying to discern what foods are nutritious is often a walk in the dark. I had gone through several health diets before I found Dr. Fuhrman’s. When I stumbled upon his wisdom, I knew he stood squarely in the light of truth for me. I don’t think I would have recognized the truth without experiencing the previous diets. These were, The Hallelujah Diet (raw food), The Whole Grain Diet (a very weird trip), and the Alkaline Diet. Except for the whole grain diet, I found Dr. Fuhrman’s Nutritarian diet to be somewhat supportive of the raw food and alkaline diets, but providing much more flexibility and a wider variety of nutrition.

Finding out that foods I thought were healthy to be not so healthy was devastating, overwhelming me with a lack of will power to quit eating or drinking them. I loved soymilk. I used to drink the sugary vanilla kind (of course!). I still have trouble saying no to soy milk at Starbucks. Temptation to eat or drink the wrong things even when I know they are bad for me, reveals to me a flawed nature, a bent towards unhealthy living.

Once, when I was sitting at a table with several people headed for jail time, one young man talked about how as an eight year old, he used to steal cigarettes from his mom’s purse and smoke them. This was exciting to him at that age and almost impossible for him to stop. He said he knew because of this that there was something seriously wrong with him. I’ve known a lot of kids in my life and I know this is not so very unusual.

Jesus said we need to be reborn and He died on the cross for our seriously wrong nature, so that his own spiritually healthy body could be reborn in us. Recognizing the bent towards wrong-doing our physical nature possesses is the first step to finding the truth. Paul said that he did not do as he wanted to do, but did what he hated, and that only Christ could free him from his wrong-doing. Later, Paul explains how being reborn spiritually can transform us so that we are free from the devastating pull of our physical natures, and we can begin to grow and mature into spiritual beings aligned with Christ.

Christ’s spiritual transformation leads me to seek out healthy ways of living, including my diet. I earnestly seek to find out what is healthy and often pray for discernment because big business and years of lies have obscured the truth from me. In fact, I believe that the dark forces of evil have led us into disease and early death because of our human nature’s greed for more at the expense of others, and our natural propensity towards gluttony. When I look soberly at myself, the truth is devastating, and I know, like the young man who spoke out, that there is something seriously wrong with me. Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. – Psalm 51

Nutritarian Eating and A More Abundant Life

Read can labels for sugar and salt (sodium) content.

Eating is not just about satisfying the stomach or pleasing the tongue. For the nutritarian, food is a means to an end and that end is health. Dr. Fuhrman will tell you that when you begin the nutritarian life, it will not please the tongue at first, but it will fill the stomach. He has a nifty diagram of a stomach full of greens compared with a stomach empty but for a small amount of oil (fat) at the bottom, an amount that is in equal caloric measure to the stomach full of greens. Yes, you will fill your stomach but your tongue will be shouting for fats, salt, and sugar.

But not for long. When I first cut down on salt, before I became a nutritarian, I tasted a donut only a few weeks into my salt ban, and I could not believe how salty it was. This is true, and other foods as well surprised me by their salt content. Foods I never related with salt had a salty taste to them that I had never tasted before. This will happen if you quit salt. Sugar I am certain is the same though this is a much more difficult taste to tame for me.

Taming the tongue of its driving demands for salt, sugar, and fats, brings us to a place where fruits and vegetables are so much more delicious. When the tongue is free from its bondage to addictive additives that are in processed foods, the tongue can  taste the subtle flavors in natural foods. Processed foods are infamous for adding salt which is a preservative and sugar for taste. So, in your striving to become a nutritarian, try to stay clear of processed foods, including bakeries, fast food restaurants, and the grocery store’s “middle” isles where cans and boxes of processed food are located.

Our religion is often the same as our addictive eating habits in wanting to satisfy our cravings for God by performing rote acts of faith as if these acts of faith are the ends in themselves. Acts of faith like prayer, church services, meditation, praise, singing and other creative pursuits (like writing 🙂 ) are not the ends we seek.  What we seek is to draw closer to the Lord and we use these acts of faith to pursue Him. We fall short when we fail to wait upon the Lord for his response to our acts of faith. Our God can communicate to us through scripture, nature, other people, even animals. He can come into our thoughts through meditation, prayer, exercise, song, and anytime we are open to Him, but we must believe that He exists. No one can please God without faith for whoever comes to God must have faith that God exists and rewards those who seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)

Our world is deceptive and some people do not seek or believe in the spiritual or metaphysical world, and yet the Bible clearly states that there is a spiritual world we cannot see. For those who believe in Christ, we are a new creation and we are reborn into that spiritual world. God brings all things into Himself, that is, He brings us into Him where He is in the spiritual world. He does this through the Holy Spirit who lives in us if we believe in Christ. He shows us glimpses of this spiritual world if we will just wait for the Lord’s response to our acts of faith. Do not give up hope and do not despair by performing acts of faith that seem to have no response from God. In this world and its “tangible only” doctrine of science that counts spirituality as foolishness, we often fall prey to doubt, but the truth is that we who are reborn into this spiritual world are like stars of light in the darkness.

So let’s have faith that he will answer and respond to us. For the Lord our God is pleased to reveal himself to us and he is eager to show us wonderful and marvelous things that we know nothing about. (Jeremiah 3:33) We do not put our faith in the tangible world. Instead, we reach into the light and power of Jesus Christ who is our savior, and through our acts of faith, we draw closer to him that we might know and believe in His great power to transform us and our world.

Merry Christmas: Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

It is amazing that there are so many sugary, yummy, chocolaty treats at every turn in the day. Before I had cancer, I would not have hesitated to take a taste of each and every one. I was always careful not to eat too much but I would gladly trade my lunch for a couple of brownies and cookies at Christmas time. I’m more careful now.

But why shouldn’t I still eat what I want for these few celebratory days? So I do; my choices are just a little different. I have dried fruit, a whole pound of General Tso’s Vegan chicken at Whole foods, and today I am busy making stuffed onions with spinach with my daughter who is making stuffed mushrooms. She is a vegetarian and so we bought some dal burgers which I have never tried but I think will be great. For my two meat-eaters I bought grass fed rib eye stakes and a couple of organic Cornish hens–might as well buy as healthy a meat as possible for the very special men in my life. I have fallen prey to some treats and I will have the chocolate hazelnut torte for Christmas day dessert (oh, well!) but I still feel good about how much I have improved from past years.

My new sweet treat: Stuffed Sweet Potatoes. Bake a sweet potato, cut it in half, scoup out most of the potato part, add a tablespoon of coconut oil and a tablespoon of coconut manna and mash all together. Put the mash back into the potato skin, sprinkle with garam masala, and bake until warm (350)

God made a choice too. He chose to come to us as a small, delicate, baby born in a barn full of lambs. No doubt some of those lambs would ended up as sacrificial lambs, just like our Jesus. My daughter told me she was blown away by the immense humility of an all-powerful god being born as a helpless infant. Not only that, but the helpless infant would give up his life, a final blood sacrifice, so that we could have hope in this world. How precious is the story of Christ! Who could imagine such a lovely and grace-filled event? Even now, I cannot fully grasp what He did, what He does every day, and what He will do when we all are reunited with Him. But one thing I know: He is with us. God Bless you this Christmas Day!

Nutritarian Breakfast: Good and Bad Habits

Breakfast

What we bring home from the grocery store is what we eat, and I often bring home Bare Naked Granola, Peanut Butter Puffins, and Triscuits. Even though these products are touted as being healthful in some circles, Dr. Furhman puts them squarely in the processed foods corner. I eat the processed granola for breakfast.

My daughter has a friend who eats steel-cut oatmeal  soaked overnight in milk, so I thought I would try it. I soak them with coconut milk kefir or regular kefir (one of the few dairy foods I can eat), and add raisins (or other fruit you like). In the morning, I add a half of banana. Like granola, it is very filling. I’m hoping I’ll get used to eating oatmeal and get out of the habit of eating processed granola.

God is concerned with the little things in life (Zachariah 4:10), the things we are in the habit of doing. He is not waiting for us to do some big thing to make us worth his divine love. Dietrich Bonehoffer, a Christian man who stood up against the Nazi regime, said that God is not concerned with success or failure, only with a willing acceptance of the judgement of God and that it is through the cross that God sanctifies pain, lowliness, failure, poverty, loneliness, and despair.

Being hung on a cross was the ultimate failure in the Roman Era. God took Christ on the cross and made it the ultimate success (Galatians 3:22) but it is also a judgement on us that we are sinful (Romans 3:23). My bad boys might be a box of Peanut Butter Puffins now, but there was a time when my bad boys were much more serious. Thankfully, just like breaking the habit of eating processed granola by replacing it with something good, many of those old sinful habits are gone (Romans 6:12 & 13). God is concerned about the small things because that is how we grow: either toward sin or away from sin. Nothing is too small for an eternal creature (Galatians 6:7-8).

Living for physical pleasure can lead us down a lot of dark alleys (Romans 7:15).  Just like my reaching for processed foods all these years and thinking they were good for me, we can be doing seemingly harmless things that one day add up to a real problem. Whether it is food or drink, money or love, we are vulnerable. God’s judgement on us is true (Romans 5:8-11) and that is why Christ not only made the sacrifice on the cross but he also gives us a helper, the Holy Spirit, to give us a fighting chance. Knowing we are often slaves to our bad habits, the Holy Spirit can help us pray for freedom from bad habits and lead us out of darkness and into truth (Galatians 5:16-26).

Richard Foster says it well: “Frankly the battle is won or lost precisely in the trifling areas of life…It is the small fidelities that are most helpful in training the heart toward God. These thousands upon thousands of little actions of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit slowly but surely change our heart.” (excerpt from the Spiritual Formation Bible).

Physical and Metaphysical

The new Adam is Jesus Christ whose bloodline is spiritual. Just as Adam the man had a bloodline that led to Abraham who was blessed to be called the father of Israel, so Jesus Christ calls his father God and his bloodline the church (1 Corinthians 15:22 & 23).

Christians talk about putting the old man to death so that new man can live forever (Ephesians 4:22). The new man is the spiritual life that is born in a person when that person believes in Christ as the Son of God . This is what “born again” means (John 3:10-17). The old man is the evil one who hungers to over indulge in sensual pleasure, the one that was born from his mother’s womb (Romans 6).

When the new spiritual man is born again within us, we undergo a transformation in which we begin to hunger for obedience to God (Romans 12:2). Understanding what God requires from us comes from within our conscious minds because our thoughts are turned to Him (Romans 2: 14 & 15; 10:8). This spiritual rebirth within us grows stronger as we feed it with the knowledge of God provided in the Bible (1 Corinthians 2:12-14), with loving kindness towards others (Matthew 5:16), and with prayer (Acts 2:42-47). It is this spiritual man who will rise again and live forever in a new, incorruptible body (1 Corinthians 15:52 & 2 Corinthians 5:1-5).

The New Testament is a mirror image of the Old Testament, only it is spiritual in nature while the Old Testament is physical. Jesus Christ is the sacrificial lamb that the Old Testament required for forgiveness of sins (1 Peter 1:18-20). That is why Christians “eat his body and drink his blood” symbolically with bread and wine (Luke 22:18-20). The New Testament describes 38 events in the life of Christ that fulfill the Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament. Even the important events of Christ’s death coincide with important feast days celebrated in the Old Testament.

Jesus Christ’s life and words, his loving acts of kindness even to death on the cross, and his promises for a future in heaven with him are so beautiful that Christians are unable to retain even a portion of understanding without meditation, prayer, and constant reading to remind us of the depth of his love (1 Corinthians 13:12). Though many people hear that the second coming of Christ will involve great suffering, the truth is that it will also provide a new world of such beauty and love that the entire earth groans in expectation of it. Christians cannot put into words the longing that is within us to see this new world with our Savior but the Spirit within us knows and it groans deeply for the Lord God to come (Romans 8:22-26).