more thoughts on faith

Check out this blogpost from cracktheplates.com - scroll to Oct. 29, "Vegan MoFo #29: Some thoughts on Faith." It relates well to my post from...3 months ago.

The Manna God Gave Us

The theme of today's mass at church today was bread. The Deacon who gave the sermon preached that the story of Jesus feeding the masses with five loaves of bread and two fish is really about God testing us.

I'd like to take this story (about God providing us with food to eat and using it as a "test") a step further. Especially after reading The Jungle Effect, it seems to me that those who eat the food provided by God (i.e., preparing meals so that they bear as much resemblance as possible to the crops which grow from the ground) are the healthiest and suffer from the least disease. In The Jungle Effect, Dr. Daphne Miller explains that epidemiological "hot spots" are areas where there is a high prevalence of a disease, and so naturally, the parts of the world where they still eat indigenous diets are "cold spots" and have very low rates of these diseases.

Here are some more biblical references to eating the food God gave us: Psalm 78:24 says, "He rained down manna for the people to eat, he gave them the grain of heaven." Also, Exodus 16: "⁴ Then the LORD said to Moses, "I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions."

It's shown that God provides food for us and expects us to gather only enough for that day. He does not want us to gather more than we need and save it (in modern day, this would equate to putting preservatives in it and in essence making less work for ourselves later on). God expects us to prepare our food daily when we can. When we don't do His will, the food becomes bad for us (in the rest of Exodus 16, copied below, you can see He puts maggots in the bread). When we become lazy - eating fast food, highly processed food with many preservatives - it leads to disease. Large farming operations that douse crops in fertilizers and pesticides and raise animals on CAFOS to increase yield are doing more harm than good, as this food is harmful to our body. Small farmers that don't use fertilizers or pesticides at all (or only use them minimally) are much more in keeping with what God wants.

God allows for us to save up sometimes - for the Sabbath, or perhaps also in the winter months. In this case whole, natural foods could be frozen or pickled for the winter months. These foods are sometimes available at farmers markets or CSAs during the winter. This is much different than buying highly processed foods from supermarkets and mega corporations, where you can normally only find products from the government's awful system of subsidizing commodities.

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Exodus 16

¹¹ The LORD said to Moses, ¹² "I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, 'At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God.' "

¹³ That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. ¹⁴ When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor. ¹⁵ When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was.
Moses said to them, "It is the bread the LORD has given you to eat. ¹⁶ This is what the LORD has commanded: 'Each one is to gather as much as he needs. Take an omer for each person you have in your tent.' "

¹⁷ The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. ¹⁸ And when they measured it by the omer, he who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little. Each one gathered as much as he needed.

¹⁹ Then Moses said to them, "No one is to keep any of it until morning."

²⁰ However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them.

²¹ Each morning everyone gathered as much as he needed, and when the sun grew hot, it melted away. ²² On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much—two omers for each person—and the leaders of the community came and reported this to Moses. ²³ He said to them, "This is what the LORD commanded: 'Tomorrow is to be a day of rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD. So bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left and keep it until morning.' "

²⁴ So they saved it until morning, as Moses commanded, and it did not stink or get maggots in it. ²⁵ "Eat it today," Moses said, "because today is a Sabbath to the LORD. You will not find any of it on the ground today. ²⁶ Six days you are to gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any."

²⁷ Nevertheless, some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather it, but they found none. ²⁸ Then the LORD said to Moses, "How long will you refuse to keep my commands and my instructions? ²⁹ Bear in mind that the LORD has given you the Sabbath; that is why on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Everyone is to stay where he is on the seventh day; no one is to go out." ³⁰ So the people rested on the seventh day.

³¹ The people of Israel called the bread manna. It was white like coriander seed and tasted like wafers made with honey. ³² Moses said, "This is what the LORD has commanded: 'Take an omer of manna and keep it for the generations to come, so they can see the bread I gave you to eat in the desert when I brought you out of Egypt.' "

³³ So Moses said to Aaron, "Take a jar and put an omer of manna in it. Then place it before the LORD to be kept for the generations to come."

³⁴ As the LORD commanded Moses, Aaron put the manna in front of the Testimony, that it might be kept. ³⁵ The Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a land that was settled; they ate manna until they reached the border of Canaan.

The Jungle Effect

Sorry I haven't been able to dedicate much time to this blog yet, but in the meantime, please read The Jungle Effect by Daphne Miller, MD. I first learned about this book when reading this article in Today's Dietitian.

Spices & herbs

Adding spices & herbs to your food can be beneficial for your health. It's a good alternative to using a lot of salt (or eating processed foods that have huge amounts of sodium), which leads to high blood pressure and heart disease. Here's some info on adding spices & herbs to your food: Flavor that Food!

Meat

Meat was one of the topics addressed at the Practicum last week, where Rashmi Sinha from NCI (who is mentioned in the article below) presented.

Daily Red Meat Raises Chances of Dying Early

Basically what I remember from last week is that the more red meat you eat, the higher the risk of cancer there was. Very well done meat was associated with a higher risk of colorectal adenomas than well done, which was riskier than rare/medium. This is because cooking the meat produces carcinogens such as heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons such as benzo[a]pyrene. In order of cancer risk: grill/BBQ gives the highest risk, followed by frying, other methods, baking, and finally broiling.

Red meat overall was associated with more adenomas than eating white meat.

Red meat also has saturated fat, which is associated with breast and colorectal cancers - and is associated with more cardiovascular disease and hypertension.

So ethical and environmental issues aside, for all intensive nutrition purposes, don't eat red meat. To quote Michael Pollan, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

Introduction

I am currently attending the National Cancer Institute's Nutrition & Cancer Prevention Research Practicum (March 16-20, 2009). They're presenting some really great material and I can't wait to share it with you. But basically, there are some excellent nutrients in food that can prevent cancer and a whole host of other diseases. And it's better to get the nutrients from FOOD, not supplements. Many nutrients have toxicity levels that are harmful to the body - more of a good thing isn't always better, sometimes more can be too much. And besides, when you consume the nutrients as part of the food that nature meant for them to be in, you can be sure they are working synergistically with other nutrients & compounds to produce an effect on the body you wouldn't get if you just consumed the nutrient alone. But there are many differences between which nutrients in foods are beneficial/detrimental for cancers - depending on the type of cancer.

Stay tuned!