11.14.2010 FOOD

ct, nov. 2010, p.23 a feast fit for a king by leslie leyland fields..'it's potluck sunday. i stand near the end of a long line wondering what will be left by the time i get to the front, grateful that i'm not particularly hungry. i have some idea of what the offerings will be: hot dogs wrapped in white buns..buckets of drive-thru fried chicken anchoring the table. neon orange cheese doodles will inevitably sho up, somewhere near the salads. the greenest item will be several bowls of lime jell-o with fruit suspended in it, which, i've decided, is to signal it's inobvious function as food.

we pray..over this smorgasbord of chemical wizardry and marketing genios, ask that it would strengthen our bodies (something i believe will take divine intervention), and invite jesus to be among us as we eat..what would Jesus put on His plate?..would He care that the chicken in the bucket came from cages where the birds were likely fed their own recycled excrement? ..would He stand, as i do, filled with guilt, dread and judgment before this culinary minefield?

..a recent crop of food books concerning what many are calling 'the global food crisis', one that has given rise to a new food movement in the u.s. and abroad..it has taken on the momentum of a religious revival..
..most authors trace our crisis in food..to ther events following world war Ii, when the federal government led a shift from family-operated agrarian economies to corporatized agribusinesses. in agrib..efficiency and mass production have, more often than not, overruled fair treatment of farmers, humane treatment of animals and proper care of the land..

reports on 'how the world is used' for food production make up an apocalyptic catalog that leaves no ground untainted. the ills of factory farming begin with the dousing of soil and crops with pesticides, chemical fertilizers and herbicides, producing foods with measurable levels of contaminants. the runoff from these..is the primary source of water pollution in the u.s. more than all other industrial sources combined. (note: WHENEVER ANY ONE OF US EATS EVEN AN OUNCE OF PROCESSED FOODS WE ARE SUPPORTING THE DESTRUCTION OF OUR ENVIRONMENT.) factory hog farms alone, with their massive 'manure lagoons', emit 70k tons of hydrogen sulfide gas anually. herbicides such as roundup are used in such quantities that 'superweeds' resistant to pesticides have sprung up, creating the need for yet more toxic formulas.
meanwhile, monsanto, dupont and other multinational agricultural corporations are creating a growing number of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), altering the genetic code of one species by inserting genes from another, even animal to plant. (the grocery manufacturers of america extimates that 75% of food on u.s. grocery shelves contains at least one GMO.) there are signigicant concerns over the long-term safety of such foods, the deep decrease in agricultural biodiversity their use has created and the monopolizing of patents and seed by corporations. the net resut; the nation's food supply is under the dominion of a few conglomerates.

..jane goodall's 'harvest fro hope: a guide to mindful eating', include what you can do type lists. while there are notable distinctions between writers, there is general agreement that 'mindful eating' (a term borrowed from buddhist practice) entails..
-educating ourselves on where food comes from (a chemist's lab? a hemisphere away? a local farm?
-eating locally as much as possible to support local farmers and to reduce the natural resources it takes to put food on our plate
-growing and preparing our own food
-eating lower on the food chain, meaning eating less meat and more plants
-supporting fair-trade practices that protect rather than exploit workers
-supporting organic farms and free-range ranches
-advocating for a return to agricultural biodiversity (note: why not do more than advocate but start finding good plants of diverse nature and plant them wherever you can, around where you live and anywhere else they will be accepted, appreciated and nourished.)

..my critique begins, paradoxically, with the movement's greatest strengths; its call to an integrated, holistic perspective and the personal moral accountability that integration brings. at the movement's core is the belief that the world is a single, intricate, and interdependent ecosystem. thus our personal acts have global consequences, for good and for ill, ones we don't often see but that are nonetheless real...
our disconnection from our food and its sources is..fed by our culture's emphasis on personal happiness (note: read TASTE AND CONVENIENCE).

nowhere are religion and morality more on display..than in current discussions on the killing fields of factory farms..many seek to at least reduce if not outright end animal suffering and/or usage because of its ..immorality...also believe that continuing to raise animals for meat is morally unjustifiable because of its monopoly on resources that could feed the world's hungry..one writes, 'so what kind of crime is animal agriculture, which uses 756 million tons of grain and corn per year, much more than enough to adequately feed the 1.4 billion humans who are living in dire poverty?' (in francis schaeffer's pollution and the death of man he points out that SELF-RESTRAINT is the key principle involved in environmental care. since i have begun to wonder if this is not a key in all morality)

the current food movement largely comes across as a religious type of campaign..its central tenet is that by changing the way we eat, we can save ourselves - and the world...a popular hindi website, food for life global..explains that only 'pure vegetarianism' is allowed because what we eat directly affects 'our spiritual consciousness' and our 'subsequent behaviors'...some are showing signs of orthorexia, an eating disorder defined as 'an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating'.
part of the devolution from lofty global goals to a crippling personal obsession may simply be our sinful bent toward the self. but i think there is more going on. in a recent essay in policy review, 'is food the new sex?' may eberstadt ponders a cultural reversal in values: we have become mindful and puritanical about food and mindless and licentious about sex. perhaps in a world where moral values are subjective and in constant flux, we feel an even greater need for boundaries and stability, at least in some areas of our lives.

..food may, while seemingly deepening in value may be being reduced to the function it performs..the old tewtament dietary laws were given later to God's people not as a means of earning righteousness, but to remind them that they were set apart from all other nations and that every activity, even the daily labor of feeding themselves, was to be done...realizing the providence/provision of God involved..every bite of food, given by God Himself, is to make God known to man, to make man's life communion with God..

our attempts to restore the earth and return to edenic communion with it ultimately cannot succed. just as we cannot perfect our bodies and spirits thru eating pure foods, so we cannot perfect the earth, no matter how heroic our efforts..creation has been groaning, waiting eagerly for the revealing of the glory of the children of God romans tells us, since adam and eve made their choice...and will continue groaning to the end of time...

the current food movement is just another of the continual fountain, coming from a human heart bent on being independent from God, of idols that can never meet the ultimate need - a transformed heart.. each eating and drinking we engage in can be done to the glory of God. some day every pot in heaven will be holy to the Lord and marked as such (zechariah 14.20-1)