Living Consciously: food (part 2)

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink. . . Is not life more important than food?”
Matthew 6:25

Everyone can picture a mom telling little Johnny to finish all of his vegetables because there are starving children in Africa. And when we’re little we might actually believe that finishing our lima beans will help those poor, hungry African children. In reality though, we can’t feed kids in Africa, or somewhere else in the world, with our uneaten peas. When we grow up we all understand that the message is more about being grateful that we have food at all and not being picky about food we don’t like. That’s an important message, but what if there’s something more too. What if Jesus told us exactly what to do with those extra uneaten cooked carrots?

In Luke 14, starting with verse 15, Jesus told a bunch of people at a Pharisees’ house a little story. In that story a person prepared a great banquet. When it was time to eat, the host sent out servants to invite people to the feast. They all turned down the offer. Three prominent people, those the Pharisees would have liked to invite to dinner, made excuses and said they couldn’t come. The host was upset, but not completely discouraged because the servants were next told to invite anyone and everyone to come to the banquet. They kept inviting people until the house was full.

Now, this parable almost certainly has more to do with the Kingdom of God than our eating practices, but I like to think it has something to say about both. With our extra food we can’t feed children in Africa, but we can feed people down the street. There’s no need to have food that spoils or gets thrown away. Some people won’t need the extra food, but there will always be people who’d appreciate it (college students, volunteers, the elderly, etc . . .). It just might take a little work to find them.

It’s awesome when people provide meals for families that are going through hard times and can’t provide meals for themselves very well. I’m proud to know that my university donates their leftover food to a community center that provides free meals for those that need it. It makes me smile when I see people bringing their excess zucchini to church, giving it away to anyone who would eat it. I’m delighted when the family across the street from my parents’ house share some food from their bounteous gardens.

So let’s be grateful for the food we have and share generously from our abundance. It’s an example of how generosity extends far beyond our use of money. It takes a little extra thought, but I think it’s a more faithful way to live.

This is an idea I had a few months ago, but I haven’t been bold enough to implement: don’t eat at fast food restaurants. This is a little more radical than “don’t go to fast food restaurants.” What if we were to go to fast food restaurants, but not eat at them? Is that crazy?

Here are the thoughts behind it: Generally speaking, fast food restaurants promote what Michael Pollan advocates against (see previous post). They do alright providing actual food to eat, but when it comes to eating mostly plants and not eating too much, they fail. The commercial meat industry, which I resist supporting, keeps fast food restaurants in business. Perhaps the opposite is true too. Together they assure us that we can and should have loads of meat in each sandwich, which is neither good for us nor good for the planet. So maybe eating at these restaurants is something we should question.

I spend around $6-8 every time I eat at a fast food restaurant. I don’t go often, usually just when I’m travelling, which actually has been often recently. What if I were to enter the restaurant like normal and just not get in line. This wouldn’t be a protest, like a sit-in or anything; I’d just fast for a meal. It wouldn’t kill me. I could have healthier, more faithful snacks in the car waiting for me. In addition to not eating, I could set aside $6-8 to donate somewhere that’ll feed people. There are plenty of organizations set up to feed those starving kids in Africa. Or you could make a more local choice, like a mission for the homeless or a food bank. I think Jesus would support that. By doing this I’d consciously not support something that’s less than faithful and support something that is faithful. That’s a win-win!

This concludes my current thoughts on living consciously in regards to food. I’m sure there are a lot of other great ideas out there. Do you know of any? Are there problems with the thoughts and ideas I’ve suggested? Maybe something I said has undesirable, unfaithful consequences that I’ve overlooked. I’m far from perfect.