Why Our Food Matters to God

It's Tuesday afternoon, which means I come home from work to a kitchen counter filled with bags of veggies and leafy greens. I dig through the produce: bok choy again. I've eaten more bok choy in the past three weeks than I have in the past three decades, but I suppose that's sort of the point: When you buy into a CSA farm, you take what the land gives you.

Eighth Day Farm is our local CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture, in Holland, Michigan. Simply put, CSA is a model of farming in which community members buy a share of a farm's produce before the season begins. This gives the farmer—in our case, Jeff Roessing—a guaranteed source of income, and gives CSA members a regular supply of fresh, local food.

So tonight it's stir-fried bok choy, again, with kohlrabi, garlic scapes, onions, and you-pick peas. My family is eating our greens (fresh, organic, and about as local as they come) because I see it as a deeply theological act. What my family eats matters to me because, like all aspects of this earthly life, food matters to God.

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Chris

If food is a "Gift from God" why does it come filled with poisons?
- Evermyrtle
  
  What poisons are you referring to? Fats in certain foods, if you eat the sensible amounts nourishes you, if you become a glutton it will damage you and the same with all of the foods that GOD gives.
- http://www.answersingenesis.org/ keyboardshark
  
  The poisons, like artificial colors, preservatives, trans fats, etc have been added by man, not God. Food in its natural, unadulterated form truly is a gift from God. When man starts messing around with what God provided and comes up with wacky frankenfoods like GMO corn and soybeans, that is where the trouble starts.
aceituna

Where do most of the poisons come from? Answer–man-made additives!
What God gives is good, man corrupts. Man misuses many of the gifts given to us by God. Bad consequences follow. It is starting to come out that many of the foods so called experts have blamed for today's health problems are not really the cause. The problems are more likely caused by man made substitutes. Take butter for example. It's fat content has been blamed for many problems and the use of margerine is extolled. Now we hear whispers that butter is much safer than margerine. Personally I figgure that part of the decline started when shortening was introduced to replace butter and lard. I would much rather trust my life with God made products than man made substitutes. Wonder how many more products you could add to this list — eggs? what else?
- Evermyrtle
  
  Margarine is poison in stick of artificial butter, and you are correct and it is so sad that margarine is not the only poisonous man made excuse for food.
mallen11

Acts 10:9-16
On the next day, as they were on their way and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. 10 But he became hungry and was desiring to eat; but while they were making preparations, he fell into a trance; 11 and he *saw the sky opened up, and an object like a great sheet coming down, lowered by four corners to the ground, 12 and there were in it all kinds of four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the air. 13 A voice came to him, “Get up, Peter, kill and eat!” 14 But Peter said, “By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything unholy and unclean.” 15 Again a voice came to him a second time, “ What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.” 16 This happened three times, and immediately the object was taken up into the sky.
Always pray and thank God for the food we eat whether at home or anywhere else. I do the believe the chemicals put in our foods do more damage than they are to do good. We try to eat as much home cooked meals from "scratch" as possible and find that it is less expensive as well.
Mary Wood

Genetically modified foods are the antithesis of food.They do not provide nutrition for the body.