Food For Thought

Psalm 104:14 says that God made “the herb for the service (meaning ‘labor’) of man: that he

may bring forth food out of the earth.” In the New Testament, Jesus taught his disciples to pray

for their “daily” bread. God intended for man to have to continually work for his food. Even

before the ground was cursed, Adam was put in the Garden of Eden “to dress it and to keep it.”

The word “dress” in Genesis 2:15 is only translated as “dress” two other times, but as “serve”

over 200 times in Scripture. Man, as the caretaker of the earth, was to render service to the

garden in order to “keep” or preserve the quality of it. Not until the last century, has man relied

predominantly on technology to serve himself, enabling him to greatly minimize the labor

involved in producing food and get it faster, bigger and cheaper. From planting to harvesting to

preserving and distributing, some of his efforts have backfired resulting in poor quality and

sometimes toxic food.

Today, many processed food items made with refined products are also laced with toxic metals

and chemicals used in the processing and preserving of the food. There are over 14,000 man-

made chemicals used in the food industry.283 These additives are used to extend shelf-life (or

shelf-death depending on how you look at it), enhance taste and retain the color of the food.

Additives, preservatives and food dyes have been proven to be a cause of migraine headaches,

attention deficit disorder and other behavioral problems. Artificial sweeteners and flavors such

as aspartame and MSG (a cheaper substitute for salt) have a poisonous effect on the body and

have been linked with brain tumors and other cancers, multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue and

other diseases.284 Unfortunately, there are many denatured, highly refined processed foods that

are still labeled as kosher. Even if a food has a certified kosher label, though it may be biblically

clean to eat, it doesn’t mean it is automatically healthy, since at the time the bible was written,

many things that are in our food supply did not even exist.

The connection between diet and health is clear. The scientific community estimates that 79% of

all disease is the result of environment, lifestyle and diet while only 30% is from genetic

predispositions.285 Food can help sustain us or drain us, depending on how we eat. As the

quality of food declines, so does peoples’ health. If our body’s warning signals are ignored for

too long, the body’s self-cleansing mechanisms can get over loaded and sickness can manifest

itself.