the worship of food

Here is an excellent post about natural living becoming an idol. I can't agree more with Lindsay on this and appreciate her sharing her struggles and convictions. When we put our natural living preferences over people we've mis-prioritized life.

I get asked from time to time about things like: do you eat out? do you go to other people's houses for dinner and eat their non-organic food? and questions like these.

Do we eat out? Yes and No. No because we try not to eat out in general to avoid eating unhealthy and to not spend the money on eating out. Yes, we do eat out every once in awhile as a treat and usually to fellowship with others. We currently eat out about once a month.....when we are invited to join another family. We try to make good choices when we are eating out. But other times it's about celebrating or enjoying our time together and we don't worry about what we are eating so much.

Do we go to other people's homes for dinner? Yes! And we eat what we are served and we enjoy every minute of it! Food is not more important than fellowship and we enjoy the food we are served! People will always be more important than what we eat, what our pet peeves are, our differences in how we live our lives, etc. Now having said that, I've found that some people are hesitant to have us over....they worry about whether or not we'll like their food. I LOVE other people's food no matter how healthy, how fancy or how simple it is. I'm not focused on the food anyway, I'm focused on the fellowship with them. I think some people are intimidated to have us over because I love to cook and entertain and that just makes me sad. I love hanging out just as much as the next person and my mind is on social things not on inspecting your home decor, how clean your bathrooms are, or how fabulous your food is....although I will compliment your fabulous food! I'm just focused on the fact that you've offered hospitality to us and grateful for the time to fellowship and be involved in each other's lives. If I could change the fact that some are too intimidated to offer us hospitality I would but I don't really know how other than trying to be as gracious as I can be which I think I am. And man are we blessed by those that do have us over and minister to our family in that way!

One thing to think about concerning the two above issues is that when we do eat healthy most of the time (at home) then our bodies are more capable of handling those special times when we don't eat the most healthy items. A meal made of processed/microwaved foods isn't going to kill us especially if we are eating healthy most of the time. Our bodies will be healthy enough to process and detox the not so good stuff.

What foods do you enjoy splurging on that you don't normally eat as part of your healthy eating? This is another question I get. Shrimp. Shrimp would probably be the biggest one for my husband and I. We love shrimp but since it takes 2 months to digest in your gut (that tells you how hard it is to digest) and it's a bottom dweller (doesn't bring much that is healthy to you) we don't normally eat it. But we do enjoy eating it as a treat from time to time and hopefully since we eat healthy most of the time our bodies can digest it faster than 2 months. That's my hope anyway.

So, read Lindsay's post and be encouraged that people/relationships are more important than food and being a purest. Don't be tempted to make natural eating and living an idol.