Morsels to Ponder

I, for one, am tired of hearing about and reading the avalanche of information on “how to…” feel younger, live longer, sleep better, eat this…oops, no, don’t eat that anymore…eat this instead. Egad! It’s enough to boggle the mind you’re trying to protect from old age.

I want to live a healthy lifestyle and we can. My Honey and I are certainly not spring chickens any more but with all the hoopla I feel we are more like guinea pigs. First, for clarity sake, let me state that these are my opinions; I do not speak for my Honey. He and I have different points of view in many areas, this is one of them.

Let’s get real, People. We are in a sinking ship of national health to begin with because for generations we have gotten away from food as God created it. We transformed it into something almost unrecognizable. For example: the humble soy bean can now be found in virtually any shape you want to mimic of something you are willing to eat. Chicken nuggets….check! BBQ ribs….check! Corndog….check! The list is endless. It seems though there are many that will not eat meat (that God gave) they do want their soy beans to look like meat. Yes, God gave us soy beans, too, and they are good for us but the flesh driven mind that wants what it wants creates a market for…ta da…beans processed to look like meat. Am I missing something? Is processed beans really any better than other processed food?

Like many of you, I receive via email, internet, tv, etc…several newsletters on health issues. I was reading a report whose headline (and interest hook) said, “Add These to Your Sandwich to Stop Strokes”….of course, I could not wait to see what this might be. Onions, that’s it, onions. Go figure, a natural food that God created…hmm. No plastic bottle required, just put onions on your sandwich. Here’s the key…if you put onions on a white bread sandwich covered in mayo and made of processed lunch meat… do the onions really stand a chance? Ever wonder why store bought bread has to be ‘enriched’ and ‘fortified”? It’s because in our infinite wisdom we took out all the good stuff God gave us to make bread in the first place so it would last longer on the shelf. Clever, huh? This article on onions asked people to comment how they use them. One stunningly bright person wrote that they make a sandwich of buttered bread covered thickly with peanut butter and onions slices. I wonder if that was natural peanut butter or the kind with all the ‘stuff’ added to it to make it last longer, too.

Speaking of “natural”…there’s a highly over used word that grabs your attention in the endless quest for healthy living. All that is ‘natural’ is not good for your health just as all that glitters is not gold. Poison ivy and marijuana are both natural but neither leads to good health when consumed. All that oil ebbing into the Gulf of Mexico is very natural, yet they say daily on new reports that living creatures, all of us, will die if we consume it or even make contact with it. Natural does not necessarily equal healthy, repeat after me.

So as I wind down to climb off my soap box let me conclude with this: the best thing for our health, as I see it, is consuming godly wisdom. Man has made a mess of our food sources so it makes sense to get back to food as God created it. I’d rather share my squash with a little bug than a bug killer. I prefer fresh over processed any and every day. Moderation is good, excess is bad in anything. God made food to nourish our bodies not to destroy them; make wise choices. There’s that wisdom again! Do not lean on every new food fad that comes around…what comes around, goes around. God created chicken eggs…’nuff said...at least it should be; if not, wait awhile and some genius will decide for you. I want God to be my guide, even my personal grocer. I lean on His wisdom for my spiritual well being so doesn’t it make sense to trust that same wisdom in the food I put in my body? General Mills and Oscar Meyer can take a hike; my food will come from the One who gave it in the first place.