When Marilyn Lorenz of Alma, Mich., talks about living out her Catholic faith in daily life, she starts by describing what’s inside her refrigerator.
The produce is grown on nearby farms, and the milk is organic and hormone-free. Meat comes from a local farmer who lets his animals graze freely and doesn’t use antibiotics.
“Packing animals in factory farms, I think, is against God’s wishes,” says Lorenz, who changed her shopping and eating habits after a speaker at her parish broached the issues in 2007. “It isn’t something my faith could ever support.”
In bringing faith to bear anew on diet, Lorenz is among a growing movement of believers from various traditions who are exploring how to better reflect their moral values in the ways they eat. A few examples…
[blockquote] Matthew 15: 16 “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. 17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ [/blockquote]
While I appreciate efforts to apply faith to all aspects of life, it does not take long for well-intentioned initiatives to devolve into unhelpful legalism. Paul warns about this in his various discussions of “food” questions in the early church.
And let’s be honest – so many of these “Christian diet” approaches are a clever way to dress up the desire to be more physically attractive. The goal is not some spiritual breakthrough, but sex appeal. Sex appeal is not in and of itself bad, but just be honest about the desire for companionship and intimacy and don’t come up with a “Bible diet plan” or whatever.
RE: “She says farming with chemical fertilizers “is not honoring the land because you’re killing off the biology that’s there.””
I sometimes wonder if people have any sense of history at all and understand what a blessing “chemical fertilizers” are. God made human beings to learn and develop things that would overcome the sorrows of a fallen world, and “chemical fertilizers” and other such developments would be one of those things that has allowed nations to go from famine to actually feeding their people through their farms.
Regardless, I do hope also that she is consistent and neither drinks pasteurized milk [all the rage to drink raw milk] nor washes her home-grown vegetables, since in both instances “you’re killing off the biology that’s there.”
On a happier note, I’m enjoying adding organic and home-grown produce to my diet. It has been a pleasure. And I’m able to do so, thanks to the joys of the free market, which allows rich nations to customize rather than mass produce their goods.
In a sense, we’re reversing direction because we have the money to do so now. In the old days, we worried about how to feed a nation, and we mass produced huge quantities of food in order to do so.
But as with the environment, we now can afford to pay attention to the smaller details. We are a very prosperous nation.
And because people have recognized that they can make money by selling customized, small-production food to rich people [and we’re all rich in America], the market has expanded with numerous offerings. In my own area, I estimate that the number of choices have quadrupled in the past 4-5 years — all without the State demanding that it be so and forcing it through laws.
And I’m grateful.
Sarah,
While I would imagine that most state attempts to make organic produce uniformly available would be counterproductive, it does bother me that our household can (and does) afford to eat this way for reasons of health and yet those households who would most benefit from such a diet (and for whom an improvement in diet would result in savings in state-provided health care) often cannot afford to do so.
Should one seek to widen access or just regard organic produce as another luxury item? And if the former, what would be the best free-market way to do it? I have no answer myself, apart perhaps from promoting more farmers’ markets in poorer neighborhoods, but I would be interested to know if you do.
Interestingly, just up the road from us in working-class Wilkinsburg, we have a food cooperative that includes on-site cooking that is entirely vegetarian. I have been pleasantly surprised to note the number of obviously blue-collar local residents who eat there.
Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.” If some unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience.
1 Corinthians 10:25-27
I would rather eat the meat of animals that did not have steroids or anti-biotics and that were “free range”. The cost of such healthy meat is about 50% higher. It must be nice not to have to have concerns about your grocery bill. As the sole income provider [by the grace of God] for my family of four, I do not have that luxury. I suppose we could stop home school, pack off our children to be raised by strangers, and put my wife into the commercial work force again so that we could afford such a wonderful diet, but in my world it isn’t a reasonable exchange.
When eating “healthy” became fashionable, it also became expensive.
Ground Round Beef: 4 oz. | 280 cal. | 14.6 g. fat | 36 g. protein
http://www.askthemeatman.com/beef_nutritional_values.htm
Grass Fed Beef: 4 oz. | 220 cal. | 6 g. fat | 38 g. protein
http://www.peertrainer.com/DFcaloriecounterB.aspx?id=10551
RE: “it does bother me that our household can (and does) afford to eat this way for reasons of health and yet those households who would most benefit from such a diet (and for whom an improvement in diet would result in savings in state-provided health care) often cannot afford to do so.”
It is clearly a right, then, for all Americans to eat organic and free-range.
We will call it “Universal OrganicCare”.
The other thing that has always bothered me is that I can afford [by dint of an initial freebie] to attend a gym for reasons of health and yet those households who would most benefit from attending a gym (and for whom an improvement in fitness would result in savings in state-provided health care) often cannot afford to do so.
And another thing that bothers me is that I cannot yet afford a car with all the superior safety components that the luxury cars have. And yet my household would very much benefit from having a large, high-safety, yet high-gas-mileage, low maintenance, low-repair-cost car (and for whom an improvement in car would result in savings in gas, maintenance, safety, and much more) yet cannot afford to do so.
; > )
Seriously, the moment the market *conceives* of a customized product that is superior, than it is often helpful to a person’s health, transportation needs, fitness, economic, and many other needs to consume that customized product. My answer is that as farms expand and multiply — producing all those free-range-eggs, and hormone-free beef, and raw milk — and as other cluster markets grow up around those farms [like, oh, say, delivery services for farm groceries, among many other possibilities] the price will inevitably come down, and more and more people will be able to afford it.
But even when that comes about, the real problem is that many of those who cannot afford it will not choose to spend their money on those items, but will rather choose items that are more important to them.
Then . . . you have a values issue.
And here’s the thing. Judging by our own nation’s crisis in weight [massive and growing percentages of obesity] and diabetes and lung cancer and high cholesterol, because of the sheer mass of food that our nation is able to produce now, we have also an issue of values that should be of deep concern to pastors and spiritual leaders.
When I look at the “water in which we swim” what I see is an emphasis on food, material goods, sex, and image that is deeply disturbing. And I’m not discounting the culture’s impact on me, either.
So I think the real issue is that — given that our market freedoms inevitably produce lower and lower costs for better and better goods — how will people’s hearts change such that they are willing to spend their money on things of worth, rather than things of little worth?
I personally think that is up to the churches to work on — but I don’t think they are doing a particularly good job.
Sometimes sarcasm can be a little overdone, don’t you think? I didn’t suggest that there was an inherent human right to organic food. I asked how one might promote wider distribution within a market system and in the latter part of your post you offer an answer. And, of course, it’s true that there’s an element of personal choice in all of this.
Does that mean one shouldn’t find ways – short of state coercion – to promote broader distribution in advance of the market re-setting itself? Perhaps it’s simply that I am inclined to apply Churchill’s observation on democracy to the notion of a free market economy – it’s a bad system but the alternatives are worse. I appreciate that you wouldn’t share that assessment.
I think we need to look back realistically rather than idealizing the past.
Our ancestors had bad teeth from eating stone ground wheat bread because flecks of stone would be mixed with the meal from the grinding process, as well as not knowing the relationship of calcium and vitiman D for strong bones and teeth.
People died from e-coli and salmonella (undiagnosed) due to lack of proper means of storing meats and dairy. Lest we forget that, we have modern cases of e-coli from VEGETABLES where organic fertilizers are used which pass on these bacteria and organisms to the food cell-walls themselves.
crops would be ravaged by disease and all sorts of pests and insects due to lack of pesticides.
People went hungry and died when the climate changed with the little ice-age and we did not have the necessary methods of changing crops to accomodate the new reality. Eventually, tubers were brought in to substitute for grass-style grains, and grape growers moved their produce to warmer climates.
Lack of knowledge of nutrition led to all sorts of deficiencies in humans.
Modern methods are not bad. The key lies in proper balances.
Peace
Jim E. <><
RE: “Sometimes sarcasm can be a little overdone, don’t you think?”
I agree. And I assume that you think that in the case of comment #5, the sarcasm was overdone? ; > )
I knew you weren’t wanting the State to institute Universal OrganiCare — my mind just drifted that way and I ended up riffing on where my mind took me. Apologies if it offended you.