ironmaneden.com

ironmaneden.com

exploring plant-based nutrition as an ancient biblical ideal

Blog Post 4: Garden Temple

by rambler on category , , , , , ,

The idea of a place from which the divine uniquely emanates into the world, where God’s space and Human’s space intersect, in the form of a garden bursting with life and abundance, is a very old and common idea throughout the ancient world.  Cultures surrounding the ancient Hebrews had their own mythologies concerning the dwelling places of deities in gardens.  Ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians are some of the people groups that had “garden temples” incorporated into their heritage.  In this part of the world, known for arid deserts and scarce pockets of water and plant life, gardens must have had a special reverence, places of restoration, nourishment, and healing.  It is no wonder that we associated these life-bursting locales with divinity.

In concert with their neighbors, the Hebrews held the garden of Eden in similar esteem: a place where God touched the earth to create ordered, bountiful life that would self-perpetuate, creating more energy and beauty.  It represents the ultimate temple imagery in the three dimensional world (the Sabbath rest represents the garden temple in the fourth dimension of time), an image that was recreated by the Hebrew people after their release from Egypt in the form of a transportable tabernacle, then a stationary temple in Jerusalem.  Interestingly, the parts of the tabernacle have corresponding parts to the Garden of Eden.  The large surrounding courtyard of the tabernacle corresponds with the region of Eden; the holy place within the courtyard, with the Garden inside Eden; and the holy of holies within the holy place, with the tree of life within the Garden.  The tree of life is the most special place inside the garden, as it contains the gift of ultimate communion between divinity and humanity, that of eternal life in some form.  It is the place where God and humanity meet, where the worlds intersect, and where humans can experience the life they were intended to know.  It was the perfect overlapping of heaven and earth.  This is an idea that moderns may correlate with our cultural idea of “heaven”, whether that is a historically accurate notion of heaven or not.

This place of abundant life and beauty was not an absolute idea that had always been in existence.  The wording of the start of the Genesis 2 creation narrative indicates something missing.  “Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up.”  The plant life made on day 3 of creation in Genesis 1 is yet to appear on the Earth for apparently two reasons: 1) God had yet to send rain on the earth and 2) no one was available to work the ground.  Why are both considered reasons for a lack of fauna on the Earth?

Concerning the first necessity, the same sentence describes water already present.  “…but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.”  So water was available for the creation and propagation of life, but apparently it wasn’t good enough to actually create and propagate life.  There must be something unique in the water that comes from the sky that permits growth that water from the surface does not.  The idea of life-giving water coming from the gods above is also seen in neighboring cultures.  An example is the Egyptian sky goddess Nut, who nurses the earth from her breasts, which produce life-giving water.  Similarly, God, living in heaven, gifts the earth with his own living rains to nourish and renew the land.  This water from above is different from the water below.  The waters in Genesis 1, from which land arises on day 3 of creation, were previously described as part of the formless and void earth, part of the chaos that was the world before God intervened.  Throughout the Bible, chaotic waters carry an evil symbolism for the Hebrew people (i.e. Egyptians in Exodus 15, the story of Jonah).  In Genesis 2, one may conclude that the waters coming up from the ground are part of those same chaos waters from which the earth arose and on which it is essentially floating.  So the waters from God above are very different from the waters below.  One is life sustaining, the other life taking.

 After rain, the second requirement for plant life is the lack of a worker.  Every material thing now exists for life from the ground to flourish, except for the action of organizing those things into a form that starts the process of life.    This must mean that, in order for trees and shrubs to exist, a partnership between humans and God is essential.  This is what the original destiny of humankind was: God and humans in the garden ruling together, working to continue the work that was started after creation, a partnership between the deity and his image-bearers.  We often think that the Garden was perfect as it was, and that our role was to simply occupy it.  This notion does not honor the vocation we were given to be workers of the Garden, to take creation and work alongside God to make it into something more complete and beautiful than it originally was.

In a primarily agrarian society, it would make sense that a description of the intended state of partnership between God and humans be centered around farming.  This would have resonated more with ancient peoples in their environment than with moderns.  When we think of creating culture, we don’t primarily have reflections around plots of land sprouting herbs and fruits.  We tend to think more about cities, cafes, and museums.  We can certainly consider that the story is more about the idea of God and humans getting together to progress toward some greater collaboration than original creation, not just how plants are grown.  But the story could have described the partnership established to raise animals for eating, but it doesn’t.  Typical of the Hebrew Bible, we are seeing several meanings and points of reflection in a single story.  We can likely take meanings of both generalized order and nutritional order from the narrative.

It was only after both rain and workers were in place that God created the Garden Temple, the ideal meeting place of heaven and earth.  “Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.”  Like any good cosmic temple of the ancient Near East, the Garden occupies a high space, a mountaintop, one origin from which life-giving waters flow forth.

In the Genesis account of the ancient world, the four rivers listed in Genesis, the Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates, all emanated from a single river flowing through Eden.  While the locations of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are well-established, the historical locations of the Pishon and Gihon are not.  Many ancient and modern scholars have proposed various theories as to the identifications of these rivers, from Ethiopia representing the Nile River, even south of that to Zimbabwe, to various locations in the Middle East.  Whatever the designation of the Pishon and Gihon rivers may be, all of these rivers of the ancient world were essential to the development of civilization, humans coming together to create ordered societies where people could survive and flourish, using the resource of fresh flowing water to farm the land for sustenance.  The significance of these major ancient life sources starting from a singularity in Eden, flowing from there and encompassing the known world at that time, may be the idea that this points to a single origin of Order, the co-mingling of God and Human space in which the sustaining Life Source starts in its perfect form, and is so abundant in life-giving energy, that it makes its way throughout the land, spreading out and providing welcoming homes for the incubation of human development.  If the Garden of Eden is the perfect co-mingled junction of God-space and Human-space, and from it flows identifiable river landmarks of the ancient world that also generate life, might that say something about our current situation outside of Eden and its relationship to this co-mingled point in space-time?  A potential point of the writer may be that all of our societies have their roots from this origin, all sharing some part of the DNA of the origin, and are to some degree a reflection of the origin.  Despite the terrible, hideous, unjust things we create, in our root there is a perfect idyllic purpose from which amazing things also come.

This is the kingdom of heaven in effect, more of an action of events than a place far away.  Being brought up in a scientific, physical world of reality, we tend to have in our minds that heaven is a physical place in a physical space somewhere away from where we are.  We are generally uncomfortable with ambiguity, and this idea of heaven lends to ambiguity.  It seems the Bible is putting a different emphasis on what and where heaven is.  If it is more of a state of being, a mindset to which we can conform, following the wisdom laid out for us, this will allow us to begin experiencing heaven now, in our present forms, with the mental and physical acuity that our bodies were meant to experience.

The Relationship

by rambler on category , , , , , , , , , ,

After recognizing the pattern of the Genesis 1 creation account of paired days and themes, evidently there is a special connection between the seed-bearing and fruit-bearing plants and trees on the land (the final creative act of day 3), and the humans created in the image of the gods (the final creative act of day 6).  What is the connection?

Genesis 1:29 gives one straightforward response to the question: all seed-bearing plants and trees that produce fruit are meant to be food for humans.  That is our nourishment in the ideal, pre-fallen state.  All acts of creation have aligned to set up this perfect homeostasis of life-sustaining energy.  We are intricately connected to the plants both in the creation patterns and in the time following the story.  If we are to believe that Genesis 1 is a story of the world set up the way God intended it, and that all the pain and suffering that we see today originated at the choice of humankind to pursue its own wisdom represented by eating the forbidden fruit, then we must recognize that everything that was put in place prior to that event was at perfect form and functionality, one aspect of which is how humans eat.  By no means is this the only notion to be drawn from the passage.  The idea of humans and trees sharing a functional commonality is another.  But it is one.

Immediately following the proclamation of seed-bearing trees as food for humans, God commands the green grasses and plants be as food for the beasts of the earth, birds of the sky, and…

The connection of seed-bearing plants and humans are actually one of a few intimate relationships established by God on day 6. Immediately following the proclamation of seed-bearing trees as food for humans, God commands the green grasses and plants be as food for the beasts of the earth, birds of the sky, and creatures moving along the ground.  This doesn’t match up as nicely in the creation day mapping scheme as fruit trees and humans, as the plants are still the second creative act on day 3, but birds were created on day 5 and the beasts of the earth were the first creative act on day 6.  Nevertheless, the plan for animal kind, everything that has the breath of life (God’s ruach, Hebrew translated spirit, in animals and humans), receives the gift of plants as food.  So people aren’t the only ones for whom this is an ideal, but animals are also included.  This obviously comes into contradiction with what we simply observe in the animal kingdom: some animals can only eat other animals to live, i.e. felines.  I will get into this later, but we do know that humans can make a choice to live according to this principle and live well.

Another established relationship in this story is that between animals and humans.  In Genesis 1:28, we are told to rule over the animals and subdue the earth.  On initial reading, to us this seems like a green light to utilize all of creation as we see fit.  Several critics have cited this as the reason the Western world has made a habit of using and abusing our planet: it is both permitted and demanded by our religious tradition.  We seem to have a knack for, with the aid of modern technology, manipulating the earth to accommodate us and our desires, to the point of wreckage.  The same may be said for the animals.  If we need them to meet our nutritional needs by being a direct source of calories, so be it.  That is why they are here. 

We practically can already see some problems with this mindset in our current place on Earth.  As we manipulate our technologies for our liking, we see the detriment this is having in our environment.  Climate change has become a pretty complex issue, but it does appear to be at least in part due to human activity.  It is well established that the harvesting of animals for human consumption also leaves a larger carbon footprint than the harvesting of plants.  Science has established this data recently, but we should have recognized that disaster would happen when we interpret Genesis 1:28 as a free reign for our desires.

We may make the assumption that the relationship between humans and animals is only vertical.  We rule them, case closed.  Looking at the creation patterns, this doesn’t appear to be the case.  We also have a horizontal relationship with animals, as we were created on the same day as they.  We are creatures just as they are, made on the same day as the land creatures, sharing that day of creation with them.  All life forms, unicellular or multicellular, plant or animal, sea swimmer or land rover, fall under the auspices of creation and the physical laws that govern it.  After the animals were created, God stated that what he created was good, just as he did after all other creative acts in Genesis 1.  This suggests that all of creation was already good in and of itself before we showed up.  That should remove some entitlement we may feel as the only important part of creation.

But rather we are intimately connected with the earth as evidenced by the Genesis 2 creation account.

We are not separated from the earth, dropped down here from some other realm to make use of what we find.  But rather we are intimately connected with the earth as evidenced by the Genesis 2 creation account.  This states man was formed from the dust of the earth and had life breathed into him, hence the name of the first man as Adam (from the Hebrew adamah, “of the ground”).  Mankind is formed as the weird combination of “dirt and divine breath (Hebrew ruach)”.  That should make us rethink our relationship with the earth, that we are intimately connected with it, and that anything we do to it, any means of disrespect and negligence we exhibit, will come back to affect us accordingly.

So our relationship with the rest of creation is not a simple linear pattern of one entity above the other.  We are told to rule the animals, but at the same time we are on something of equal footing with them.  Both animals and humans share a relationship with the botanical creation of day 3, assigned to use those resources as our food.  And humans have a specific relationship with the earth, commanded by God to subdue it.  Reading Genesis in its ancient context, subdue most likely refers to farming the ground, as the ancient Near Eastern cultures reading or listening to this narrative were primarily agrarian.  In Genesis 2, the second creation narrative, humans are put in a garden, where their food source is fruit-bearing trees, and told to “work and care for” the garden, in other words farm the ground.  In fact, no plants had yet showed up on earth until humankind was created because, in part, there was no one yet created to work the ground.  But while we are told to subdue the plant-producing earth, we see that if by subdue we mean abuse and disrespect, following our own wisdom and working toward our idea of what is right for us, our intimate connection with the earth will cause us to feel the effects, however welcoming or catastrophic they may be.  The effects of treating the earth in this way can be expressed in God’s curse to Adam in Genesis 3 after he decides that God’s wisdom is secondary to his own by eating the forbidden fruit:

Cursed is the ground

Because of you;
Through painful toil you
Will eat food from it
All the days of your life
It will produce thorns and thistle for you
And you will eat the plants of the field

By following our own wisdom, making our own choices for ourselves and our rule of the earth, suddenly what should be existence in a harmonious garden in which life cannot help but sprout up the best of what the plant kingdom has to offer, becomes a struggle against the earth to strangle from it life-sustaining nourishment.

We are also made aware by God in Genesis 1:30 the relationship between animals and the earth, not directly involving humans.  They are to have the green plants as food.  Why should we care what they are given to eat or not?  We know that we have the fruit-bearing trees.  This is likely a warning to humans from God concerning our stewardship, as subduers and rulers over earth and animal, that that relationship between the animals and green plants is sacred, and part of our responsibility in ruling alongside God is to make sure the relationship is preserved and allowed to flourish.  We are not to utilize the whole earth for our own immediate good, but to reflect, as image-bearers carrying out God’s rule on earth, the care God gives to all of creation by helping protect this other sacred relationship.  Therefore, we are not to ransack the earth for all its resources, but rather to use what we need in order to live, trusting that God has created a generous space capable of taking care of all creatures.

After every creative process, the end of every day of creation, God sees that what he has created is good.  This is repeated six times in Genesis 1, all immediately after the acts of creation: light, gathering of the seas, vegetation, heavenly bodies, sea creatures and birds, and wild land animals.  However, he doesn’t say this right after humans are created.  Rather, after humans arrive, God proclaims humans’ role, and the role of plants and seed-bearing trees for animals and humans, and after that proclamation does God say that this is very good, clearly a more emphasized statement from what he has previously said.  While all of creation had been proclaimed good up to this point, apparently the final statements of order at the end of the chapter, statements laying out the functional relationships among living creatures and the earth that houses them, have added exponentially, not just summarily, to the quality of creation.  I think this means we are not to take these final statements lightly.  We may want to really consider what they mean for our purpose and symbiosis with the world and with God.

The Cosmic Landscape

by rambler on category , , , , , , , , , , ,

In the Jewish and Christian traditions, the entirety of the structure of the world and our relationship with it can be found on the first three pages of Genesis.  Everything that happens forward from there, from the stories of the first ancient peoples, to those of the Hebrew nation starting with Abraham, to a resolution for Christians in the form of Jesus of Nazareth, can draw roots from this introduction.  I never realized this until recently, thanks to The Bible Project Podcast, which I cannot recommend highly enough, whether you are religious or are curious to know more about the basis for Christianity.  This understanding has revolutionized the way I see the entire story of humankind and the earth.

Before any word of creation is spoken, Genesis narrates that the world was Tohu wa-bohu (translations include formless, void, wild and waste).

We find the initial structure of creation, including time and space, as God turning disorder into order.  Before any word of creation is spoken, Genesis narrates that the world was Tohu wa-bohu (translations include formless, void, wild and waste).  There are many different interpretations of what was actually there, but the wording suggests that the earth did exist in the beginning, at least before God’s first act of speaking, though it was in a “nothingness” state.  That changed the way I looked at the creation story as traditionally taught.  We like to have definitively established boundaries in describing our world, and are uncomfortable when boundaries get blurred.  It is much easier in our minds to comprehend the universe starting at an instant, the beginning of time.  We want to think that at some point there was nothing, then suddenly something appeared.  This isn’t a bad thing, but it is a bias we should recognize, the need for a firmly established order of events.  It is what the singularity of the Big Bang attempts to explain.  The same holds true for those of us wanting the creation narrative to say the same thing: a fundamental starting point, a sequence of events, then here we are.

Reading the passages of Genesis 1, I think the story expresses something more about the process of turning chaos into functionality, not specifically the start of something out of nothing, but more so the ordering of material that was already there.  In an already existent realm of “wild and waste”, God’s first act of order is the separation of light and dark, our most recognizable form of energy and the lack thereof, of visibility and blindness.  A stubbed toe on the foot of the bed in the middle of the night makes it clear to me that the two are separated!  More comprehensively, we see different worlds come out whether it is day or night.  Take a walk outside your house during the night and day and the sights, sounds, environment, and inhabitants of each time vary extensively.  Most notable of the differences may be the sources of light that rule each time period, as described on day 4 (the coinciding function of days 1 and 4 is another fun pattern to talk about later).

Repetition is also a form of order that is established right at the story’s beginning by establishing a recurring pattern of evening and morning.  It starts right after the initial proclamation of light and dark and continues throughout the first creation narrative.  All that happens from here on out through Genesis 1, happens within the confines of repeating organized days.

The first creation day appears to establish order around the functional concept of time, rather than the start of something material out of nothing, as the watery abyss was already present before the first word in Genesis 1:2.  The second day of creation is more concerned with the first ordering of the space that is present, namely waters.  Waters above, heaven, separated from waters below, on Earth.  Just as day 4 bore the inhabitants of day 1 creation, day 5 bears the inhabitants of day 2 creation, the waters below to be filled with sea creatures and the waters above to be filled with birds.

Day 3 focuses the ordering of space more narrowly toward the waters below, that area which we occupy, rather than the waters above, or the heavens.  On day 3 we see a 2-fold origin sequence.  From the waters below that have been separated from the heavens, comes forth 1) dry land out of the sea; from the dry land comes forth 2) seed-bearing plants and fruit-bearing trees.  Day 6 repeats the pattern of the creation of inhabitants for the day 3 world as day 5 did for day 2.  Day 6, like day 3, contains a two-fold creative process: God makes 1) the animals which come forth from the land and 2) humans.  Unlike day 3 on which plants come forth from the land, there is no specific statement that humans came forth from animals on day 6.  That would fit the creative pattern seen on day 3, and those of us who wrestle with trying to make scientific knowledge and faith congruent may see this as pointing toward an evolutionary process for the creation of humans.  I don’t think that is a question that this narrative is concerned with.  Perhaps a connection more likely than animals from humans would be between trees and humans as the final acts of creation on days 3 and 6, which is another path of contemplation that could be related to nutrition as well.  Either way, as 21st century scientifically minded people, we need to be cautious of the presuppositions we bring to the text, the notions of what questions we think the Bible should answer for us, rather than letting it speak to us on its terms in its context.

At this point we can see the pairings of creation days: days 1 and 4 (light/dark and the inhabitants of both domains), days 2 and 5 (waters above and below, and the inhabitants of both domains), and days 3 and 6 (land bursting with green vegetation, and the land’s inhabitants).  I was certainly never taught this growing up in an American church environment, which is disappointing to me now that the story of Genesis 1, reading the patterns in this way, has a suddenly new significance for me that is so much more beautiful and purposeful in describing our world and the functionality of it!  Understanding these patterns has brought to light a new concept of the order of the creative process, one that is more nuanced and dense in imagery than I could have imagined. 

I wonder if part of missing these patterns has to do with the contemporary way we learn and interpret our world.  As I stated earlier, as moderns we look for literal, black and white sequential events or points in time from which to tell our stories, whether it is creative fiction (though the magical realists may differ on this one), guides for assembling Ikea furniture (that seems a pretty practical reason for such story-telling), or the origins of our place in the universe.  Genesis 1 refuses to comply with this world-view.  How can green plants thrive on dry land before the arrival of the sun?  But by reading Genesis on its terms, understanding the design patterns from which it originates, we find an incredible world of wisdom that can open our minds to the structure and purpose of the created world.  This in turn may help us begin to comprehend the Order behind it all, the Order which resides in us as image-bearers, that which has established an ideal existence for all living things.

For further reading on these ideas, The Lost World of Genesis One by John H. Walton is a great book that discusses this subject in more detail. It is very accessible for us nonscholars and challenges the approach many of us have taken to these ancient scriptures to provide a rich interpretation of the first book of the Bible.

A Description of the Land(scape)

by rambler on category , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Thank you for checking out this initial blog posting.  As a primary care doctor in the modern United States, I encounter mostly disease processes that are highly preventable, or at least modifiable, with lifestyle adjustments.  Most people have likely heard a similar sentiment from someone they know in healthcare, the media, or perhaps have come to that realization in their own lives.  Cardiovascular disease continues as the number one cause of death in the United States.  We also see diabetic complications, chronic kidney disease, COPD with lung failure, sleep apnea, osteoarthritis, liver disease, and various forms of cancer to be common causes of morbidity and mortality. 

The patterns of growth of these diseases mimic similar rises in overweight and obesity patterns.  None of this is news to anyone who pays attention to news feeds over the last few decades.  We continue to see the obesity epidemic climb to a new height, most recently more so among minorities.  According to the CDC, in 2008 the annual medical cost burden of obesity-related diseases was $147 billion.  And now we are seeing this epidemic permeating the rest of the world.  According to the NIH, by 2025 an estimated 300 million people worldwide will be obese.  As first-world lifestyles are more available to underdeveloped nations, so now are first-world problems.

We all know the causes of the obesity epidemic are by and large, with the rare exception of a few genetic syndromes, lifestyle-induced.  Cheap, unending amounts of refined sugars and greasy fried foods complement a dire lack of physical activity that our modern economy allows for.  There are obvious reasons people gravitate toward these foods, whether purchased in a grocery store or fast food restaurant.  They are inexpensive which makes feeding a large family easier on the budget.  They satisfy our primal instinct for immediately available energy sources like sugar and fat.  They are fast and easy to prepare; all you have to do is move your car through the drive thru window or follow a quick recipe on the back of the box.  As our modern world becomes more automated, we have more conveniences than anyone in human history, allowing us a reprieve from the labor humans once had to perform for survival, and permitting for a sedentary workforce that has to rely on making time outside of work to get the exercise our bodies have been accustomed to since our development.

There has been no shortage of nutrition and exercise plans, dietary resources, smartphone apps and lifestyle coaches…

There has been no shortage of nutrition and exercise plans, dietary resources, smartphone apps, and lifestyle coaches to help individuals and collectives of people combat the problem.  Earlier in the 20th century, focus was put on amphetamines as stimulants for weight loss, and even today an amphetamine analog, phentermine, is commonly prescribed to assist in weight loss.  For decades our analog televisions flashed commercials for Weight Watchers, Slim-Fast, and Nutrisystem, encouraging people to buy their products and services to assist with shedding pounds.  Today we have a plethora of phone apps dedicated to counting caloric consumption and expenditure, quality of calories consumed, and other health metrics designed to lead one toward a healthier existence.  Dietary trends and themes abound, some having more staying power than others.  Just a sampling of these include Atkins, South Beach, Body for Life, juicing, alkaline diet, gluten-free diet, super food diet, Paleo, intermittent fasting, Mediterranean diet, DASH diet, various forms of vegetarianism and veganism, and many more.  There is a reason several of us know about these diets, other than marketing: to a good extent they work in helping people lose and keep off weight.  These plans can be marketed and pushed by sponsors endlessly, but if they had no hint of efficacy, they would not have made it into modern lexicon years after their conception.  For a few years, I followed the Paleo diet myself and found that it did provide significant and desirable weight loss and body composition.

Ask a number of trained healthcare practitioners the ideal diet, and one will likely get as many differing opinions concerning said ideal.  Several of those opinions point to one of the previously listed diets.  Many of these are geared toward preventing specific disease.  The DASH diet is often advised as part of a treatment plan for hypertension.  The Mediterranean diet is similarly prescribed for diabetic patients.  A gluten-free diet is the treatment for clinically diagnosed celiac disease.  The healthy kidney diet is meant specifically for people with chronic kidney disease.  A low-FODMAP diet can significantly help people who suffer from irritable bowel syndrome.

Most of the diets proponed by healthcare personnel share a common theme of putting a premium on plants as food sources, though to varying degrees.  There is good evidence that a plant-based, whole foods diet helps lower risk of acquiring various health problems including hypertension, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and some forms of cancer (source: Pubmed).  One very large study, the China Study, which was performed in the 1970s and 1980s, concluded that populations that consume a mostly plant-based diet had significantly lower rates of Western diseases than genetically similar populations that consume high amounts of animal protein.  This is one of numerous studies that support significant benefits in a plant-based diet.

Many people assume that in order to perform at a top level athletically, animal protein must be an essential component of a proper training diet.  Several athletes have defied this conventional wisdom, opting for a plant-based diet that is void of meat while competing at the highest levels.  A sample of athletes that are reported to be vegetarian or vegan include Carl Lewis, Venus Williams, Mike Tyson, Martina Navratilova, JJ Reddick, Ricky Williams, Bode Miller, and Scott Jurek, among many other professional football and basketball players, boxers, Olympians, and body-builders.  Clearly the lifestyle of a world-class athlete is highly structured for optimum results from training and nutrition, and planning a satisfactory balance of macronutrients and micronutrients within a plant-based framework does take forethought and organization, but so does a conventional omnivorous diet.  And many interviews of plant-based athletes reveal feeling healthier than ever from mental, physical, and emotional standpoints.  As for novice and amateur athletes, I can speak for my own experience of practicing plant-based nutrition for almost a year leading up to my first Ironman triathlon, easily completing it and seriously enjoying the entirety of it.  One can, not merely survive on a plant-based diet, but thrive on it.

Science can tell us much about our current physical situation, how we go to this point over the last several millions of years, and what current behaviors can lead to in our futures.  We have a lot of science that backs up the ideal diet for humans as being plant-based eaters, limiting any animal foods from a minimal amount to none at all.  What is interesting is that this is not a new idea at all over the course of human history.  Mostly in recorded religious traditions, as early as the Jains, Buddhists, and Hindus, can one find laws and recommendations about the value of consuming mainly, if not strictly, plants and abstaining from the slaughtering and eating of animals.  Similar attitudes are found in Greek antiquity, Judaism, and early Christianity, again to varying degrees.  Ancient wisdom seems to focus more on animal welfare and practicing nonviolence toward them as a significant reason for eating plants.  Modern-day proponents, while certainly supporting animal welfare, also point to the science, which suggests improved health and wellness outcomes for us and for our environment.

The Hebrew Bible has many passages referring to eating patterns, in different people groups and in different periods of history.  Laws are given for what may and may not be eaten, both animal and plant foods.  Miracles are told of replicating both plant and animal foods.  Advice is given not to allow the differences between groups ascribing to varying dietary restrictions to cause schism between them that would prevent a community of faith from flourishing.  On a surface glance over all the passages referring to food, taken in snippets away from the surrounding contexts, one may argue that there is no clear, concise answer from these texts pertaining to the nutritional habits early peoples, the Hebrews, and followers of Jesus should be following.

I am not trained in religion, nor am I a dietician.  But I hear the stories of patients’ lifestyle choices, both good and bad, on a daily basis in clinical consultation, and I see the correlation between those choices and how they feel.  I enjoy and prioritize exercise, particularly endurance training, and I have eaten both animal- and plant-based diets while preparing for races.  I have seen the improved results in others and myself after adopting a plant-based food lifestyle, from disease prevention and management to athletic performance.  What has been more revealing, impactful, and affirming is that the Bible, a part of my religious heritage growing up in the middle of the USA, appears to indicate that, when read as a whole story, this dietary lifestyle, eating plants and not animals, is the ideal state for humans.  The Bible tells the story of how we are made, what our purpose is, and the possibilities of what can become of our existence on the earth.  In this story, the ideal state of humans living in communion with God, is one in which they are given the fruits of creation to consume for their livelihood, a part of nurturing optimal human relationships to animals, the earth, and their bodies.  This is by no means a novel realization, as there are several examples throughout history of Christian groups who ascribe to this.  But in a nation that is growing more obese and, for now, is predominantly Christian, whose followers see the Hebrew Bible as divine authority, this seems like something that should be more relevant to the life of the Church.

This is not dogma, not another item to check off a list of what “righteous” people do.  It is not a sin to eat meat or other animal products.  Nor is it a magic cure-all or safety net that will ensure one never has a heart attack or cancer. But in this world fallen unto human will, it does reveal a rediscovered/reaffirmed ancient truth of our best available relationship to everything.  The exploration of plant-based nutrition in the Bible has been fascinating, and my intention is to post writings every couple of weeks about Biblical passages that have some level of reference toward this, without shying away from the evolutionary science that is concurrent.  As a footnote, The Bible Project, a nonprofit studio that creates animated cartoons and podcasts pertaining to the biblical narrative, has been and continues to be a primary source of inspiration for these ideas that I have been pondering for several months now, so if you listen to that, you may see some similar approach or language throughout this blog.  Thank you for reading this far!

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