July 14 2018
BE GLAD
There is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad.
Ecclesiastes 8:15.
Be glad as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.
1 Peter 4: 13.
A while ago I went to a lecture on “You are what you eat.” I have been preaching that line from time to time and went there to hear my thesis confirmed. I drove in my bio-diesel powered car for some 45 km one way, praying that the inevitable pollution caused by this trip would nevertheless pay off in some golden insights by which I and perhaps my odd reader might benefit.
Well, I learned that the title had been deceptive, that we are not only what we eat, but equally are what our genes have made us, which we cannot change.
Looking around in the room, I discovered one reason why women live longer than men: their presence exceeded men by a ratio of 5 to 1, which made me conclude that women are more curious, more willing to learn, which is a brain exercise, which, in turn, prolongs life. Perhaps that’s why I- as the ‘odd’ man there – am still around pestering people with my semi-sermons.
I chose the biblical title, “be glad”, because the ‘preacher’, supposedly King Solomon, knew a thing about life’s enjoyment, and, although he was reputed to have had 1,000 wives and concubines, he preferred a good meal and a good beverage over female companionship. You may not remember this, but Jesus was accused by his adversaries of being a glutton and a winebibber, something I, stern Calvinist, took a while to make part of my life. Being depression bred, and war-time conditioned, food has always been something to treasure and never to waste. Perhaps that’s why I today weigh no more than 140 pounds or, for the metric devotees, 63 kg.
The sub title of the lecture was: “Diet, Obesity, Dementia and Our Future Health.” I did learn that, although minds do suffer when aging, verbal knowledge increases while growing older, which explains my still wide-ranging vocabulary. For the rest, most of what I heard was old hat: exercise. My goodness, so far this year, I have run, walked, consisting of pushing my electric – solar powered – lawn mower, weeded, or biked more than 1800 km, or about 9 km each and every day. You could say that I am a fitness fanatic, and you would not be far off.
Eating is only part of the puzzle of health. We not only are what we eat, we also are what we drink. We happen to consists of 70 percent water, and I heard recently that most of us North Americans are water deficient, but, rather than take in more aqua, we fill that void with ever more food, ballooning in the process. Want to lose weight? Drink a lot of water. And sleep 8 hours.
So, what to eat?
For the rest: eat the whole plant, and lots of it: carrots, cooked red beets, beans, salads, fruit, nuts. That, more or less, is the short answer to the complicated question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy. A little meat won’t kill you, but a lot will. If you can, do without, as we do: my wife and I have been vegetarian for some 40 years.
Another stab at the future.
If you treasure health you better take charge yourself. Our medical system will only get worse as the population ages, and governments run out of money. The good times of high tax revenues are over. Prevention is the best medicine, which is obtained by eating whole fresh foods and not processed products, which are food-like substances, creations of food science festooned with health claims. The food processors invent fancy edibles each year by the thousands, good for their financial health, but little else.
So here is another rule: if you’re concerned about your body, avoid items that make health claims: they are a good indication that it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat. Stick to the stuff your grand mother ate: locally grown, pesticide free, organic, if possible, meals prepared from scratch, such as oatmeal porridge to start the day, easily done in a $20.00 slow cooker, left overnight.
Diets?
Forget about them, and forget about juice as well: eat the whole fruit. Drink water, even tap water. Walk, run, bike, sleep a lot, have fun. A bad meal in good company is better than a good meal all by your lonely self.
But, staying healthy and eating properly is becoming more difficult.
Perhaps you have noticed that we live in crazy times, enormously abnormal. Get used to it. When you start getting temperatures above 28 Celsius or 86 Fahrenheit certain crops, such as corn, soybeans, wheat, start to suffer from heat stress. They don’t grow as well. If the crops end up failing, the inevitable result is food inflation.
It looks that this summer is the start of perpetual food shortages. Now is the time to change eating habits, from prepared foods – mostly unhealthy – to meals made from scratch. Become vegetarian, because animals excrete a lot of C02 and methane which is many times more dangerous. Prepare for the worst. Remember, matters will never get better again: we are locked into a perpetual downward slope. Accelerating heat events, extreme weather patterns will increasingly jeopardize crops everywhere.
Plan for a pandemic.
In today’s climate we must be prepared for any eventuality. A pandemic is overdue, and, once it hits, it will very quickly paralyze the transportation system, because travel will have to be restricted to prevent the disease from spreading. This means that all supermarkets near you will run out of stock in less than a week, and even faster if shoppers panic. A pandemic really is not a question of if: it’s a question of when. Chances are it will be avian flu (bird flu) but it might be something else, which will spread very rapidly just like flu does normally because it’s a highly contagious organism.
Based on that, and also because of severe weather threats, it makes eminent sense to stockpile enough food for at least 10 weeks. Ten weeks allows people to stay at home and avoid contact with infected people until a vaccine becomes available, or until the disease has run its natural course.
What to store?
The lifeboat includes affordable long-life staples such as rice, biscuits, milk powder, canned tuna and soups, chocolate, lentils, dry cereals and other durable staples. It makes sense to have staples that are easy to store, have a long shelf life and not dependent on refrigeration.
Ideally it should be stuff that can be eaten without cooking in case gas and electricity fail. It’s up to you to decide what this should be: fill your pantry with a good variety. Also, with food inflation rampant, it is a hedge against rising prices.
I started out with, “There is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad.”
There also is a different tack on ‘being glad’.
So far my spiel seems completely contrary, because the future I have outlined is so totally opposite to anything we usually classify as being glad.
Well, and here I come again with the Bible, where the apostle Peter has a different take on reasons to be glad. He writes, “Be glad as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. (1 Peter 4: 13).
So, what’s up? Where am I heading? Peter reminds us that suffering precedes deliverance. Jesus tells us that we will not share in his glory unless we also share in his suffering, and, you can be assured, suffering lies ahead. The only comfort I can offer is what the saying tells us, ”Forewarned is forearmed.”
Signs are becoming more pronounced that we have passed the peak of oil production, and it’s all downhill from now on. It could also be argued that we have passed the peaks for water, fertilizer and land, and that we will all soon be made painfully aware that we have passed it for food, as wealthy nations experience shortages and rising prices, and poorer ones starve.
I can pretty well assure you global chaos, a tidal wave of people fleeing their own countries for wherever they can find food. It looks that the European Union is falling apart on the very issue of immigration, and the USA and Canada too are facing that matter.
Of course, arguments that overpopulation will lead to famine or worse are nothing new; in the early 19th century the Rev. Thomas Malthus contended that the human march toward progress would be derailed by a cycle of overpopulation leading to shortages and misery. Thanks to ubiquitous TV coverage the majority of global citizens is beginning to demand the same kind of existence we Westerners have enjoyed, but we also know there simply isn’t enough of the Euro-American way of life to go around.
Climate Change is at the root of the problem, at a time when we also face overexploitation of the sea and natural resources, overuse of chemical fertilizer, reliance on fossil fuels, protectionism, subsidies, biofuels, waste and other factors.
There are two elephants in the kitchen: population growth and overconsumption. A projected 33 percent growth in population in the next 20 years, combined with increased consumption of meat as the global middle class grows larger, means that food production must grow by at least 50 percent in that same period.
And it can’t, so can we still be glad?
We are faced with two drastically opposed visions. There is Solomon in all his glory, the then richest king in the world, evident from being able to afford 1000 wives, all having their own clan, household, slaves, connections, a virtual city in itself. He preached the gospel of prosperity, a predecessor to Joel Osteen, the current promotor of the glory of wealth. For Solomon and Osteen this text is the gospel truth, “There is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad.”
And then there is Peter, the disciple who betrayed Jesus three times, not unlike all of us, who also do this repeatedly. He preaches a different gospel, more in tune with today, “But rejoice, inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. (1 Peter 4: 13).”
What a contrast! Solomon proclaimed never ending wealth, all the treasures of this world: Eat, Drink, Have Fun, for tomorrow we die and then it’s over.
Peter, betrayer Peter; Peter, impetuous Peter; Peter, passionate Peter preached the opposite. He foresaw Climate Change; he foresaw global disorder; he foresaw planetary panic, and wrote, (2 Peter 3: 11-13), “Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.
So who do you believe today?
It reminds me of the choice God gave to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai as recorded in Deuteronomy 30: 15,
See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.
Today loving the Lord primarily means LOVING HIS CREATION – and all creatures, including humans -with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our intellect and actions.
Yes, suffering is in store: there’s no escape anymore, but we can rejoice because a new earth awaits us. There again applies the Old Testament condition:
There is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad.