Right or Wrong? Proper diet

The Apostle Paul taught that one’s body is a temple before God. So, should we become concerned about eating what one health care specialist called “the three white poisons”—sugar, flour and salt?

Our bodies are a gift from God. They are precious and sacred. The Apostle Paul described our bodies as “temples of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:19). As such, you are to “honor God with your body” (1 Corinthians 6:20). What you choose to do with your body is your stewardship of God’s creation. There is no hatred of the human body in the New Testament.

It follows, therefore, that diet, exercise, rest and personal care of the human body are spiritual, not just physical, matters. Americans, particularly American Christians, are only now coming to grips with our failure to ingest the kind of fuel we need to function.

White diet

White was the color of my childhood diet. Sugar, refined flour and salt were staples. So were whole milk and white fat. Excessive sugar in one’s diet leads to weight gain. The process of refining flour bleaches out nutrients from the grain. Salt leads to water retention, and in many people, an increase in blood pressure. Little wonder dieticians call sugar, refined flour and salt the “three white poisons.”

Any change in our eating habits that reduces the intake of these “poisons” is probably a good thing for our physical well-being.

Changing the way we eat, however, is not so easy. For one thing, our taste for food is developed across many years. Anyone who has tried to wean themselves off of whole milk in favor of skim milk understands the difficulty of changing one’s tastes. Try eating grits without salt or drinking iced tea without sugar.

Include healthy eating in your lifestyle

Modern lifestyles do not leave much space for healthy eating. We hustle off to work without breakfast, grab fast food for lunch and microwave processed food—which gets its flavor from copious amounts of sugar and salt—for dinner. In between, we snack on foods loaded with sodium and reach for sugary treats to get us through long stretches between lunch and dinner.

Moreover, eating is a social experience. Because unhealthy eating is so pervasive, it is difficult not to succumb to poor habits when others around us are chowing down on the wrong things.

Finally, healthy eating requires time to shop and prepare fresh ingredients. This means an investment of time and money that many people do not have, or are not willing to use.

It is almost impossible to eliminate the “white poisons” from our diets, but we can be more conscious of the spiritual dimensions of food, and other practices that affect our physical well-being. We are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” and God wants us to do what we do to the glory of God.

Mike Clingenpeel, pastor

River Road Church, Baptist

Richmond, Va.

Right or Wrong? is co-sponsored by the Texas Baptist theological education office and Christian Life Commission. Send your questions about how to apply your faith to [email protected].