Not to be flip, but thinking about what bread obviously meant to Jesus and the people around him: it was THE staple of their diets.
This week's Gospel (John 6) includes this, vs. 48-51...
I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.
Image: Kristin Malcolmberry
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I have family who have spent a long time on the Atkins Diet. Ken and I tried that one time and I always say, it's a good thing that was before we married, because we might've divorced over it. We lasted 4 days.
I've been on Scarsdale, Weight Watchers, etc. Ah, the diet craze.
Recently I talked with a friend, who mentioned that a mutual friend and her spouse are on the Caveman Diet.
The essentials of the Paleolithic Diet are:
Eat none of the following:
· Grains- including bread, pasta, noodles
· Beans- including string beans, kidney beans, lentils, peanuts, snow-peas and peas
· Potatoes
· Dairy products
· Sugar
· Salt
Eat the following:
· Meat, chicken and fish
· Eggs
· Fruit
· Vegetables (especially root vegetables, but definitely not including potatoes or sweet potatoes)
· Nuts, eg. walnuts, brazil nuts, macadamia, almond. Do not eat peanuts (a bean) or cashews (a family of their own)
· Berries- strawberries, blueberries, raspberries etc.
Try to increase your intake of:
· Root vegetables- carrots, turnips, parsnips, rutabagas, Swedes
· Organ meats- liver and kidneys (I accept that many people find these unpalatable and won’t eat them)
This friend also said that the plan she is following says one should NOT do cardio, because cavemen didn't do cardio.
I say, but we are not cavemen! We live MUCH longer than cavemen; our general daily activities are entirely different; we are raised on antibiotics!
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Well, Jesus wasn't a caveman. He ate a First-Century diet. But we don't live then, either, now do we? We live in 2009....
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The friend also mentioned an eating plan where one would eat no processed food. The rule of thumb is: If your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize it, don't eat it.
This sounds a small amount more reasonable to me, as a rule of thumb, anyway. Maybe microwave popcorn and Weight Watchers desserts and all the stuff made out of chemicals could fall away? Not a one of us needs any of that stuff that I can see (but feel free to disagree here...)
Maybe I need to put up a photo in the kitchen of my Gramma Etta and consult with her before I snack...or take her to the grocery with me, taped to my coupon caddy? Wait...coupons are almost all for processed food. Hmm.
I could do without carbs, but do I want to do that for my whole life? Uh-uh. I want a diet/lifestyle that feels like the bread of life.
I'll keep you posted.
