By Jay Engelbrecht
My grandmother quoted Scripture to warn me against the evils of alcohol. But today another culprit wreaks equal, if not greater, harm.
“Never take a drink and you”ll never become a drunk.” When my grandmother admonished me to avoid alcohol, she did me a world of good. Her advice spared me weight gain, high blood pressure, heart disease, certain types of cancer, diabetes, and dementia
Thanks, Grandma. Of course, she cared more about my character than the physical impact of alcohol. Her view on alcohol was influenced by Deuteronomy 21:20: “They shall say to the elders, “˜This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.”” She quoted extensively from the book of Proverbs; for example, “For drunkards and gluttons become poor” (23:21).
But today I”m not writing about whether or not Christians should drink alcohol. I want to consider, instead, another substance abuse far more prevalent, and many Christians imbibe without consideration or conscience.
Not Drunkards
Matthew J. Feinstein, lead researcher in an 18-year longitudinal study at Northwestern University, looked at his data and commented, “We don”t know why frequent religious participation is associated with development of obesity, but the upshot is these findings highlight a group that could benefit from targeted efforts at obesity prevention.”
Chances are, the person in the pew beside you is not a drunkard. Statistically, of the three people sitting beside you on Sunday, two of them are overweight or obese.
Are they gluttons? I doubt it.
Supply and Demand
Let me give you some history. For many centuries sugar was hard to come by. Sugar cane, the raw material, requires tropical weather””lots of rain and heat””and the tropics were off the beaten path. For centuries, sugar”s “high price and exotic origin meant that it was considered as either a spice or a drug,” according to A History of Britain, Volume II. Aristocratic families could afford only a pound or two a year, and if you were poor, forget about it.
That all changed in the 17th century when British profiteers stumbled upon three cash crops: tobacco, tea, and sugar, all harvested by another lucrative commodity, slaves.
In A History of Britain, Simon Schama writes, “From the beginning the British Empire was habit-forming. The genial encouragement of addiction was its specialty””a quiet smoke, a nice cup of tea, a sweet tooth. . . . “
Fast-forward to America”s heartland in the 1970s. Richard Nixon is president and wants to stay that way. He appoints Earl Butz as secretary of agriculture with a simple mandate: lower the cost of food.
United States agricultural policy did a U-turn under Butz, from paying farmers not to produce (keeping supply low and prices high) to paying farmers to produce (keeping supply high and food prices low.) Food prices declined, Nixon was reelected, and corn became America”s agricultural king.
King Corn
One unintended consequence of this was that the Iowa family farm virtually disappeared. But Iowa corporate farms, year after year, produced gargantuan yields. Cheap corn was everywhere, mountains of it.
In modern life, invention is the mother of necessity. Mass production of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) started in 1970, an import from Japan”s Agency of Industrial Science and Technology. Sugar had been inexpensive for years, but HFCS was dirt cheap thanks to corn subsidies. As a consequence, HFCS became ubiquitous in manufactured foods.
“Note well what is before you, and put a knife to your throat if you are a man given to gluttony,” warns Proverbs 23:1, 2. What”s before you in most packaged food is corn, often as HFCS. Growing up, our cattle grazed on grass until we decided to fatten them. Then we fed them corn; 100 grams of corn contains 64 calories, but 100 grams of HFCS contain 281 calories.
A century ago farmers turned corn into pork by feeding it to pigs, or into alcohol. Today, corporate farms sell corn to food conglomerates who morph it into processed foods.
Captain Kirk
Star Trek fans know the scenario. With ship and crew in danger, Captain Kirk implores Scotty for more power. Scotty responds, “I”m giving it all I”ve got,” and manages, exhausted, to hit warp speed, saving the USS Enterprise.
Your blood sugar likes to be even keeled, just like Scotty prefers coasting at sub-light speed. When you eat real food, energy flows through you so uncomplicatedly, you”re unaware of it.
But sugar and HFCS hit the bloodstream like a drunk driver at rush hour. Your liver, a dependable steady Eddie, senses danger. To your liver, sugar and HFCS are toxins””threats. In self-defense, the liver converts them to something less harmful, at least in the short term””fat.
The sugar you just chugged is altered (to fat), then transported like hazardous waste, a freight train speeding to your hips. Even as your liver works overtime, the pancreas””a high-strung, nervous Nellie””panics, pumping insulin like the old fire brigades. Frightened, your pancreas overreacts, whiplashing you from sugar high to sugar low.
Guess what””your normal, reliable flow of energy in the bloodstream just boomeranged from warp factor 10 to rock bottom, so you”re hungry again””even while the fat train rumbles along.
Metabolically, you don”t need to be a glutton to gain weight; it”s actually pretty easy. Do you ever feel tired and sluggish after a sugary meal? You”re packing away fat. Do you ever eat and still feel hungry? Craving sugar? You are packing on fat even as you contemplate what to grab next. The myth of Tantalus has come to life, always seeking to eat and drink, never satisfied.
I heard a mom tell her son, after he had just had a can of soda, “No more until you eat some real food.” Not to worry, the kid”s going to be hungry soon whether he drinks another soda or not; the sugar content guarantees it.
Had my grandmother known all this, she might have paraphrased the opening verse of Proverbs 20 to read, “Sugar is a mocker. And whoever is led astray by it is not wise.” Avoiding sugar spares us weight gain, high blood pressure, heart disease, certain types of cancer, diabetes, and dementia.
Wise Men
Another Scripture verse Grandma lived by was, “Walk with the wise and become wise” (Proverbs 13:20). Michael Pollan, a wise man, recommends elegantly simple, practical guidelines on what and how to eat. He says: first, eat food. Second, not too much. Third, mostly plants.
Proverbs 23:3 says, “Do not crave his delicacies, for that food is deceptive.” Each of us has more access to deceptive delicacies than even King Solomon in all his splendor.
I know you”ve seen lists of super foods: apples, beans, blueberries, garlic, oats, onions, oranges, pumpkin, strawberries, walnuts, almonds””gifts from a wise creator.
After God spoke us into creation he blessed us and said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food” (Genesis 1:29).
As an act of obedience, Daniel aligned his eating to scriptural wisdom, requesting “vegetables to eat and water to drink” (Daniel 1:12).
I”d love for my three children to be like Daniel””living from a different playbook in a deceptive culture. To that end, I pass along my grandmother”s advice to avoid alcohol. And I pray they”ll also have the sense not to overindulge sugar. Our bodies are gifts from God. The way we care for them is our gift to him.
Jay Engelbrecht teaches lifetime wellness at Ozark Christian College in Joplin, Missouri.
As a diabetic corn farmer I have an interesting viewpoint on this article. Jay took pot shots at so many things it’s difficult deciding where to begin.
“I want to consider, instead, another substance abuse far more prevalent, and many Christians imbibe without consideration or conscience.” OK, but leave the politics and mis-information out of the article. Whether you liked or dis-liked Mr. Nixon and Earl Butz and government farm policies do not belong in The Christian Standard.
“Then there was this statement: ” Iowa family farm virtually disappeared. But Iowa corporate farms …” Maybe I am over sensitive, but a) this is not limited to Iowa and b) this is not limited to just farms. Try and find a true mom and pop – family owned and operated anything these days. And when you use the term “corporate farms” what do you mean? What pops up in your mind? Yes, there are some mega-farms (kind of like mega-churches) running multiple thousands of acres where the owner never drives a tractor or pulls a weed. Most of the “corporate farms” are in reality just a family farm that grew to include several family members operating a one entity.
And if you are going to start with the attitude bigger is not better you need to include churches. If bigger isn’t better for farms it isn’t better for churches either.
Let’s consider this “A century ago farmers turned corn into pork by feeding it to pigs, or into alcohol.” They still do. But the economic and regulatory climate has gotten to be such that it is very difficult to raise a few pigs or a few head of cattle. We might get to the place every farm has a few pigs, chickens, some cattle, etc. But it is going to take an economic and social collapse to cause it.
“Growing up, our cattle grazed on grass until we decided to fatten them. Then we fed them corn; 100 grams of corn contains 64 calories, but 100 grams of HFCS contain 281 calories.” I think I understand what you are trying to say but this gives the average non-farm reader the idea cattle are being fed HFCS instead of corn or grass. REALLY ?”
And how is the fact 100 grams of corn contains 64 calories, but 100 grams of HFCS contain 281 calories” relevant to anything ? It is an interesting fact, but the two are not interchangable. You don’t put a spoonful of corn in your coffee.
“Today, corporate farms sell corn to food conglomerates who morph it into processed foods.” So? The word “morph” is a bit inflammatory by the way. Jay seems to have a dislike for corn. I seem to recall reading someplace “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth…” Yes, there are a lot more plants we could and should be using. But right here, right now, this is what we have.
Other than being filled with cliche’s and wrongly giving the impression Montgomery Scott preferred sub-light travel the Captain Kirk section seems fairly accurate. If Jay had expanded that a bit and spent a little less time on irrelevant stuff it would have been a pretty good article. As is it’s a personal commentary with a few good points thrown in.
As one of the 92,000* small Iowa family farmers, we take exception to many of the statements made by Jay Engelbrecht. We will address several of his statements in no order of importance.
The point(s) of the article should have been about “substance abuse”, “gluttony”, “not too much” and “over indulgence”. It is the opinion of many that abuse of any substance will become a problem. What should have been emphasized is lifestyle, improper diet, exercise and supervision.
The average Iowa farm (333 acres*) produces just as large of yields as the “notorious” corporate farms. We are very good at raising corn, soybeans, wheat, oats, vegetables, cattle, hogs, poultry and even fish. Today, each of us feeds 155* other people.
Necessity is the mother of innovation (invention). This country, this world, needs mass production. Efficiencies abound in the techniques used today to produce food. Consider this: it is estimated that 1 billion chicken wings were eaten on Super Bowl Sunday. With correct math that figures to be 500 million chickens who lost their ability to fly. With 330 million people in the USA, 3 persons per family, 110 million families, each family would need to process 5 chickens for just that one day. Feasible?
We grow weary of the constant beating of the subsidy drum. Yes, subsidies can be a problem, but consider all subsidies of the past and the present and then think carefully about what you wish for.
The disappearing family farm is a concept we don’t understand. If you are thinking of the Iowa landscape of the 40’s and 50’s, then yes, it has disappeared. But the days of a family of 4, 5 or 6 living on 80-160 acres and feeding 25* other people and barely making ends meet are in the past to stay.The words “British profiteers” ring of disdain for free-market capitalism – not a good thought.
Why was slavery written into the article? I’m surprised that the unfounded fears of GMOs, ethanol stealing from the food supply and racism weren’t thrown into the mix as well.
Daniel’s “act of obedience” to choosing vegetables begs this question: where do you find “Thou shall not eat any food but vegetables?” It is of interest that God did not approve of Cain’s sacrifice.
We do agree that we live in a deceptive culture. Was any thought given to checking some farm related websites? It would be good to do some research at NCGA, ASA, Ia. USDA, Farm Bureau and many others to enlighten your opinion.
We don’t agree with all U.S. Ag policy, past or present. It seems that the USDA has become more consumer and EPA driven than farmer. 84%* of the 2013 USDA budget was invested in non-farm programs. Even so, farmers are painted with a broad brush as bad guys. In many circles, Earl Butz is a folk hero. He threw out many restrictive programs allowing farmers to become true, independent entrepreneurs, and we have responded.
Even when writing opinion, it is good to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
1 Timothy 4:3-5
Ken Carlson and Lyle Ernst
* Facts from Iowa Ag Stats