KEY

5

Eat in Balanced Ways

After God created Adam and Eve, He gave them a very simple dining instruction: “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden” (Genesis 2:16). Did He say, “You may freely eat of every Krispy Kreme on the street”? No. Did He say, “You may freely eat of every chip in the bag”? No. He did not tell them to freely eat fast food, frozen pizza, or even low-fat cookies. God told Adam and Eve to eat from the garden. Even though that was centuries ago, long before fast food and microwaves, we would do well to follow His advice.

We have been inundated with an overwhelming amount of bad dietary information from past decades, which has clouded the simple truths of healthy eating: Eat the foods that come from God, as close as possible to the way God made them, and we can’t go wrong. We only get in trouble when we corrupt our bodies with foods human beings produce in laboratories and factories. Our bodies were not designed to get nutrition in these forms or from all the added chemicals they include.

Once when I was teaching on the subject of food, I asked the congregation to repeat after me, “I am free to eat!” The looks of fear on people’s faces were amazing; they did not really believe the statement I asked them to make. So often people live in bondage to food and food cravings, struggle with weight, and believe for years that they are not free to eat! They believe quite the opposite; for them, meals come with rules, regulations, or anxiety. But when too many rules and directives oppress a person’s spirit, it longs for freedom. It rebels! This is one reason so many diets fail. They are all about restrictions, and the human spirit is designed for freedom. This is why “I am free to eat!” is such a powerful message and such an unsettling one for some people. They want to believe they are at liberty to eat but have had the opposite message driven into them for too long.

Let me say today: You are free to eat. You may not be free to eat everything you want to eat every time you want to eat it, but if you will aim to eat in a healthy, balanced way, you will definitely be free to eat and enjoy!

The Goal: Balance

There’s no denying that we love the delicate, creamy tastes of bread, pastries, and other foods made with white flour. And there’s no point in even discussing our built-in taste for refined sugar! But these types of foods cause massive insulin responses in our bodies. This is only one reason eating well is so important.

Eating a healthy, balanced diet is not difficult; it is actually easy. It also keeps us obedient to God because the Bible tells us to remain balanced so the devil cannot find an entrance into our lives (1 Peter 5:8). Excess in any area of our lives is the devil’s playground, but balance is a spiritually safe and healthy place.

In eating, as in all areas of life, common sense is key. It is not reasonable to think one cookie will bring your health crashing down. Equally unreasonable is the thought that you can eat a full dessert twice every day with no consequences. Moderation is the right path in all things. If you can eat an occasional sweet at a birthday party or a dinner party without overindulging that is a wonderful part of life.

A friend of mine says she absolutely cannot eat even one cookie without eating the whole box, so she knows not to have that first cookie. The Bible says that if your eye offends you, you should pluck it out (Matthew 18:9). What this means is that if one thing in our lives threatens our downfall or causes us major problems, we need to cut it out of our lives. We do not need to go to such extremes most of the time. A little sugar or an occasional pasta will not do irreparable damage to most of us. Most of us are mature enough to mix the occasional indulgence into a general pattern of wholesome, balanced meals.

Look for that balance on your plate. A variety of color is a good sign; it means you are getting a nice mix of vitamins and antioxidants. Allow yourself some carbohydrates for energy—preferably whole-grain ones like brown rice, whole wheat, corn kernels, or beans—but make sure they are balanced by plenty of protein and healthy fat, such as olive oil or avocado. Even if you eat refined carbohydrates, such as sugar or white rice, eating protein and fat at the same time will mix everything in your stomach and delay the rate at which your body absorbs the carbohydrates—resulting in less of a blood-sugar spike. This is why a little ice cream at the end of a meal is a better idea than a donut by itself in the middle of the afternoon.

Due to gluten intolerance some people must stay away from things that contain gluten, but thankfully lots of gluten-free foods are available these days. Learn your own body and make adjustments as needed. Some people cannot eat any sugar due to diabetes or any gluten or any milk products due to allergies. I had a period of about 10 years when I got a headache if I ate beef, so I avoided it. But then my body chemistry changed and now I can eat beef without having a problem. I don’t believe that the exact same plan works for everyone. We have to know our bodies and find an eating plan that works for us.

Above all, don’t stress over what you eat. Realize that healthy eating simply involves rotating a variety of good foods through your week. More than one expert in nutrition has told me that if we eat the same food daily or too frequently we often develop an allergy to it. We need variety and balance. Most foods are good for you! Just don’t fall into the American habit of relying too heavily on a few. As long as God’s cornucopia crosses your plate each week, and most of it looks more or less like it did when it came from the farm, you will be just fine.

Five Ways to Put Balanced Eating into Practice

1. Make Food Sacred
Learn to do everything you do for God’s glory, including eating. Look at your dinner plate and ask if what you are about to eat is mostly what God created for you, basically in its original form. Don’t view eating as a secular event that has nothing to do with your spiritual life or your relationship with God. Understand that God is interested in the well-being of your entire body, soul and spirit, and choose to honor Him with what you eat.

I hope you will determine today to make good choices when you eat. Each time you choose good healthy foods, you are choosing life, which is God’s gift to you. He wants you to look great and feel great, to be healthy, and to have a good life. You can do these things if you keep in mind that your body is God’s temple and that the fuel you put into it determines how well it will operate and for how long.

2. Avoid Refined Carbohydrates
Much of America’s soaring rates of obesity and related incidences of heart disease and stroke are caused by the huge amount of refined carbohydrates we eat. They come primarily in the forms of white flour (in bread, crackers, pasta, tortillas, cakes, cookies, donuts, pastries, pretzels), potato (French fries and potato chips), sugar, corn syrup, and other sweeteners. On average, Americans today eat 33 pounds more sugar per year than Americans did about 30 years ago and 64 pounds more grains (mostly white flour) than we did back then. That needs to stop.

How can we make better food choices? Let’s make it really simple: Always choose the side salad or the vegetable instead of the fries. Don’t eat the rice unless it’s brown, and switch to multigrain bread (unless you need gluten-free). None of this is a hardship! Diabetes is a hardship. Having no energy is a hardship. Cancer is a hardship. Good health is easy.

3. Be Fierce About Fruits and Vegetables
Cheap carbohydrates do not provide much nutrition, but they taste good, so if we do not make an effort to seek out fresh fruits and veggies, our bodies will happily eat themselves sick on fries, bread, and sugar. The best defense is a good offense, and I want you to be offensive if that’s what it takes to put something decent into your body. For example, base your restaurant choices and dinner menus on vegetables, not meats or breads. I really enjoy restaurants that offer several choices of steamed vegetables. You can also use fruit or raw vegetables to nip hunger in the bud. Gaining weight or becoming unhealthy by eating too many fruits or vegetables is impossible; their water content and fiber prevent that, so eat them aggressively and think of them as armor for your battle against junk food. Here are some more helpful tips.

Make sure you have at least one fruit or vegetable with every meal. Vegetables are even better than fruit because they contain less natural sugar.

For hors d’oeuvres, serve raw vegetables with a healthy dip.

Make fruit your snack of choice.

Don’t go more than three hours without eating something. Keeping your blood glucose level stable is wise. Eating often keeps your metabolism working. Be firm about this decision, and if you forget to take healthy snacks with you when you go out, then stop at the grocery store and get some.

4. Replace Saturated Fat and Trans-Fat with Unsaturated Fat
The easiest way to reduce your risk of heart disease is to eat fewer red meats, dairy products, and processed foods made with hydrogenated oils, and to eat more fish, poultry, olive oil, nuts, and avocados. This does not mean you cannot have a steak once in a while, but it does mean you should not eat one daily. Here are several good suggestions.

Eat fish twice a week for dinner.

Eat turkey breast or tuna sandwiches instead of roast beef or ham.

Avoid bacon and sausage. Try turkey sausage as a replacement for pork sausage.

Use olive oil instead of margarine on bread and instead of mayonnaise in dressings.

Add nuts and avocados instead of excessive cheese to sandwiches and salads.

5. Balance Your Plate
A typical American dinner plate often includes a huge pile of ribs or fried chicken, a mound of mashed potatoes, a big roll, and a tiny portion of salad or coleslaw trying not to get pushed off the plate. If your goal is to eat a balanced diet, you can still eat all these foods (and whatever else you most enjoy eating); simply change the ratio. That salad or other vegetable (or maybe two vegetables) should take up half your plate, while the meat and starch each get a quarter of it. A balanced plate leads to a balanced diet!

Act on It

Which of the five actions in this key will you take so you can choose your foods wisely and eat in a balanced way? Write them down, commit to them, and start today.