The History of Food and Health
Proverbs 23:20-21 Don't make friends with people who drink too much wine and eat too much food. Those who eat and drink too much become poor. They sleep too much and end up wearing rags.
You don’t have to be an expert to realise that as a society, we’re getting fatter. Just look around at the body shapes standing in the queue at your local fast food outlet. Here are some startling statistics. Now, they come from the US, but wherever the western diet is being consumed, exactly the same thing is happening.
In 1910, one in five American adults were overweight and one in twenty-five were obese. Today, two thirds are overweight and half of those, or one third of the whole population, are obese.
And it’s killing them … and the rest of us, because as I said, this tragedy is playing itself out in every country that’s adopted the so-called western diet, high in refined carbohydrates and bad fats. So, even though overall, life expectancies are on the increase – so are the diseases of the western diet: heart attack, stroke, diabetes and cancer.
According to the World Health Organisation, 56.4 million people died globally in 2015. The top two killers were heart attack and stroke, together accounting for fifteen million deaths. And yet a century ago, heart attacks and strokes were as rare as hen’s teeth.
There’s a lot of focus these days on terrorism, and understandably so. But by comparison, in 2015, fewer than thirty thousand people died as a result of terrorism. Yes, it’s a huge tragedy, but to put it in perspective, that’s just point two of a percent of the deaths that resulted from cardiovascular disease in the same year.
My point here is not that terrorism is insignificant, but that the largely ignored tragedy arising from our western diet, is unbelievably massive.
Writes David Gillespie, in his book “Sweet Poison” – in just 100 years, the chances of a given US adult being overweight have gone from very unlikely to highly probably and the trend is accelerating. If it continues, by 2036, a person with a normal Body Mass Index will be as rare as an eight-leaf clover.
It turns out that the junk we’re eating … is killing us. Of course, the Bible was written before all this, but even then, here is God’s counsel:
Don’t make friends with people who drink too much wine and eat too much food. Those who eat and drink too much become poor. They sleep too much and end up wearing rags. (Proverbs 23:20-21)
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
Blessed by this devotion?
Share it with a friend!
Respond