Created to Eat and Enjoy in Harmony

Part One: How our relationship with food was supposed to be.

There is more in you of good thank you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. — J. R. R. Tolkien

Cover design and illustration by Emily Barnett

Disney: the place of fairytales and castle banquets, where princesses parade around in flowing gowns served by men and women in black ties. It didn’t matter what we ordered because nearly every meal was included in our package, thanks to our travel agent. We sported dresses and sandals with straightened or curled hair, imagining we were princesses, too, as the butlers placed our five-star food in front of us. 

I had heard of other people making trips to Disney all my life. I saw advertisements for it on my VHS Walt Disney tapes. I quietly asked my mom once, when I was only five or six, but even then I knew the answer that would come. “I’m sorry, Lara,” she said. “We just don’t have that kind of money.”

In my final year of high school, one of my best friends proposed a dreamy idea: What if we skipped out on all the grad trips our school organized and used the money to go to Disney World instead? We laid on her bunk bed together as she scrolled through the various Disney resorts and packages, and I nodded along but refused to give my heart to the idea yet. I knew my family couldn’t afford it.

But something magical, Disney-like happened: My mom heard the idea and did everything she could to make that dream a reality. Over March break, we boarded a plane (both of us for the first time) and landed in Florida at a Disney resort. 

Here we were at one of the princess’ castles, yet what was seventeen-year-old Lara doing during all this? Examining the menu for the “cleanest” and “wholest” food and wondering if I could ask for the sugary sauces to not be drizzled over my chicken and vegetables. I had been up at six o’clock that morning doing a forty-minute Pilates routine in the corner of our hotel room and my glutes still ached from it—how could I sacrifice all that hard work with excess sugar and fat? How could I poison my body with all these unnatural, non-organic chemicals and products? 

Later that evening, when our parents had turned into their hotel rooms and allowed us to go to the roller coasters, my friends bought elephant ears and candied apples while I found a stand selling all-natural, sugar-free, fruit popsicles.

“It’s Disney World, Lara!” one of my friends exclaimed. “Stop worrying about being a health nut!”

I laughed and shrugged, but a vice squeezed my stomach inside. I don’t think I’m able to not worry about it.

During this time of my life, I allowed myself one “cheat meal” a week where I could eat whatever I wanted for that particular meal or dessert without concerning myself with calories, ingredients, or nutrition facts. But even within this rule, my heart pounded as I scooped my favorite fudgy ice cream into my mouth. What will this sugar do to me? Will I have cancer someday because of this? Will my future children pay the price for this indulgence? Will I wake up with a little roll over my jeans? 

After eating, I’d close myself in the bathroom, lift my shirt off my stomach, and stand sideways in front of the mirror to examine if my flat abs had changed. I’d squint my eyes. Was my lower stomach bulging a bit more? Regardless of what I saw, I usually added an extra workout to my day to make up for it, doing the hardest cardio video I could tolerate and gulping down water to help “flush out” my body. 

I came to a point in my life where I gave up my cheat meals because they were cause for more stress and agony than they were worth. Enjoy food? That seemed like an oxymoron.

Created to Eat

God created humanity in his image and placed the man and woman in an abundant, flourishing garden he had planted. He called them to not just cultivate and care for the garden and its creatures but to enjoy its lush produce (Gen. 1:29–30). What does this tell us about our Creator’s view of food and the body? What does this show us about his intentions and desires for his people?

Consider your body, not with the various ailments and struggles it may have, but its original makeup. When you’re hungry or thirsty, your body sounds the alarm bells: hunger pains, stomach growls, dizziness, shakiness, weakness, dry mouth or extra saliva, heart palpitations, nausea, and headaches. Some of us even feel a bit grumpy or emotional. When your body is in need of replenishing, hormone-like substances in the brain send signals to the intestines and stomach that tell them to contract, which causes hunger pangs and embarrassing growling noises. 

If you’ve been around children, you’ve seen this play out in a body with a bit less self-control than yours—more meltdowns, higher emotions, and extra complaints. All three of my infants ate like clockwork; as we approached the two-hour mark, they started whining and squirming as their little mouths smacked and rooted. If I tried to press them to go a little bit longer, they quickly became inconsolable. As they got older, they would pull at my clothes, trying to get to their milk source. No one taught them these reactions and instincts; their little bodies were created this way to survive. 

It’s considered a medical concern when a person loses their appetite, and medical professionals have needed to create drugs that stimulate hunger cues. It’s not a victory when we lose the desire to eat but something to treat because it means our body is not functioning the way it should.

We were made to eat—our hunger has no part in the fall. The call to enjoy the fruit of the garden came before sin. When God created us, he did not intend for us to be self-sufficient like him, but to require replenishment for our bodies with various kinds of foods and drinks. To need food is not a sin but a reality of who we are: people dependent on their Creator and fellow creatures.  

Created to Enjoy

But we were not only created to eat but to also enjoy food. God could have made gray gruel our only source of sustenance. He could have given food no taste or texture or skipped over creating taste buds that taste and noses that smell. Yet God created food for every color of the rainbow and formed a variety of tastes from sour to sweet to savory and everything in between. He gave man the knowledge to make food cold or hot, soft or hard, lumpy or smooth. Think of the diversity of milk and eggs alone and what they are capable of becoming or doing. How many different ways do we prepare potatoes? “Boil ‘em, mash ‘em, put ‘em in a stew!” as Sam said to Sméagol.

The Bible further confirms God’s intention for us to enjoy food. While Scripture certainly warns against the dangers of alcohol and labels drunkenness a sin, he likewise deems it as a source of joy and celebration alongside all food: “You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man’s heart” (Ps. 104:14–15). Notice how none of the purposes listed with wine, oil, and bread are practical; they are extravagant forms of celebration and enjoyment. 

Our culture has labeled certain foods (particularly those mentioned in that psalm) as “bad” foods. We attribute morality to inanimate food that cannot do right or wrong, yet God gave all of Eden (aside from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil) for Adam and Eve to enjoy. This isn’t just a problem in our day, but apparently came up in Paul’s as well. He wrote to Timothy of false teachers: “They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer” (1 Tim. 4:3–5 NIV). All of food God gave for us to receive and each with thanksgiving.

While God instituted feasts to remember his acts in history and to worship him, God also used them to cultivate community and celebrate. Though the Passover lamb was eaten quickly to remind the people how God brought them out of the land of Egypt as Pharaoh pursued them, the peace offering was a voluntary sacrifice of gratitude to God and organized in such a way that it must be enjoyed with friends and family. God called the Israelites on the seventh month of the year to a grand Sabbath rest which involved not only the day of atonement but also the Feast of Booths to rejoice and rest in how God had provided for Israel through the harvest. 

These feasts points us to a greater feast: The wedding supper of Christ and his Bride, the church. 

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”—for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.” (Rev. 19:6–9)

There, Christ will drink wine again for the first time since he instituted the Lord’s Supper during the Passover meal before his crucifixion. It will be a time of celebration and communion with all the saints of history, past, present, and future. 

Our Heavenly Father, by common grace, gave us food for joy, not just to keep us alive.

Created to Enjoy Together

God not only created us to eat and to enjoy eating, but to enjoy eating together. A study in the UK performed at Oxford found that “those who eat socially more often feel happier and are more satisfied with life, are more trusting of others, are more engaged with their local communities, and have more friends they can depend on for support. Evening meals that result in respondents feeling closer to those with whom they eat involve more people, more laughter and reminiscing, as well as alcohol. A path analysis suggests that the causal direction runs from eating together to bondedness rather than the other way around. I suggest that social eating may have evolved as a mechanism for facilitating social bonding.”¹

Another study found similar findings: “Across all meal-sharing conditions, compared to all other social interactions, the preponderance of data showed that participants felt both more agreeable, more pleasant, and less dominant and submissive. (In other words, the power dynamics were negated.) Not only did they feel that they were behaving more agreeably, but participants sharing a meal also felt better about their partners.”² Yet another study discovered that “frequent family dinners can prevent issues with eating disorders, alcohol and substance use, violent behavior, depression, and suicidal thoughts in adolescents.”³

While secular science may attribute this to evolution, believers know God ingrained this in us when he sculpted us from the dust. We know that God declared that it was not good for man to be alone (Gen. 2:18), and within that, he created feasting and eating meals together as a way of drawing us into the community he created us for. Not only does sharing a meal together bring joy, but it also draws us into a better connection with our friends and family, which in turn creates positive effects in us. Eating together is an infinite loop within our physical bodies and spiritual selves where one God-given need is filled, which in turn fills another God-given need. 

Feasting together wasn’t a practice left behind in the Old Covenant. One of the means of grace to inaugurate the New Covenant was the Lord’s Supper—a parallel to the Passover meal. Where the Passover meal called for a hurried feast with the death of an animal, the Last Supper reflected on the death of Christ himself in our place and pointed to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb in heaven. This meal was never intended to be taken in solitude but in communion with all believers.

Throughout the book of Acts, the new believers regularly broke bread together as they sat under the disciples’ teaching (Acts 2:42, 46; 20:7, 11; 27:35). As they did, they rejoiced as one body despite the persecution that raged outside their homes. Joy in Christ, their union together as his body, and the common grace of enjoying food together kept them united and encouraged. Jesus himself knew this and regularly ate meals in the homes of others as he ministered to them (Matt. 9:10–17; Luke 11:37–54). 

This reality can’t be experienced though as long as we have a disordered relationship with food. “Food brings us together. It’s an opportunity to share, to gather, to bond. And when you’re relaxed about eating, that dimension opens up to you. But we can only get there when we begin to let go of what society has told us about food and our bodies.”⁴

Disordered Eating Disrupts Created Order

Seeing how we were created by the wise and perfect hands of God, we see how disordered eating (like my story in the beginning) is the result of the fall that disordered all that God had set to sing in harmony. When we starve ourselves or stop listening to our hunger cues, we are not living the way God created us. When we treat food as a tool rather than a means of enjoyment and celebration, we ignore one of God’s good, free gifts given to us by his common grace. 

This isn’t meant to come as an indictment or condemnation. Disordered eating isn’t often something we choose but a reality of the fall, which we’ll look more closely at in the next chapter. Disordered eating often forms from mental health struggles, sometimes as a symptom of a bigger problem such as trauma. It can be formed by the messages this world throws at us via social media, magazines,​​ advertising, and even those who claim to have our well-being in mind. It can be passed down from family members who struggled with the same issues as us and unintentionally taught us their own disordered thinking and practices. Sometimes they feel even more out of our control through medical issues that have made eating all the more difficult. 

Rather, I hope to encourage you: the battle you face with food and your body each day isn’t God’s good plan for you. God did not create you to face so many negative emotions every time you walk through the grocery store or open your cupboards. He created you to be joyfully nourished by food in community with others. You don’t need to live this way for the rest of your life—God offers you freedom from your disordered relationship with food. 

1. Robin Dunbar, “Breaking Bread: the Functions of Social Eating,” National Library of Medicine, February 21, 2017, accessed June 5, 2024, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6979515/.

2. Susan Whitbourne PhD, ABPP, “The Simplest Way for a Couple to Boost Intimacy,” Psychology Today, September 8, 2015, accessed June 5, 2024, https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201509/the-simplest-way-couple-boost-intimacy.

3. Erica Jackson Curran, “Science-Based Benefits of Family Mealtime,” ed. Karen Cilli, Parents, May 23, 2023, accessed June 5, 2024, https://www.parents.com/recipes/tips/unexpected-benefits-of-eating-together-as-a-family-according-to-science/.

4. Abby Langer RD, Good Food, Bad Diet: The Habits You Need to Ditch Diet Culture, Lose Weight, and Fix Your Relationship with Food Forever (Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Simon & Schuster Canada, 2021), 4.