Over the years of reading my articles, you may have noticed a pattern. While I occasionally talk about the latest ooey-gooey dessert, or a traditional comfort food we must have once in a while, my themes are mostly health-oriented. I’m all about a food reformation. I’m convinced that, one cook at a time, we can cure the dietary errors of the 20th century that gave us the modern American diet (MAD) along with a host of modern chronic diseases.


Of course, I’m not the only one writing about this need. Everywhere you look you’ll find health researchers suggesting we:

• Reduce sugar intake (no more than one 12 oz. soda per week, for instance).
• Eat only healthy fats (avoid deep fat fried foods).
• Organize your cooking by working off menus.
• Rediscover traditional meals (don’t skip breakfast).
• Live a muscular lifestyle (get 30 minutes of sweaty exercise most days).
• Eat vegetables (buy enough vegetables for 5 daily servings).
• Eat more fruits and nuts (eat antioxidant rich foods, like berries).
• Choose healthy snacks (prepare a daily snack plate, or bag).
• Minimize meat consumption (eat twice as much plant protein as animal protein).
• Eat whole grains (eat bread with more fiber than sugar).
• Cook your own food (or be on good terms with a cook).
• Develop more ways to eat vegetables (eat a green salad and/or smoothie daily).
• Get a little midday sunshine most days.

The above leads me to my main point: The Bible opens in Genesis with a poetic retelling of the Creation story. Between the creation of earth and man, we read about the creation of our food supply—of the sun that shines upon the earth and makes the seeds to grow and yield fruit; then the creation of living creatures, those of the sea, the winged fowl, and finally the animals that walk the land.


In these Creation steps, Genesis records the repeating benediction, “And God saw that it was good.” Could this story possibly give us some clues as to how we should eat? I sense in this narrative a blessing of the food supply; I imagine God giving us a meaningful stare along with a divine nudge towards the food He created and meant us to eat.

If we objectively take a look at today’s prevalent MAD diet, we see that while the industrialization of food makes for a profitable business, its dietary outcome is very different from what God created. Such a contrast: God's work on the one hand and man's factory food on the other.


As we consistently try to make healthy changes (to rediscover the traditional food of the Bible), we just might experience a deep reverence for food as originally designed. Maybe learning how to cook should begin with reading about the Creation of the ingredients—and cultivating a reverence for food in the natural form.

Lastly, we don’t cook and eat well because we fear death. Rather, we cook and eat well because we love life and wish to experience its full potential. And it’s to that end that we want to make the best health- and diet-choices possible.


Now, to thank you for reading this through, I want to share a recipe for a healthified sweet potato casserole (just in time for the upcoming holidays). Sweet potatoes are rich in carotene and less glycemic than white potatoes, so it’s a good way to add a more nutrient-dense, comfort food dish to a holiday menu.

The creator of this recipe, Skip Hellewell, wanted to reduce the amount of sugar while keeping a delicious flavor. Most sweet potato casserole recipes are a sugar disaster, so Skip called on the natural sweetness of some added fruit as a way to reduce the amount of sugar, and substituted pecans for the usual marshmallow topping. He found that when you reduce the sweetness, the flavor becomes more important. We think he nailed it!