A (2:40)

Yeah, it's wild. It's wild. I mean, you're like, what I think, because he has no television, they say sometimes they watch stuff on their, I guess, computer, but no television. You have all this extra time. His forewords. So I've read the one in your book. And then Joe Winger, he did one for her cookbook and then he did mine. And there's such a beautiful blend of his own experience. Like he says, by and large, American churches embrace GMOs. The church nurseries and vacation Bible schools are full of junk, you know, chemical laced goodies. The youth group routinely feasts on pizza and Coke. And then he talks about how we have all of these convenience foods and yet the health is rough. So, you know, is, is there something here that we need to fix? So in his forward, you know, he's got this. It's always very direct information. But then he does such a great job of also, like, really commending the writer. And he talks about how your book has a gem on every page. Oh, it's so cool. I think, like, that's the best part of writing. If you're like, I really want to write, but I'm nervous. Like, well, just find someone you really like to do your forward and then it will all feel worth it. So tell us your story, Andy. I would imagine a lot of people have not heard the phrase Christian nutrition. And I agree with you. It's like the farming and the home cooking and how you prepare it all goes hand in hand. I mean, we're, we are not the best at it, but we, you know, we're always learning and trying and growing. So what is your path to writing a book like this?

B (4:04)

Yeah, and there's not a whole lot of me in the book. And that was intentional because I don't actually have a background in nutrition or in any like, sort of serious, you know, theological study. So really I'm kind of just an average Joe. I was actually a submarine officer in the Navy, was my first career. And during that process, I was always a pretty high performer, somebody who was pretty dependable and, you know, high achieving. And then for whatever reason, I just developed these pretty intense anxiety symptoms during my time on a submarine. And some people might say, okay, well that's pretty natural. I wouldn't want to be on a submarine. No, it was definitely something that came out of left field for me, and I kind of had to look at, okay, what is. What is my diet? What does my lifestyle look like? I know things. Things can be really complicated on a submarine when it comes to, I'm under the water. Yeah. When it comes to circadian rhythm, the only time you get to. To look outside is through the periscope maybe once every couple days. You know, you can get a little bit messed up. But no, I think there was a lot to do with. With lifestyle factors, things that kind of just crept up on me as I. As I look back at what was my diet like? You know, a lot of it was this kind of 90s, early thousands. You know, just the low fat. You know, all the trends that we saw, that they were kind of in my household that people told you, you know, were good for you. That's kind of what I grew up on. And then, you know, just standard junk food like. Like you mentioned that Joel mentions all the. All the standard Western diet was kind of what I was doing. And I didn't think that I was particularly unhealthy because you would have looked at me and said, oh, that guy's in shape. You know, stuff like that. But so. So I had these issues. And then my wife and I also had unexplained infertility. And, you know, both of us were, you know, looked pretty in shape, and we didn't look like there would be anything that would. Causing. Be causing that issue. And so we decided to take a deep dive and say, okay, how can we partner with God here to figure out health, figure out what we need to do to make sure that our body is ready to do the work that he's got for us. And so that led me down this line of nutrition and all things health and wellness. And as I'm reading these books, a lot of the secular health and wellness books, there's so much conflicting information. First of all, it's so hard for anyone unless you really know what you're doing and you really know what you're looking for. It's so hard to really get some sort of cohesive narrative that you can cling on to, because everything, everyone wants to talk about their piece of the pie. And that piece of the pie is the most important thing every time, no matter what kind of book you're reading. And then the other key problem that I was finding is that a lot of these books just didn't align with my Christian faith. They had this view of the body that I didn't think was very inspired, you know, you know, a lot of people talk about how we were just these kind of highly evolved meat suits, right? And, and you got to control your meat suit with your, with your diet and, but ultimately it doesn't really mean anything. So there are a lot of things that I thought just, just didn't really click. And so as I was looking for, for more biblical approaches to nutrition, there are a handful of them out there, but so many of them are so surface level when it comes to the theology. And I really wanted to get that right because I think so many people use Bible verses out of context to justify some sort of trend. That's a temptation that we all face as we're approaching the Bible, especially as people who are maybe untrained in biblical interpretation. And so I wanted to make sure that I was doing justice to what, what God has provided us in terms of food and health. And what do these things actually mean? You can look at it so many different ways, but I looked at it as Jesus is the person. Jesus is God incarnate, who we're supposed to be clinging to as Christians. And Jesus also reveals himself in the Bible as many things, but among those, he's the redeemed body, he, he's the bread of life, and he's the divine physician, right? These are all things that he's known as. And those are really the three aspects that interrelate to, in a study of nutrition. So I said this is, this is where I have to go with this, is to, to follow, follow all these themes through to their logical conclusion and then provide people with all the practical details that kind of arise out of that. And so I really wanted to marry the, the faith piece and the science piece in a way that provided a holistic narrative that people kind of a one stop shop for. How should I, as a Christian or as somebody who's maybe, maybe a seeker, you know, somebody who's, who's maybe open to religion or open to thinking about this a little bit differently. How can I think about this in accordance with God's design and how he's designed me, how he's designed food and, and what he's designed us for?

A (9:21)

It is super interesting. It is interesting the things that are not talked about in the church. And Joel even says like, does God care? Does he care about how we raise our chickens? Does he care about how we produce corn? And he says if, you know, he knows if a sparrow is falling, then you would think he would care about the life of the pig or the life of even a cabbage. So let's start there because that does affect then our health. You talk in this book, Nourished by design, about the farming practices, and I've had different farmers on, and I think if you have the space or you have the time and are able to go meet your local farmers or you have the space to be able to grow some things, I think it helps a lot. It's going to help with your spiritual life because there's all sorts of truths in the garden, and it's going to help you with the types of foods that you have. So you talk about, in this book, American Farmers, and you talk about some of the things that are going on in modern agriculture, and one of them is glyphosate. So people, I mean, this word is getting thrown around everywhere. And I don't know if I had heard it 10 years ago. I mean, now it is getting thrown around everywhere. We've only talked about it once, briefly on the show, and I had no idea. This is what you write in the book. Glyphosate was originally patented as an antibiotic.

B (10:39)

Yeah. Crazy, isn't it?

A (10:41)

Yes.

B (10:41)

That's shocking because everything you hear now is that doctors are overprescribing antibiotics and that we should avoid that for our children. Like, we shouldn't be just going and getting antibiotics when our kids have a sniffle. Right. That's common knowledge now. But then we're eating this food that's been sprayed with glyphosate, which was patented as an antibiotic because that's what it does. It kills plants, it kills microbes. And so what did this thing actually do? These brilliant scientists at Monsanto, they came up with this ingenious way to kill weeds, to kill plants and pests. And so they targeted this specific pathway that plants use called the shikimate pathway. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing it correctly, but in this pathway, these plants are able to create amino acids, these specific aromatic amino acids like tryptophan, and they need these specific amino acids to create proteins that help themselves to continue to do the things that plants do. And because they can't make these specific amino acids that are necessary to make those proteins, they end up ultimately dying. And that's. That's the mechanism by which these. These plants are killed. However, what they didn't really realize is that our whole body is like an organic garden. Like, our guts are full of these microbes. And these microbes also, like plants, are using this pathway and so when you're consuming this, it is like an antibiotic because it's selectively killing off a lot of these really helpful bacteria that are in your gut that do all sorts of wonderful things for you. And we can get into that as well. But a lot of people are becoming more familiar with how important gut health is to overall health. If we're killing off all these good bugs and then a lot of times it leaves the bad bugs. And so the bad bugs are wreaking all sorts of havoc. They're, they're overgrowing in your gut and you're killing off the good ones. And so part of the, you know, that's just one of the problems with glyphosate is what it does to your gut, what it goes to your microbiome. There are other problems with it too, but it is a becoming a serious problem. And I think you hit the nail if we think about it more like an antibiotic. Like you're having a low dose antibiotic every time you're eating a vegetable such as a strawberry, which is the, the most, the vegetable or fruit that has the most pesticide residues, that if you just go to the store and you're going to get, you know, regular strawberries, conventionally farmed strawberries, you're eating a boatload of these chemicals. Right? So there are certain things that people, I'm not saying that. And, and the organic label, I don't think is, is a fantastic label. And I think Joel, Joel has a lot of reasons why from his experience, he, he doesn't like the organic label. However, one thing that it is good at is it is good at distinguishing foods that have been sprayed heavily with glyphosate compared to those that haven't. And so going organic is a good way to, to get some of these things out of your diet. And looking at, if you're not interested in going all the way organic, looking at the environmental working groups, Clean 15 and Dirty Dozen are the ones that if you're just, you know, organizing your cart around those, you're going to want to get rid of the strawberries and the spinach. Those things are always number one and two on the Dirty Dozen list for the things that have the most pesticide residues. Things like avocados and onions and sweet potatoes are typically on the clean 15. So you can, you, you might be able to go, you know, if you're in a pinch, right. You can go non organic on those ones. So yeah, that's, there are very practical ways to deal with this. But it is a huge problem.

A (14:32)

I did not know that it was originally patented as an antibiotic. I mean, we try to avoid antibiotic because. Right. It wipes out your gut biome good and bad. And they say it takes a long time for that to come back, if it will ever even come back as it originally was. And so we're pretty cautious about antibiotic use. So what an interesting thing. We're cautious about oral antibiotic use. But then you start to learn, well, this is in the meat and this, you know, know if this could be sprayed on your vegetables and then certainly there's a lot of glyphosate in the ultra processed foods, correct? Or could be.

B (15:05)

Oh, absolutely, yeah. Any plants, you know, wheat, soy, you know, a lot of these commercial plants, corn, a lot of these things are going to have glyphosate residues. The sugar cane, I guess, actually gets cured. There's a specific process to dry out the sugar cane at the end, so that can have lots of glyphosate. So, you know, you talk about what, what kind of stuff is in our ultra processed food. I mean, corn syrup, sugar, wheat, corn, soy. Right. So all those commercial crops where we're deriving them from these, these huge monocultures of just lifeless, you know, dead dirt with, you know, propped up by, by petrochemical fertilizers and, you know, plant poisons. Right. That's what you're eating when you're eating ultra processed foods.

A (15:55)

Wow. I loved earlier how you used the phrase early thousands. I don't know if I've ever heard anybody say that. Everyone always says early 2000s and it's only one extra syllable. But I feel like it's so much better to just say early thousands. As the air turns crisp and the holidays draw near, comfort becomes the best gift of all. And for me, Quince delivers comfort that lasts. They have it all. 50 Mongolian cashmere sweaters made for everyday wear. Denim that never goes out of style. Silk tops and skirts that add polish and down outerwear built to take on the season. Perfect for gifting or, let's be honest, upgrading your own wardrobe before those holiday photos. Honestly, Quince's Italian wool coats are at the top of my list because the cut feels designer, the quality rivals high end brands, but the price is about half because Quinn's works directly with ethical top tier factories and skips the middlemen. So you get luxury quality without the luxury markup. 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This month, don't wait to reach out. Whether you're checking in on a friend or reaching out to a therapist yourself, Better help makes it easier to take that first step. Our listeners get 10 off their first month at betterhelp.com 1000hours that's betterhelp hlp.com 1000hours so I grew up before then. I grew up before the early thousands. And I do feel like that was an advantage because everybody still bought some stuff. I mean, so I would say probably most families, like, you're getting some stuff, you know, your kids going to lunch, they got to take their lunch. So you're, you just have some packaged things. And I grew up when it wasn't filled with glyphosate. So what would you say to the parent who's super overwhelmed? I mean, it's so overwhelming to think that it's not only these ultra processed foods that have glyphosate in them, but also a ton of the things that would appear to be healthy have them too. And so it's a tricky thing because obviously if you're going to get organic strawberries, sometimes they are so much money. So then the answer would probably be like you get them in season because they'd be cheaper in season. And then you can, or you don't have them out of season or you get frozen. I know people talk about that, but it is a pretty overwhelming thing to confront. Additionally, people didn't used to have to. And so I feel like it's a skill set that's missing a generation or two or.

B (20:46)

Yeah, exactly. I don't think we're really prepared to deal with this broken food culture.

A (20:50)

Yes.

B (20:51)

Right. Like, especially this is not something that you learn if you're a product of this broken food culture is, if anything, you've just been indoctrinated into it. Right. And so the question is, how do you, how do you do something different? How do you take the narrow path when everyone around you and, and when the entire system is set up to give you junk, right? And that can be difficult. I think part of the, you know, part of it, if you're overwhelmed, it's just a little dose of reality, just humility, right? Like, okay, I'm not going to be perfect here. You don't need to be perfect if you're making mostly the right choices, then I call the 8020 rule, right? If you're doing 80% of the stuff right, then you can give yourself a little grace for that extra 20%. That maybe you're conforming to this broken culture in some way. But there is, I think, a little bit of education goes a long way. And so that's why I've tried to distill in this book some specific principles, especially for. Not only for the positive aspects, what should you be looking for, but some of the negative aspects too. Like you said, glyphosate. How can you get rid of this? And you're not just going to get rid of it, but if you, if you can't fully get rid of it, how can you understand maybe what those clean 15 and dirty dozen are so that you can minimize. Right. You know, some of the other things too, like the, you know, we can get into the seed oils or not, we can get into the refined sugars and all these things, but if you just get really three or four things out of your diet or at least minimize them, uh, try and make better choices, intentional choices to remove some of those things bit by bit, then, you know, things are really going to fall into place there. There's a lot of grace in diet. You don't have to be perfect. And, and that's one of the things that I really try and convey in this book just to make it easier for people.

A (22:44)

I love how you use the phrase broken food culture because it's been broken for a long time. And that is probably a big part of the problem. I was finding these articles. So Self magazine came out with an article that was like sending women back to the kitchen. You know, this is like super negative thing, but it feels really good to cook your own food. Like it. You feel good when your family eats it and it tastes good and it's good to do things with your hands as opposed to this, like opening up packaging and putting something in a microwave and pressing buttons. When you chop things, when you. It's the, it's called the effort driven reward cycle. I learned about it from Joe Winger, actually, and she learned about it from this book called Lifting Depression by Kelly Lambert. And when you use your hands to do things like Chop and knead bread, dough it. Your brain releases dopamine. It feels good to do things with your hands. And so this Self magazine that came out with this article, like, trying to send women back to the kitchen, like, it's a really negative thing. And first of all, it's just ridiculous. Like everybody can be in the kitchen. Like men can be and kids can be. Everybody can be in there. It makes you feel better. But I started to look back at it reminded me of the old articles that were very similar, that were negative toward homemaking and starting to sell this broken food culture. And they really go back to, you know, the 50s. The articles that. They're not articles, they're ads. They're just ads or these full page ads of just very negative light on doing any of this traditional cooking. And instead, you know, getting the. Let Swanson. You know, it's like, let Swanson do your dinner. So talk to us then about the traditional cooking. Because you talk about this in the book. You say, moving forward by turning backward. There's a pervasive idea that healthy eating is prohibitively, which is a hard word, prohibitively expensive. I'm just. Andy, I don't know what's happening today. Okay. I'm so sorry you're gonna get off and be like, I do not know I had anything to do with that woman. Okay. Eating healthy is prohibitively expensive. And you say it would be something that would be helpful to rediscover traditional food preparation methods like fermenting, soaking and sprouting. Those give tremendous health benefits. But I would say that there are a whole slew of people that have no clue.

B (25:01)

Yeah, I mean, I don't know how.

A (25:03)

To do any of that. I don't know. I mean, if I were to be quite honest, I would be like, I don't even know how to throw together a soup unless I look at a cookbook. And there would be people that, you know, my midwife, she said her sister would come over all the time, open the fridge and be like, all this stuff would be good in a soup and just throw it in. So that kind of ease. And also then you add on fermenting, soaking, sprouting, and you're like, okay, this is a lot of knowledge I'm missing.

B (25:28)

Yeah. I mean, yeah, I think what you just talked about with just cooking. Right. Cooking is like one of the most human things that people do. You know, that's something that people have done for essentially all of humanity. Right. And so, um, any. Anyone who tells you that, that, you know, to get out of the kitchen is. Is probably telling you something that that's not going to work in accordance with God's design for us, like, people who. Who do work. Right. And when you do work with your hands. Yeah, I think there's a huge reward to that. And there's a huge reward when you're just cooking anything. Right. I think just cooking at home is. Is oftentimes enough because, number one, it's going to be cheaper. Of course, like, if you're going out to eat, number one, it's way more expensive. But it's also. That's where you're gonna get all the junk. If you're cooking, you at least know what's going into your food. You can at least put a better oil in there. You can put. You don't have to put all the sugar that is maybe normally in there. You can. You're. You're controlling what goes into your food. And so that. I think that's, like, the biggest step that somebody can take. And so what do you do if you. Okay, I don't really. Maybe I don't really cook that well, or maybe I've been using a lot of these, like, frozen meals, like, my whole life, and I never really learned how to make an egg. First of all, I think that's one of the things that we should be teaching our kids, and that's one of the reasons that I want to homeschool my kids. And you've been a huge inspiration there for. For me, because I'm looking at like, okay, how do we just get them away from this food that, you know, is not really food at schools? Like, that's a huge piece of why I would like to homeschool. And, you know, in the positive way, how can I teach them how to make an egg? How can I teach them how to make bread? You know, and so I don't think it has to get super, super complicated. I think you got to take it from where you are one step at a time. And so if you're pretty savvy in the kitchen, you know, expanding to some of these. Some of these other ways of doing things might help. Right. For example, I know you've had Sue Becker on, and, you know, with. With talking about Brad.

A (27:32)

Okay, I haven't had her on, but I would like to have her on.

B (27:34)

All right, well, she's been all over.

A (27:37)

Yeah, I know. She's fantastic. Yes.

B (27:40)

Yeah, you should. Okay, well, so Sue Becker, right? She. She is this Christian food scientist and. And baker, and she's got this. This Bread message of getting back to, you know, more ancient ways of looking at bread. Right. And so, so, so what we understand bread to be right now is this, this kind of dead, lifeless, stripped, ultra processed food that you can buy at the store. But when you just, and we, we, we got a, a grain mill and so we're, we're starting to mill, mill our own grains and it's like, it's super easy. You would think it's going to be difficult, but it's super, super easy. You just get the wheat berries, you put them in there, 30 seconds later you've got healthy whole wheat, oily flour that's really helpful and nutritious. And the bread, like, it's super easy recipe with like, you know, yeast, water, honey.

A (28:31)

No, it's like nothing. It's like, you know, hardly any ingredients at all.

B (28:35)

Yeah. So my wife has been making this and it's just fantastic. And then the kids eat it too because it's so filling for them. They're not as hungry. They're like chowing down on these muffins that they think are like, you know, super sweet and like, you know, they're like a treat for them, but in reality they're full of all sorts of good compounds for them. You know, vitamin E, B vitamins, all sorts of minerals. Right. And so it's just these little things, just one at a time. How can you stack these habits like making bread? That, that would be a great first step. Make real bread at home. Right. And then, yeah, you're going to have to have subker on so she can take that to the next level. But that would be my plug for, okay, first step, start cooking at home. Second step, start expanding little by little. But you don't need to just go from zero to a hundred. That's what overwhelms people.

A (29:27)

We do bread. And I was shocked. Actually, I have been shocked. I have a book called make the Bread by the Butter. Make the Bread by the Butter. It's a great cookbook. And it's basically about. It kind of goes through like a cost comparison and a work comparison. So basically they're saying, buy the butter. Like, don't churn your butter, but make bread. Because bread is easy to make and it's got homemade bagels in it. It's basically got like how to homemake a ton of different things. And then sometimes it's like, skip it, just get it at the store. It's a great book. And I was shocked as to how easy some of the things really are. You Know you can make your own Pop Tart. Like what you know, and all these different things. But I still do feel nervous in the kitchen because I just don't have this baseline confidence. And so sometimes I just have to think, well, my kids will, my kids will because they will have done it since they were kids and they've got touch points there. And so I just have to resign myself to the fact that even though every single time I go to bake bread it's only a couple ingredients, I'm always like, what if it doesn't rise? What if I mess it up? You know, you, you feel like that because there's this missing generations of knowledge. And I think you just have to kind of deal with those feelings and know that your kids probably won't have them. I found some of these Swanson ads, Andy. It says, this new mom, this is it. How to catch the early early show with an Easy Easy Dinner. It's a full page ad with everybody sitting in front of the television with the TV trays with their Swanson dinner on their lap. So their Swanson TV dinners. And it says, now mom is in on the TV fun from the start. And thanks to Swanson, she's ready to serve an extra special chicken dinner. Who else but Swanson always gives you these choices? Luscious pieces of chicken. Who else makes fluffy potatoes like this with milk and creamery butter? Who else gives you buttered garden good mixed vegetables like these with the Christmas and tenderness and a good cook prizes? I mean, this is ridiculous.

B (31:32)

That's the standard American diet right there. That's the genesis of the standard American diet. And you talk about, you know, generations of people that, that lost this skill, right? I mean, you, you can usually rely and say, okay, I'm going to go to my grandparents and see what they were cooking. No, you got to go to like your great, great, great grandparents to see what they were cooking because your grandparents were using Crisco and all of the great conveniences that were being developed in the 50s. It's a sad reality that everyone has to deal with. And so how do you deal with it? How do you, you know, I think that we were caught with our pants down when it comes to nutrition because people, the system around us changed much faster than we could really adapt and that we could come up with the science and the knowledge to really know what we were doing. And so now we just have to take that back. How can you do that and just be a little bit more intentional and.

A (32:26)

Maybe it might take a couple generations Maybe if it took a couple generations for us to get here, it might take a couple generations to get back. But it's about marching toward that direction. I mean, this literally says ready in 25 minutes or less. No work, no dishes. That is the goal. So you can sit around and watch tv. It's awful. It's so awful. It says Swanson. Here's another one. Swanson. Swanson Night. Everybody wins. Each one can pick his favorite meal and join in the after dinner fun, which is television. That's what the picture is of. So they're really selling laziness. They're selling an awful way to connect as a family. And they say things like this. Smart mothers know how to solve the help. This is super offensive. Oh, my goodness. Okay, Andy. So this is a picture of a mom sitting at a table by herself, and the kids and the dad are walking in with their swans and dinners like their waiters held up, you know, like a waiter. And it says, smart mothers know how to solve the help problem, thanks to Swanson. So the ad is basically like these other people in the house are crummy. They can't help with anything, but they can put something in the microwave. And so this is what smart mothers do. So I guess you look at these ads and you think, we were sold a bill of goods that has lasted for a really long time. And no farmer is taking out a full page ad in these magazines. They don't have the money to do it saying, smart mothers cook with their children and with their families. You know, smart mothers have a meal plan. Smart mothers avoid glyphosate for their children. So it is a really important topic to be talking about. You talk in this book about the current state of health. Can you just give us an. Well, just a quick overview because it's pretty sad.

B (34:10)

Yeah, we don't need to dwell on this too much.

A (34:12)

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B (35:15)

I think to sum it up, 88% of people have some sort of metabolic dysfunction, right? That's, that's almost nine in every ten people have metabolic dysfunction. And, and let's, let's be completely. I'm just going to be honest and say that metabolic dysfunction is the root of all disease. And I go at great, great pains to, to describe this, have a whole chapter dedicated to what is disease? How does it function in our bodies and how can we recognize it and understand it? And metabolic dysfunction is like the stem cell of disease. Just like your cell, your stem cells can end up turning into any one of like 200 different types of cells in your body. You can think of the same thing with, with metabolic dysfunction and disease, because metabolic dysfunction is ultimately a cellular problem. And so it can affect any type of cell or cellular process and it can turn into everything from arthritis to cancer to heart disease to infertility to mental health issues. Right? These are all the same thing, by and large. And so when we start to think about it like that, we start to realize that even though we have this, this horrible state of health where only 12% of people are in optimal metabolic health, there's something liberating about the idea that you only have to solve one problem. All you have to do is solve the metabolic dysfunction. You have to make your cells function better. What does that mean? That just means that they have to be able to make energy efficiently and get rid of the waste. If you can do that, you've pretty much solved disease for the most part at least these chronic diseases that people are living with, right? And so ultimately that's deliberating, somewhat depressing, but ultimately liberating idea that I try and portray in the book is how can we fix metabolic dysfunction through diet specifically? It's not the only way to fix it. If your diet is good and you're not getting any sunlight and you're not getting any sleep and you're not getting any exercise, okay, well, you're still going to potentially have problems. But I think the biggest thing is diet. And the reason why is because our Cells require three things to function optimally. They require information, energy, and building blocks. Normally we just think of food as energy. It's just this thing that we put in our bodies and it's just going to turn to energy. And so, you know, calorie in, calorie out, whatever you, however much fuel you put in is how much you're going to get out. But food is so much more than that because bites are opportunities and we want to signal to ourselves exactly what it is that we want them to do. And that means that we need to take real food that can send us the right signals. Send us those signals that God designed our bodies to run on. Right. And so ultimately that's what the book is about.

A (38:14)

That's super interesting. And you talk about, you know, the calorie in, calorie out and the information piece and you had this part where you talked about how there was this food compass. This is from 2021. So this is current.

B (38:26)

This is. Yeah, this is recent.

A (38:28)

This is recent. And they, they scored all of these different foods and eggs cooked in butter scored 29, but raising ran out of 100. So 20 eggs cooked in butter, 29 out of 100. This is from 2021. The Swanson ads are still going. Yes, the Self magazine article was reminiscent and to me almost was completely the same thing as that Swanson ad for, you know, from decades and decades ago is smart mothers don't go in the kitchen. Eggs cooked in butter, 29 out of 100. Raisin bran in skim milk, 72. This is.

B (39:07)

And that's exactly, that's that's what I thought growing up.

A (39:10)

How confusing.

B (39:11)

Yeah, exactly. And so I highlight that in the book because like you said, it is so recent. It's not like I'm highlighting something from 1970. Right. Like this is where people are trying to tell us to go, is to go to the, to the store shelf, to the Kellogg section. Right. I mean, who sponsored that study? I'll tell you, it was, you know, it's not wholesome like you think. It was sponsored by big food conglomerates. And this is what, you know, the best of nutritional science is telling us. And why, why is that? Why, why are eggs so low? It's because eggs have cholesterol, which is a total non issue. Dietary cholesterol was completely debunked as a health risk. And butter, okay, butter has fat, saturated fat. So we're told this narrative that's completely outdated and completely ridiculous. And so part of what I try and do in the book is to give people a license to eat real foods like butter and eggs and to understand those based on the current. I know it sounds current, you know, like, where do you go when it comes to science, right? This is considered science. But even more than that, if this is our food, this is supposed to be our food compass that's directing us where we're supposed to go when it comes to nutrition. How about we just look at a different compass? How about we use Jesus as our compass and look to God's design for how he's designed us to function and how he's designed food to look. Kellogg cereal doesn't really look good or true or beautiful. Those are the things that humans are supposed to look for that, that really give us meaning and purpose. A real steak made from a cow that had grazed in a beautiful pasture that has been humanely treated and slaughtered and is now feeding your body and giving it the right signals it needs and helping you to understand the sacrificial logic of nature and how Christ died for our sins. That's good and true and beautiful, in my opinion. And that's, you know, I don't know what steak got on the food compass, but I can't imagine it was great.

A (41:27)

Like, Twinkies are probably high up there. I don't make Twinkies anymore. But that is, I mean, that is wild. And I didn't even think about the fact that it's called compass. This is what's supposed to be directing us. And in 2021, I mean, this is, we're in the 20s and this is the advice that's coming out. So you talk about how health is an enabler of greater goods, which I think this is interesting. So you take the biblical perspective. You're talking about authentic food. You talk about fasting and you talk about all these food situations in the Bible, like manna and how they got sick of it and they wanted to go back to their captivity. But you talk about how food is a reminder of God's provision. So all of these really cool biblical truths that, that are woven through. And one of the things that you say is that health is not the end goal in itself. It's a means through which we can live our best lives and do the most good that we can. And I thought that was an interesting thing because I also think that has become a thing where it's like, it is the end all, be all. Like, you see those sometimes people post, it's like they wake up in the morning and they've got their red light therapy mask and they're on their vibrating plate and they've done all of these things on their face and then they wash with this and they put on the serum and that, you know, and you're like, oh my goodness, you know, I mean I. Where did that come from? So can you talk about from a biblical perspective? What's the point?

B (42:44)

Yeah. And so I define health in the book as Carl Barth, a theologian from the 20th century, as he defined it. And he defined it as strength for life. It's as simple as that. Strength for life. What does that mean? That means that we should look to the life giver to understand what is our purpose and how can we have strength to carry us towards that purpose. Think about your roles in life. What if your role is to be a parent? Okay, well, are you being a very effective parent if you've got all sorts of chronic disease, you get home from work and you can't even play with your kids and so you're just sitting on the couch like in the Swanson commercial, right? And so that's what your kids are learning. And so if that's part of your roles, if that's part of your God given duties, health is something that's supposed to enable you towards that purpose. Think about just being a good citizen or a taxpayer. I mean, you know, most of our health care is paid for by taxpayers, right? And so a lot of people think, oh my, this, this disease, I'm going to, you know, get the best of western medicine and it's going to cost all this money, but I don't have to pay for it. Well, what kind of citizen are you being if you're, if you're willfully or by neglect creating this condition in your body that's causing all these unnecessary treatments. What about all the people that are out there, the doctors that have to correct these diseases? What could they be doing that would be more useful if we didn't have to have all of this acute care for people that are having these problems. Right? You start to look at health in that way. And like you said, people, there's this huge biohacking trend right now and there's, right, there's, I don't want to throw out all of biohacking because it is, there is a lot of good stuff there. You talk about the, you know, the red light pads and the, you know, some of the fasting trends and there's a lot of good stuff within that because they're really just trying to say, how can I take what God gave me had this body that God gave me and leverage it to make it more, more healthful. But when the goal is just, I hear from these people, I want to live till I'm 120, I want to live till I'm 140, I want to solve this problem of death. People have this idea that they're, they're going to somehow death. I've heard, you know, all sorts of God complex. Yeah. It's like people have, I've heard articles, they read articles about this, how by 2050, we're going to solve death forever. You know, that science is going to end death. It's like, folks, you're 2,000 years too late. God has already done that. You know, Jesus on the cross solved death forever for all of us. So how are you going to live your life in that reality? And so part of that is, you know, as Jesus was the divine physician, it's how can we get our health in order? How can we partner with God to do the things that, that he's given us to leverage the tools that we have, the innate intelligence in every cell in our body? And how can we embrace those things so that we can actually do the things that, that he's told us that we should be doing? Right. And that's different for everyone. And so that's why there isn't like a one size fits all version of what health is for every single person. But I can tell you that that health starts with avoiding metabolic dysfunction. Right.

A (46:12)

That's all really good information. You say nutrition is rarely if ever explored in most churches. Talk about the loss of Christian fasting in the west, which, that's one thing that's gone with the biohacking, but we do some of that. And it really is good for you. It's good for you spiritually. I wish I, I wish I did it more consistently, but we've definitely done fasting in the past, especially over certain situations. And it's really powerful. It's powerful for your body, it's powerful for your spiritual life. So you talk about fasting in the book. You talk about authentic food, which I think is just a great way to look at it, and all this theology of nutrition. And then you talk about how the Bible is about our hungers being satisfied. So it's an interesting thing. You know, it's an opportunity every single time you eat to remember our reliance on God. So I'd love to talk about the manna because you say God cares about where we look to satisfy our physical hunger, which would probably be A shocking statement for most people of faith because it's never talked about in the church. I'm going to read it again. God cares about where we look to satisfy our physical hunger. And you talk about how the manna showed two timeless truths, that God lovingly and abundantly provides for our needs. And we tend to resist provision often when it comes. So there's food in the Bible, like quite a bit, yeah.

B (47:32)

I mean the whole, I start the book with this biblical, this idea. I try and portray the whole biblical story in like a few paragraphs using food, using these food concepts that are woven through the Bible and you talk about, you know, just from the various chapter, earliest chapters in Genesis, you know, the fall of humanity is, is around an apple. Right. Of course it's, it's more than that, it's about sin more broadly, but it's represented in an apple and, and there are so many different food categories and metaphors that ultimately lead us to Jesus being our true food, the true fruit that hung on the tree, AKA the cross that reversed that curse. Right. And so if you're thinking about the Bible from this perspective, you're seeing that God is ultimately concerned with how we're satisfying our hungers. And if we're satisfying our hungers with him on him, are we feeding on God, are we going by his designs or are we using some sort of man made creation to satisfy our hungers? Right. And that's really the whole story of the Bible that culminates in Jesus as their true food and our true drink. And so you look at manna is one of these amazing illustrations of that because you have the wandering Israelite tribes that had just been liberated from their captivity in Egypt. And so they're wandering around the wilderness and God gives them this miraculous bread. I don't even know if you can call it bread, but it's called the bread of angels. But this stuff that just grew like, kind of like snow, they would just come out and there was like this frosty, flaky substance on the ground every morning and they would go gather it and they would make it into cakes and they would bake them. The interesting thing about this bread though is that it was spoiled very quickly, so you couldn't just keep it overnight. And so what is God trying to teach the Israelites here? He's trying to teach them to not to hoard and to depend on themselves and their own efforts, but to just graciously receive what he's given them every morning to understand that God is the provider of abundance. And that he's going to be providing everything that is needed for them to sustain themselves literally on the ground for the taking. And when they rejected that, ultimately they said, hey, we, we want to go back to our captivity, because at least we were having lentils and beans and fish in Egypt, and we've got this manna stuff, and we're really sick of it. And so he does send this huge flock of quail, and they're indulging quite a bit and have this huge gluttonous disregard for the provision that God's given them, and he kills a bunch of them. Right. So, um, there's this amazing understanding of how we should understand food from a biblical verse. Yeah. Just. Just looking at manna is this. This great understanding. And then that. That ends up foreshadowing Jesus because Jesus is our true bread. Right. Manna was just a temporary thing. And, and the thing about manna that I find interesting too, is that I. I criticize this approach. You know, people talk about food as being just this utilitarian concept. Like I said, it's of kind. Its calories in, its calories out. And one of the things you learn, I think, is that God wants us to delight in our meal. Mana is kind of the opposite of, you know, he gives us this. This like, one substance that is, like, perfectly nutritionally dense and has everything that they need, but it's totally bland and there's no variety there. Right. And so ultimately, God is teaching a different lesson with manna, but with food more broadly is he's revealed food to us in all sorts of abundance and variety. There's a reason why beets are different than onions. Right? And if you've ever. Like, most people don't think about this. Why, why would a beet, you know, it's just. We take it for granted that beets are different than onions and that we have multiple different types of colors and flavors of vegetables and. And meats and all sorts of stuff. But if you think about God could have just given us manna forever. He could have just given us one paste like those runners do, and they're running like marathons and they're just like, you know, chowing on these, like these, these pastes. And we. We could just have a paste, or we could eat like the cows do, and we could just eat grass all day. But he's given us variety because there's no other reason than because he delights in it. God delights in creating variety, and he upholds it every day. And so we're supposed to delight in variety in the same way that God does. That's. What else are we supposed to do other than be conformed to Jesus? By seeing the world in the way that he does, by receiving it as a gift every day, as in the manna, and then understanding why God does this. Our meals are supposed to be delightful, and if they're not delightful, then we're doing it wrong. And we're probably not seeing the world as the gift that God has given us.

A (52:38)

Wow. And like you say, it helps and fosters community with other people. Shared meals are uniquely emblematic of fellowship, breaking down barriers, reinforcing a shared human neediness, and promoting genuine hospitality. What a book. And I think it's cool. I think it's, you know, everyone should write books about what they're passionate about. You're reading. Someone said recently, like, if you've read 12 books on a subject or something, you know, you're, you're, you know a lot. And so when we have these things that we're interested in, even if you're not a nutritionist by trade or a chemist or something like that, you know, we have these experiences and we come from our own perspective and they end up being really helpful for other people. So the book is called Nourished by Design, A Christ Centered Approach to Nutrition by the author Andy Felton. We both have Forwards by Joel Salatin, which is super cool. We always end our show with the same question we what's a favorite memory from your childhood that was outside?

B (53:33)

Oh, boy. I mean, I was a sports guy, so it was all, I mean, just three games, you know, on a Saturday, three baseball games. So I don't know if there's one memory that I can say was just the best memory ever from childhood, but I was always outside because I was always playing sports. And that's got to be the biggest one.

A (53:56)

One. That's awesome. I don't even know why. Look at. It's like other people coming on. Andy, this has been a mess. It's been a total blessing, though, and I so appreciate it. Thank you for being here.

B (54:07)

Thank you so much, Jenny. I appreciate it.