{"id":17636,"date":"2016-03-16T00:00:43","date_gmt":"2016-03-16T04:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/?p=17636"},"modified":"2016-03-14T12:17:45","modified_gmt":"2016-03-14T16:17:45","slug":"the-eating-exercise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2016\/03\/the-eating-exercise\/","title":{"rendered":"The Eating Exercise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In Desiring the Kingdom<\/em> James K.A. Smith contends that humans are imaginative, desiring, loving, affective creatures more than automatons driven by cognitive, intellectual perceptions. He writes, \u201cWe feel our way around our world more than we think our way through it.\u201d As such, our imaginations need to be converted and enacted through \u201cintentional practices that are tactile, bodily, repetitive, and narratival.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Last semester I attempted to offer my students such tactile resources in my history course on modern America. Their assignment, based on Michael Pollan\u2019s \u201cfood rules,\u201d was as follows:<\/p>\n

Rationale: <\/strong>Most modern-day Americans don\u2019t go hungry. They also do not practice good nutrition. They are \u201csustained\u201d by lots of highly processed foods and meat, added sugar, and refined grains. Consequently, say health authorities, Americans suffer high rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. By contrast, populations that eat more traditional diets don\u2019t suffer as acutely from these diseases. Among 63 other suggestions, Michael Pollan in his book Food Rules: An Eater\u2019s Manual<\/em> (2009), offers this rule for healthy eating: \u201cDon\u2019t eat anything your great-grandma wouldn\u2019t recognize as food.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here are a few more of Pollan\u2019s 64 rules for healthy eating:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Eat food.<\/li>\n
  2. Avoid food products containing ingredients that\u00a0no ordinary human would keep in the pantry.<\/li>\n
  3. Avoid food products that contain high\u2010fructose\u00a0corn syrup.<\/li>\n
  4. Avoid food products that have some form of\u00a0sugar (or sweetener listed among) the top three\u00a0ingredients.<\/li>\n
  5. Avoid food products that have more than five\u00a0ingredients.<\/li>\n
  6. Eat only foods that will eventually rot.<\/li>\n
  7. Eat foods made from ingredients that you can\u00a0picture in their raw state or growing in nature.<\/li>\n
  8. Eat sweet foods as you find them in nature.<\/li>\n
  9. Don\u2019t eat breakfast cereals that change the\u00a0color of the milk.<\/li>\n
  10. The whiter the bread, the sooner you\u2019ll be dead.<\/li>\n
  11. Stop eating before you\u2019re full.<\/li>\n
  12. Eat when you are hungry, not when you are\u00a0bored.<\/li>\n
  13. The banquet is in the first bite.<\/li>\n
  14. Limit your snacks to unprocessed plant foods.<\/li>\n
  15. Do all your eating at a table.<\/li>\n
  16. Break the rules once in a while.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/e\/ef\/Big_Mac_combo_meal.jpg\"
    Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Instructions: <\/strong>Your assignment is to track your diet while attempting to follow Pollan\u2019s rules. Keep a \u201cfood journal\u201d that chronicles all the food you eat (including all meals, snacks, and liquids) in the course of two days.<\/p>\n

    Paper: <\/strong>Write a two-page paper reflecting on your experience. How difficult is it to follow Pollan\u2019s rules? How does modern eating look when put in historical perspective?<\/p>\n

    In my next post, I\u2019ll describe my students\u2019 reactions to the assignment. Here is a \u201ctaste\u201d:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • \u201cI am very partial to Lucky Charms and they actually had it in the cafeteria for a couple of days and I couldn\u2019t take advantage of the opportunity. Thanks a lot Pollan!\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
        \n
      • \u201cOne rule was easy to follow: \u2018Break the rules once in a while.\u2019 Had Sockeye salmon, brococoli, sweet potato, grape juice for dinner, then splurged on a popcorn and small coke at the Avengers midnight release.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        In Desiring the Kingdom James K.A. Smith contends that humans are imaginative, desiring, loving, affective creatures more than automatons driven by cognitive, intellectual perceptions. He writes, \u201cWe feel our way around our world more than we think our way through it.\u201d As such, our imaginations need to be converted and enacted through \u201cintentional practices that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1483,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[833,694,454],"tags":[2876,2875],"class_list":["post-17636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-david-swartz","category-health-care","category-paleo-evangelicals-2","tag-food-rules","tag-michael-pollan"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Eating Exercise<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In Desiring the Kingdom James K.A. 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