Time Change: Fast Food

One of my favorite stories of the Old Order Amish culture is about how they eat meals together.

You may know that when an Amish son or daughter turns 18, they go on Rumspringa (a word meaning running around) where they leave their family and the Amish way of life to go sow their wild oats, check out the ways of the world and basically do anything they want.

I love that idea.

These are kids who’ve grown up in a conservative environment, and now they are given a chance to opt out of it. At the end of their year of absolute freedom they get a chance to decide whether or not they want to come back to the Amish way of life.

Now think about this. If you’ve grown up without most of the modern amenities we take for granted, a fairly restrictive sexual ethic, and in the most hormonal time of your life you have to choose between going back to the Amish life or living a “normal” life, which one do you think you’d choose?

95% of the Amish children choose to come home.

And here’s why: Because that entire year that their son or daughter is out running around, the family sets their plate at the dinner table.

Even while they are out sowing their wild oats, in the back of their mind they still know that there is a seat at the table for them.And they know what happens at that table.

Soul Food

In his book “From Table to Tablet” Leonard Sweet points out that the Old Order Amish have elders that teach the stories and songs of the community around the table. Their family devotions happen around the table. In Sweet’s words “Amish life, in short, revolves around the table, and it’s rare for a young person to leave it behind.”

I’m from a tribe of Christianity that takes communion together every Sunday. I can count on one hand how many Sunday’s of my life I haven’t had communion, it’s impossible for me to separate my faith from my memories of people praying over and breaking bread together.

At the center of my faith is food.

This is not a new idea. The Bible opens up with God’s first command to humanity “Eat Freely” and it ends with God’s final command to “Drink freely” Jesus, on the night before he dies doesn’t give us a doctrine, He gives us a meal.

In fact, if you can get read the Gospels without getting hungry, than you’re not reading them right. Jesus is always eating, always with the wrong people, and Jesus never eats in a hurry.

But we do.

Did you know that the average family meal today is somewhere between eleven and twelve minutes? Back in the 50’s and 60’s it was ninety minutes. The average parent spends a little less than forty minutes of meaningful conversation with their children per week. Did you know that in the entire world Americans set aside less time than anyone else—somewhere around 60 minutes a day—for eating, and Americans are more likely to buy processed food and to eat alone.

On any given day one in four Americans will eat at least one meal at a fast-food restaurant. We see it as a symbol of convenience that saves time and money. But we don’t see how much it is costing us.

The Cost of Fast Living

Last year I read something from PreachingToday.com that was disturbing. It was an article summarizing the work of Sanford DeVoe, a researcher from the University of Toronto, who was looking into how our “fast food culture” was chasing more than just our waistlines.

DeVoe conducted a series of experiments where they subliminally flashed the brand images for a variety of Fast-food establishments for one group, while they also had a control group that saw other images but didn’t see the fast-food logos.

Later they asked the two different groups to do an unrelated task. And the fast-food group attempted to complete it much faster than the non-fast-food group. In another experiment, flashes of fast-food images made students less able to sit back and enjoy music. A third experiment found that people exposed to fast-food logos showed a greater reluctance for saving.

Looking back on his research, DeVoe came to the conclusion that sure, fast food does help us save time, but even just thinking about fast food restaurants make us live with more speed and less patience.

Here’s how he said it:

“Fast food culture … doesn’t just change the way we eat but it can also fundamentally alter the way we experience our time…[it] stops us from smelling the roses.”

The sociologist Cody C. Delistraty poured through quantifiable research for Atlantic Monthly and discovered that our inability to sit down at a meal together has “quantifiable negative effects both physically and psychologically” on the people that we love but can’t seem to find the time to sit down at a meal with.

Here’s what his research found (as quoted in Sweet’s book):

The #1 factor for parents raising kids who are drug-free, healthy, intelligent, kind human beings? “Frequent family dinners.” The #1 shaper of vocabulary in younger children, even more than any other family event, including play? “Frequent family dinners.” The #1 predictor of future academic success for elementary-age children? “Frequent family dinners.”…One of the best safeguards against childhood obesity? “Eating meals together.”The best prescription to prevent eating disorders among adolescent girls? “Frequent family dinners” that exude a “positive atmosphere.” The variable most associated with lower incidence of depressive and suicidal thoughts among eleven-to eighteen-year-olds? “Frequent family dinners.”

Food forms the bonds of life and friendship. (The word companion is Latin for “with bread”)

It’s no secret that we are growing more and more individualistic as a culture, we’re doing everything alone, and we’re doing it quickly. Conservatives have long lamented the dissolution of the modern family, and churches are often terrified that their children are leaving the faith.

But the truth is we reap what we sow, and we can change this.

Take a lesson from our Amish brothers and sisters, heck, take a lesson from Jesus.

Create a place for the table in your life, eat slowly and laugh often, tell stories and when someone you love is missing, keep setting their place at the table.