I don’t know about you, but I love Thanksgiving–a day for feasting and giving thanks for God’s good gifts. Since there are relatively few truly American food traditions, Thanksgiving has always appealed to me–even though I realize that, of course, the historical origins of the holiday are not as clear-cut as they appear in the Magic Tree House Thanksgiving book: (A very different story that’s actually true is Thank You, Sarah: The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving. It tells the story... Read more
We’re a bit under the weather here–me and the boys–so will you pardon us while we nurse ourselves back to health with lots of naps, cuddles, and chicken noodle soup? {Hope you are keeping well, dear readers!} Read more
Twice in the last week I’ve been asked how I went from disordered in my eating and body image to joyfully (if occasionally) consuming pie for breakfast. And while I’m never quite sure how to answer the question–because no one, simple answer could really suffice and because I’m afraid of boring everyone by going into too much detail, for example: (“and then there was the time I thought my shorts felt tight so I cut them into shreds with fabric... Read more
I’m taking Sundays off from writing and posting pictures instead that capture some idea or feeling that comes with Sundays...here, my older son peels carrots while the younger son is content to sit and eat them. Hope YOUR Sunday has some relaxation and feasting, too! Read more
Do you know of the blog Transpositions? It is written mostly by people associated with the Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts at the University of St. Andrews–my husband and I lived in St. Andrews, Scotland, for three lovely (if dark & damp) years, and my friend Jim Watkins invited me to contribute–and so here is a peek from a version of my upcoming book: Eating to Survive or Eating to Live? Have a good weekend, folks! Read more
I have a piece up this week at RELEVANT magazine–a review of What is the Mission of the Church?–and couldn’t help but notice this article, “How Faith Connects to Food,” with the tagline: “is it a sin to eat meat?”The author, Jennifer Dykes Henson, doesn’t come out and say that eating meat’s a sin, but she does say that Jesus, if he were walking the earth today, wouldn’t eat meat. Her arguments for vegetarianism–animal cruelty, environmental sustainability, and world hunger,... Read more
How do you feel about “year of” books? You know, books that chronicle one year of the author’s life–often a year in which the author is doing some kind of strange lifestyle experiment. I must admit I have mixed feelings about them. Sometimes the experiments are too far-fetched to be interesting. Sometimes the whole “year of [whatever]” format feels forced. But at the same time, I like the idea of embarking on year-long experiments and writing about them. And I’m... Read more
That’s what went through Pastor Rick Warren’s mind when he was nearing the end of an 800+ person baptismal service last year. Recently, one of the New York Times‘ blogs had an interesting piece on the ‘Daniel Plan,’ the small-group based health program at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in California. The Daniel Plan–named, of course, for the Biblical Daniel who rejected the king’s rich food and drink for a diet of vegetables and water–involves three medical celebrities: brain expert and... Read more
{This ISN’T mine.} It seems like I have been seeing zillions of ads for something called the hCG diet. Now, anyone who’s ever obsessively read the instructions that come with the pregnancy test sticks knows that hCG stands for human chorionic gonadotropin–a hormone that’s produced very early on in a pregnancy. I love pregnancy tests, and obsessively took test after test WAY TOO EARLY each time I was pregnant. And a few times I was not. Anyway, it’s the hCG... Read more
Well, whadd’ya know? Formula advertising reduces breastfeeding rates. A World Health Organization study in the Philippines has shown that mothers who have been influenced by advertisements or their doctors to use infant formulas are two to four times more likely to use those products. The study, published by the Social Sciences and Medicine Journal, also reported that mothers who saw ads for infant formula were “6.4 times more likely to stop breast-feeding babies within one year of age, a move... Read more
Rachel Marie Stone
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