consuming blueberries

food list

breakfast: oatmeal, frozen blueberries from summer 2011's logan square farmers market, fair trade coffee

lunch: plain baked potato

dinner: vegetarian chili, cream cheese brownies, gluten-free/vegan corn bread, fried lemons (way more delicious than you might imagine), chardonnay, mixed green salad

origin of an item

last summer we were at the logan square farmers market and we came across roeder bros. blueberries  and they sell frozen blueberries (grown in michigan!) in 5 lbs and 10 lbs boxes. at the time, i thought we would never use 5 lbs of blueberries (we bought them anyway). on this march morning, however, i'm grateful for these tasty local berries!

reflection 
in his book, jesus and the earth, james jones suggests that the "enemy of faith in God is human self-sufficiency" (3). human self-sufficiency (or the belief that we can do anything and everything on our own) might be the enemy of eating too. our consumption of food marks who we are as people (because we are what we eat, of course) and who we are as christians (especially when we believe that jesus' ministry was defined by material consumption). jesus' ministry shows us that not all consumption and use of creation is bad--he responds to the needs of the people by using creation (26). Jesus uses creation to give life--he fed the hungry using fish and bread (out of the sea and out of the ground), he healed a blind man with mud, he taught his followers over meals. jesus uses creation, and its up to us to figure out how we will consume and use creation. its also up to us to see how our consumption affects other people and other parts of creation.

the fact is that we are not ever really and totally self-sufficient. we think that we are, especially when we don't think about where our food comes from, especially when we don't think about the ingredients and the workers and the location connected to our food. i continue to be in awe of God every time i think about how our bodies are so complex that we are fed by a variety of good and delicious things, and that the earth gives us what we need if we respect it. God feeds us if we remember that we cannot rely on ourselves. we need God. we need each other. we need all creation.

NAFTA and Noah: lessons from covenant

Breakfast: toast and grapefruit
Lunch: apple, carrots, almonds, cereal, etc
Dinner: Pizza, strawberries

Origin of one Item: The strawberries came from CA. They were organic, but I know that strawberries are one of the top 12 foods for highest pesticide use, aka the Dirty Dozen. And the distance they traveled is about 2,000 miles.

Theological Reflection:
I ate strawberries from Mexico in March. Ugh. I feel like I've broken my Lenten agreement with myself to pay better attention to what I eat. The word translated often translated as covenant in the Bible  (berit in Hebrew) can also describe contracts/covenants/agreements of a more legal nature between equals. Other times it is used to describe a more existential agreement between God and humanity--decidedly non-equals.

This multi-layered use of berit makes me think of NAFTA(North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement), which is one reason I can get cheap strawberries from Mexico. The "free" market drives our cheap corn to them, making it so what is worth their while is to grow berries cheaply for thousands of Jamba Juices. Thus, NAFTA I would claim, is the sort of unequal berit. Yet not in a good way.

For Noah, the unequal, unconditional nature of God's covenant is forever. It doesn't matter what sort of wrongs people do--God will deal with that on a case by case basis--but never will there be ultimate destruction of the Earth. For his end, Noah has obligations, but they are dictated by God. He doesn't have much negotiating power in this agreement. Noah listens, and the agreement is that God will continue to love humanity.

I think Mexico may be a bit like Noah in this context, with little negotiating power. Whether or not Mexican farmers would rather grow corn for Mexicans and not strawberries for Americans --that doesn't quite matter. Tthe US dictates the terms, and Mexico must comply. Often times this is the case.  The "developing" countries can get strong-armed by trade "agreements" where they don't have much say.

Now, lucky for humanity, God's berit/agreement is unconditional and everlasting. But no country is God. While it is true that we in the US may have more dollars, the Christian message claims that we are not of greater value. Further,God's covenant with Noah extends to "to all living beings..."(Gen 9:16) What a different food system we'd have if our own treaties were based off the assumption that all life is included, but grounded in the reality that we are all flesh--that none of us are God. How differently would we eat, eating as equals?

Erika

prophets and vegans

food list

breakfast: fruit cup, potatoes, coffee

lunch: applesauce, raisins, fruit leather

dinner: coffee, orange,  apple, gluten-free pretzels, sweet potato chips

origin of an item

this morning i had breakfast at medici's in hyde park. this locally owned restaurant (so local that the owner and her son are usually around during early breakfast time) has been in hyde park since the 1960s, and it is often filled with students and scholars as well as "normal" hyde park people--i went there often when i lived on the other side of hyde park, back before i was a student in hyde park. the coffee is fair trade and organic, and it is delicious!

reflections

today was a totally vegan day for me, and i've been thinking a little about what it means to be christian and vegan. there is some suggestion that genesis 1:29 ("i have given every green plant for food") is biblical teaching that we should only eat plants (http://www.faithandfood.com/Christianity.php, for example) but that does not take into account all the places in the bible where animals are eaten or we are told that we can eat meat. it also doesn't take into account the fact that vegans eat more than just plants. 

vegans eat way more than just plants... and way more than tofu. actually, i remember when i lived in hyde park, i met someone for the first time over dinner and he was shocked that i was a vegetarian at the time. i didn't look like what a vegetarian to him. at the time, i suggested to him that vegetarians have so many options for food, so we are as diverse as any other group of people. now, i think i would press harder to hear what he thought i would look like, and i might even press him to hear what he eats... not all omnivores look the same either! anyway, i wonder what he would imagine a vegan would look like.

i know i continue to have expectations about how vegans are supposed to act. my experience with vegans (even when i was vegan all the time) has led me to imagine that vegans are often cranky, snobby and judgmental. they spout off the dangers and sufferings associated with factory farming (see: Action for Animal's document on factory farming) without much thought about how it might affect their dinner partners. please. how can the rest of us get on with our lives if we have to think about the conditions of our food or the people who prepared it?

but i think vegans can be prophetic. the prophets in the old testament often fasted (or gave up some kinds of food) in order to draw attention to God or in prayer or to prepare. for example, esther fasts before she goes to the king to ask that her people be saved. fasting (giving up some or all food) can be an act of preparation, purification, prophecy. i think you could fast and not be vegan or prophesy without being vegan. i don't think vegans or fasting (or even christians) have the corner on telling the truth or working for change. but sometimes doing without makes the truth a little easier to tell because our own struggles to do better can be a model for what can be. 

how can we eat prophetically?

Injustice Anywhere: Gun Violence and our Dinner Table

Breakfast: Egg burrito, grapes

Lunch: carrots, sugar snap peas, hummos, lots of almonds, diet coke, apple, double coconut muffin aka deLISH. 

Dinner: black bean dish a la this casserole, peas, chocolate covered almonds

Origin of One Item: Almonds 

I used a cool website called What's on My Food. It even has a free App.  It's a little too much info. in my opinion, but thorough. 

It seems there's probably an upswing in pesticide use for conventional almonds, but it's not a lot. And most of them come from CA. Mine came in the shell (a pain, but cheaper overall I hope!) so if the pesticides remain mostly on the shell, then so much the better for you, and the worse for me. 

Theological Reflection:

From the Web of Creation: Biblical Themes about Creation: 

Justice for humans is related to justice toward Earth.

"For the Bible, creation is one world. Humans and the rest of nature are inextricably tied together as part of one reality with a common relationship with God. Therefore, when humans flourish in peace and justice, also the land flourishes with grapes and grain. On the other hand, when there is violence and injustice, the land languishes."

The earth dries up and withers. The world languishes and withers. The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants, for they have transgressed laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse devours the land.” (Is 24:4-7;)

This weekend was an especially good food one, though I didn't enjoy it much. I was too caught up in the Treyvon Martin case. And last weekend was an especially violent one here in Chicago. There were 49 people shot, 10 were fatal and included a 6yr old girl on her front porch. In the coverage one father said he now couldn't let his son go outside for fear the boy would be shot too. 

If a child is not safe outside, they are not outside as much. Parents should do what they need to in order to keep their children safe.  And while outdoor activities like Sierra's Club No Child Left Inside or community gardens or park clean-ups are good and necessary, they can sound hollow on certain weekends. Outside? No way. 

If we are ever going to build a diverse coalition to combat change(which we need), we must understand this crucial dynamic of how the injustice of gun violence--of any human injustice--intersects with the injustice felt by the earth. 

So back to the good part of the weekend: food. Our meals can create justice and health for our families and communities, and for the environment. They do this when we create them mindful of local, organic, simple, colorful, seasonal, whole. But they also can do this by an awareness of who eats them and where.  

So at your next meal, who might you welcome in peace to the dinner table? Because whether we feel we can or can't go outside--due to violence, pollution, or what have you--at least we might gather and give thanks, making our meal into a sacrament. By so doing, may we honor all that  suffers injustice and give thanks for our connection to them. 

Then maybe we find the courage to take our meal outside. 


Erika

in not just small ways

food list

breakfast: whole wheat bread and peanut butter, gatorade chews (they were free…)

post-race snacks: banana, popcorn

lunch: rice and beans (cuban style), yuca, sweet bread, a little piece of cake

afternoon snack: vegan banana/berry smoothie

dinner: salad, baked potato and broccoli

origin of an item

yuca is one of the coolest vegetables ever. you eat the root of the plant (like carrots or potatoes) and its flaky! yucca plants are grown throughout the americas, but i often associate it with ghana. when i was in ghana a couple of summers ago, yuca (or cassava) grew like corn grows in Illinois. since coming to worship with a bilingual (spanish/english) congregation, i’ve grown to look forward to eating yuca prepared in traditional hispanic ways.

theological reflections

two things happened today.

first: i ran the shamrock shuffle in downtown chicago. i’m always struck by the amount of waste that a race creates. i ran a 5k with a friend in the fall and she said that someone once asked her if she was a christian simply because she didn’t throw her water cup to the ground in the middle of the race (like everyone else). instead she carried it with her until she passed a trash bin. running the race today i noticed that most of us just dumped our cups on the ground. more than that, we used disposable race packets, ate weird gatorade chews, and created the waste that’s accumulated wherever 40,000 or more are gathered.

 

but the shamrock shuffle wasn’t all bad: they had these bins for banana peels. i wonder if that makes up for the non-recyclable paper used for the race bibs.

a friend recently sent me this link to the work of one runner who is trying to “green” his runs by picking up litter when he runs. my guess is that i could run for longer amounts of time if i were stopping every once in a while to pick up litter. it would certainly mean i would leave a smaller mark in my runs. maybe this would make up for the piles of paper cups on michigan ave this morning.

i'm struck by the idea that running could be beneficial for the planet (not just for the runner herself). the organizers of the shamrock shuffle reminded me (by throwing in some separate food bins) that we often engage in a small act and convince ourselves that it is enough. certainly a collection of small actions create a big impact, but we cannot be fooled into thinking that a small action will completely change our impact. it takes big changes and large actions to fix big problems. i wonder if our sins could have been washed away by something smaller than the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (and if there could have been, why didn't God do something less drastic?) i'm convinced that we needed the radical action of God's power in order to make the significant changes we needed to be saved. God did not amass a collection of small miracles without the

second: the pastor at the church where i’ve been worshiping for the last four year said goodbye to the congregation this morning. in my tradition, the relationship between the pastor and the congregation changes or ends when either the congregation or the pastor feel like God is calling something to change. in our situation, the pastor felt called to another position in another part of the country. 

this is congregation (like many presbyterian churches) marks important events with potlucks. one of the oldest members of the congregation often repeats that “one thing about this congregation: we eat!” and we do. because we come from many different countries, the potlucks are collections of different kinds of food—yuca is served amidst o raw vegetable trays and Cuban beans and empanadas and scones.

when the sixty of us gathered around our potluck this afternoon, we remembered that even though our pastor was moving on, we are a delightful collection of people that God has called to this particular community from a variety of places. we are more than just an individual from one place--we are bigger together.

what is true about our congregation is true of all people: we eat. how can we use our eating to make big changes?

Red Wine in New Wineskins

Breakfast: granola and a banana

Lunch: salad, apple, and a pancake

Dinner: homemade pizza, red wine

Origin of One Item: Long Arm red wine
From the Examiner: The Trader Joe's exclusive, Long Arm is produced by Familia Nueva in Paso Robles, California.  Paso Robles is blessed with a unique climate for California and a variety of soil conditions. 

Theological Reflection:

"...And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins."

- Mark 2:20-22

New wine is not as good as old wine.  But something about a new container is needed for this immature wine.  If we put in the young, not-as-good stuff in our seasoned container, Jesus tells us we run into trouble. The old wineskin bursts and then the wine never has a chance to mature into the really good stuff. And I agree with Jesus, a spilled glass of red is intolerable.

But new wineskins work. They don't have the memory of wine that isn't as aged, complex or subtle.  So what happens when we put new wine into a new wineskin? It holds.  And then it ages. Ripens. Sweetens. Deepens.

We continue on through Lent, nearing the end. It is a time to remember our connections with God, and we do this by forgetting. Forget you are an old wineskin, filled with deep memories of all your past shortcomings and successes. Instead be new, and fill yourself with the new thing, however seemingly insignificant, God has brought you this season.

What we do on a daily basis--like eating and drinking with an eye to the Earth--can seem small and insignificant. But focusing in on small things make us forget their smallness. So we hope by Lent's end the new wine will have aged into something sweeter and deeper without us fully realizing it. 

Drink up, folks!  (Please drink organically)


Erika

gluten-free jesus

food list

breakfast: two vegan banana muffins

lunch: naked juice's protein juice, black bean soup, salad 

dinner: black bean soup, salad from panera

snack: green tea, soy chai tea from new wave cafe, vegan chocolate chip cookie from paper moon bakery

origin of a item

new wave cafe in logan square is my favorite coffee shop in chicago, hands down. the coffee is delicious, the baristas are sassy (but they really know their coffee!) and the food is perfect. its not far from my apartment and they're open late... so, its one of my favorite haunts. 

i appreciate that new wave has several vegan baked goods and most of those delicious treats were made by paper moon bakery, also a logan square business. i'm grateful that i need only go about half a mile from home to get good, locally roasted coffee to pair with a vegan cookie that i didn't have to make myself. absolutely not healthy, but i'm working on the final draft of my thesis--i'm just trying to be awake!

theological reflection

wednesdays at mccormick mean community worship. i had not planned to go to worship today (see: finishing thesis), but i got to school just as worship was beginning, and i wandered in.

this year (as far as i know) is the first year we've consistently had gluten-free wafers at worship for communion. in the past i've had a negative attitude toward having wafers on the side--why can't the bread itself be gluten-free? when we have the wafers on the side, we separate the body of Christ.

i've known about my sensitivity to gluten for a little longer than six months, and that knowledge has changed how i think about gluten-free options in communion. in the fall, i continued to take the "regular" bread, because that meant that i got to share the same bread as the rest of the community. it meant that i got to participate in the same way that everyone else did.

but my sensitivity to gluten manifests itself in anxiety. a little gluten is fine; i'm ok with even a sandwich. a lot of gluten will make me antsy, cranky, and skittish... i lose any sense of peace, and i lose any sense of control. while partaking in the "regular" communion bread was never enough to make me anxious, i did have to be careful about how that communion bread limited the rest of my eating for the day. i was constrained.

taking the gluten-free wafer in communion is now a reminder for me that life in Christ is freeing. Jesus does not offer me anxiety in this world that is so full of confusion and fear and wandering. Jesus offers me peace.

so taking the gluten-free wafer is an act of faith and an act of meeting God's gift of peace. its an act of claiming who i am, claiming that God loves me in all my gluten-free-ness. its an act of accepting the peace of Christ and saying no to the anxiety that is not mine to hold on to.

la paz de christo este con ustedes

some more thoughts on communion and gluten-free (but from a Catholic poinst of view): http://www.triumphdining.com/blog/2009/04/27/catholicism-and-celiac-sprue/

Turkey Burgers and Non-Dual Thinking

BREAKFAST: 2 pieces of toast. 1/2 banana. 
LUNCH: tortilla casserole. salad. 1/2 banana. carrots
DINNER: Turkey Burger from Epic Burger. fries. organic ketchup!




ORIGIN OF ONE ITEM: Turkey burger. Not all-natural beef or very veggie, according to Epic Burger, just "tasty." but hopefully it was at least "hormone-free"? These words appear in artistic fashion on the website, but it's vague as to if that includes my ground turkey. 

I did find that ground turkey has very high rates of salmonella. But going organic cut "super-bug"salmonella in just 1 generation of birds. 

THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION:
I picked turkey because I didn't want to go with beef--too problematic. And avoided the veggie--to expensive. It's so easy to slip into dualisms like beef vs veggie. Or conventional vs organic. Or Mac vs PC(another blog another time). Thank God for turkey burgers. The 3rd way. 


And we do this dual-thinking with ourselves and Creation. We talk about our relationship to nature as an "us" and "it." It is something to be transcended or overcome. It is outside/something we get back to/return to/ become one with. Any way you speak of it, it is "other."  


Is there a 3rd way here too? How else might we think or speak? Phil Hefner, senior fellow at the Zygon Center for Religion and Science, urges us to think of our relationship to creation as familial, in kinship terms. Like a sibling, sometimes we feel close to creation, other times we abuse it, call it names (darn rain!). 


When we do this, our food choices are not us choosing how and when to care for creation. Because we care for our cars. But we love our family. Eating can become a way to recognize  that, like family, our connection to creation is not uni-directional or optional. We are not stewarding creation. We ARE creation. Hefner calls us created co-creators. 


Erika


PS And this is just one way to think about it. Abby can tell you another. Or at least she'll tell you the nerdy problems with saying "created co-creators." 

building a mystery?

 

food list

breakfast: banana, fair trade green tea, naked juice (blue machine)

lunch: two tangerines, broccoli and cauliflower, pineapple, applesauce, nut mixture, coffee

dinner: big salad, two vegan banana muffins

origin of a item

after a long weekend away (and forgetting that i bought a bunch of bananas before we left), i came home to several pretty brown bananas. when i first became vegan (for the first time), i bought a ton of vegan cookbooks...and those are the only cookbooks i own. so, when i made my muffins tonight, i modified a recipe from the joy of vegan baking. i modified the recipe to include oatmeal and left out the chocolate chips i was supposed to add.

theological/ethical reflections 

sometimes i'm beyond bored. i'm tired of the same old things and i'm tired of trying to think of ways to break eating habits. i'm tired of trying to think about what i'm eating and why. i just want to eat. i'm aware of the fact that i'm not even that good at eating well. 

but, i want to give up and give in. i want to throw away the old bananas and not care if i'm wasting or composting. i want to eat like a "normal" human being--without my brain working on what i'm eating. i want to stop at the nearest mcdonald's and eat french fries until my pores are leaking salt (ok, i do not actually want to do that).

food remains a mystery for me. i'm not sure i've made any real strides since ash wednesday, but i'm more interested in the mystery pf all that it means to be a human eating in this world.

thanks be to God that God doesn't ever give up on me. when i want to be "normal" or when i choose to not think about what i'm eating, grace abounds. there's another meal to prepare, another meal to long for, another meal to think about. there are more muffins to make from recipes that need a little tampering.

48.5% Organic Sandwich?

Breakfast: 2 pieces of toast w/ pb and jelly; 1/2 grapefruit

Lunch: Hannah's Bretzel portabella and goat cheese sandwich

Dinner: 1/2 sweet potato and 1/2 a tomato, baby carrots

Origin of One Item: Hannah's Bretzel sandwich (48.5% organic)

With this specific number, it seems thy are really keeping track. Their bread and produce are organic, so the more veggies you eat, the more organic your lunch I bet. "We work with Genesis Farms in Illinois and we are part of the Organic Restaurant Cooperative…Our first priority is organic, our second priority is local."

Theological Reflection

A Work Sandwich: When I saw the numbers for my lunch, it was like I lost some eco-game. Darn! Just under 50% organic. I can't help but think we've got to do better if we are serious about this climate change and its detrimental effects. I want to make it so my whole sandwich is organic. And so we strive for better, continuing to improve our sustainable-living efforts. And it’s hard work.

A Grace Sandwich: Sometimes it feels as if we will never know whether organic or local is the better choice. And we are forced to choose.  And then we get fed up and quit and go burn plastic and spray aerosols (joke!). And finally we remember that grace is present in our lives. And that we will always fall short, but God promises to be with us. This frees us to be bold, more humble and trusting.

And yet, we must do our part to live as sustainably as possible.  That can be sheer work (you understand why corrosive cleaning supplies were invented when you try to clean a floor without them).

So what does this 48.5% organic tell you today? Does it speak works or grace? Is it, besides yummy, empowering or distressing?

And I'd offer that neither a sandwich nor ourselves are only either empowered or distressed. So if you find yourself thinking one way about this, try tackling the theological implications of a 48.5% organic sandwich from the other side of the percentage.

Erika

oatmeal and suffering

Food List

Breakfast: vegan bacon, fresh fruit, oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar, coffee, gluten-free toast with peanut butter

Lunch: vegetable soup with soy crumbles, salad (the stronghold special!), gluten-free/vegan chocolate chip cookie

Dinner: vegan chicken patty, salad (the stronghold special!), gluten-free/vegan peanut butter cookie, green tea

Origin of a food

Oatmeal for me is sort of like rice is for Erika (this whole post steals from Erika!) I grew up eating it, my parents eat it almost every day, and I still like to eat it as a comfort food for breakfast. It’s naturally vegan-friendly, and it’s my favorite cookie ingredient. It instantly makes fruit, bread, cookies and pie better (and maybe comics too).

Its common in Scotland (just like Presbyterians) and this is what Wikipedia has to say about that:

Oatmeal has a long history in Scottish culinary tradition because oats are better suited than wheat to Scotland's short, wet growing season. Oats became the staple grain of that country. The Ancient universities of Scotland had a holiday called Meal Monday to permit students to return to their farms and collect more oats for food.
Samuel Johnson referred, disparagingly, to this in his dictionary definition for oats: "A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people."

I’m at camp this weekend, so my guess is that my particular bowl of oatmeal came from a big box bought in bulk. Not so very locally grown.

Theological reflections

Yesterday, Erika briefly posted about violence and eating (read it here). I’ve been a little fascinated with violence and suffering and food since I read Christopher Southgate’s The Groaning of Creation: God, Evolution and the Problem of Evil last fall. Southgate seeks to understand how we can believe in a God who is loving and powerful, even though there is evil and suffering in the world. Southgate describesa  need for evil and suffering by explaining the process of evolution that cause parts of creation to suffer, but other parts to flourish; part of the normal process of survival in nature means that some creatures will suffer so that others will survive. Simply, the basic laws of food chains require that some parts of creation will suffer so that other will survive. Zebras will suffer so that lions can live. This is necessary suffering, and we can begin to wrap our minds around how this kind of suffering can be compatible with a loving and powerful God.

Our place in the food chain means that there will be violence and pain inflicted on other parts of the chain. Even when we eat the most locally grown plants, we alter the ecosystem; we impose our need to eat over their right to live. 

In response to the suffering of creation, we must seek to end the suffering that we can, in ways that honor creation’s inherent value. This requires acknowledging and confessing the ways in which humanity has contributed to the suffering of creation: overconsumption of resources, a variety of pollution, factory farming, over-hunting and over-fishing, wasteful use of energy, and others. It requires naming the suffering of creation and doing everything possible to make what can be better, better. It requires acknowledging the parts of creation which naturally cause pain and suffering (as in the food chain) and affirming the inherent value of that part of creation, finding ways to be in solidarity with all of creation which groans.