What is food?

I find food amazing. The right foods can heal that which seems to be incurable physically, emotionally, and mentally. They can prolong life. They can provide ease and comfort to new and old injuries. The wrong foods can destroy one from the inside out.

With tons of information out there the question arises what really is healthy eating? What are the right foods? What do I eat? Michael Pollan says in his book “Food Rules” that is comes down to just 7 little words.

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

While he is right. It is that simple, and then again it is not. Then the questions arise. What is food? How much is too much? Why mostly plants? Should our food then be cooked or uncooked? I will cover each one of these questions in a separate post.


Take a trip to the grocery store or even the health food store and look at all the options. Then ask yourself “if they have removed this and added that is this really food?” How much do they need to take out or leave in for it to still be considered food? If they have altered the genetic makeup of my food is it still food?
The Bible is clear on what food is.

Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. Genesis 1:29
Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. Genesis 9:3-4
Whatever parts the hoof and is cloven-footed and chews the cud, among the animals, you may eat. Leviticus 11:3
These you may eat, of all that are in the waters. Everything in the waters that has fins and scales, whether in the seas or in the rivers, you may eat Leviticus 11:9
Non-scavenger birds Leviticus 11:13-19
Locust and Grasshoppers Leviticus 11:20-22
...I fed you with fine flour and oil and honey … Ezekiel 16:19

Dr. Rex Russell has three basic food principles that he talks about in his book “What the Bible has to Say About Healthy Living” The first two pertain to this very question of What is Food?

•  Eat the Foods God Created for You ~~ God created a wide variety of plants, and animals that we can consume. He designed them in such a way that they work with our body they way they are to maintain, repair, and heal our bodies. I keep seeing all these reports on supper foods. When I take a closer look I find that what these supper foods do overlaps quite a bit. There also seems to be one or two for every region on earth. How great a God He is to create such provision and variety.
•  Don't Alter God's Design ~~ This speaks to the vary issue of GMO's (Genetically Modified Organisms). The genetic structure of the food has been altered within the very DNA. The result is a completely different genetic organism than that of the parent organism. These altered organisms are now showing themselves to be harmful to the body instead of healing.

Foods are those things that are in whole form or as close to as can be in order to consume them. Also anything made from ingredients in their whole form. I believe it is safe to say that those things which have had man made derived chemicals added to them, that to read the ingredients list is like reading the contents of a chemistry set, are no-longer food. That those things that have been so highly altered that you would not recognize them as what they started out to be chemically, or genetically are no-longer food.

Edited from the original post on my sister site In The Heart of The Home.