There are many ways to honor God, but one of the main ones, is how you treat your body. Specifically today, I want to talk about personal diets -- the biggest influence on your health.
I often hear the phrase that "knowledge is power" but let me try to tie that up with something that's real: knowledge is power only if it is used.
The November 2005 issue of National Geographic magazine features the Loma Linda University Adventist Health Study in an article titled “The Secrets of Living Longer.”
Written by Dan Buettner and photographed by David McLain, the article interviews residents of Okinawa, Sardinia, and Loma Linda—who, according to the article, “live longer, healthier lives than just about anyone else on Earth.”
Mr. Buettner writes that from 1976 to 1988, the National Institutes of Health “funded a study of 34,000 California Adventists to see whether their health-oriented lifestyle affected their life expectancy and the risk of heart disease and cancer.”
The study found that their diet lowered the risk of developing certain types of cancers.
Mr. Buettner writes: “In the end the study reached a stunning conclusion, says Gary Fraser of Loma Linda University: The average Adventist lived four to ten years longer than the average Californian. That makes the Adventists one of the nation’s most convincing cultures of longevity.”
Adventists did not invent this diet. The knowledge has been with man since the beginning of time -- yet only a few seek to act on it.
Verse "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food." (Genesis 1:29) NIV
Later in the Bible, when plants and trees were damaged in the world due to a worldwide flood, God made sure that mankind had another source of sustenance: clean animals. The worldwide flood event is recorded in some shape or form in hundreds of civilizations and also in the Bible. Noah was given instructions to over supply on clean animals and minimize the unclean animals.
Verse "Take with you seven [a] of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate... (Gen 7:2) NIV
We can find a breakdown of specific animals that are considered clean and unclean in Leveticus 11. Clean animals like fish and chicken are considered clean while animals like pig and shrimp are not.
The knowledge of what to eat and what not to eat has been with us for a long time through the pages of the Bible. Yet its only been in recent years that science has proven that God was right. Those that accepted the Word of God immediately reaped the benefits and are continuing to as we speak -- so what does it take for you to change your diet? God? Science? Heart Attack? Cancer?
There are those even within the Christian community that states "all things are made clean by God" yet to this day, pigs still have a CDC warning about trichinellosis (CDC is the world Centers for Disease Control). Indeed, there are some verses in the New Testament, used inappropriately, one could rationalize bad diets as "safe".
Let's face it, if you do not change your diet and lifestyle, you will remain the same and the typical health problems associated with your diet will stay with you and carry over to people that look up to you.
